The United States and Iran are negotiating A1 page memorandum
of understanding that would declare an end to the war
throughout the region, including Lebanon.
Commit Iran to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment, require the
removal of Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile from
Iranian territory, gradually reopen the Strait of Hormuz
while simultaneously lifting the US blockade, release U.S.
sanctions and frozen Iranian funds, and launch 30 days of
detailed negotiations toward permanent comprehensive
agreement. Iran's response is expected
within 48 hours. Trump posted on Truth Social
that if Iran does not agree, the bombing starts and it will be
sadly at a much higher level in intensity than before.
Secretary of State Rubio declared that Operation Epic
Fury, the military phase of the war is concluded and Trump,
asked if there was a deadline, said never a deadline, It'll
happen. It is Thursday, May 7th, 2026,
Day 69 of Operation Epic Fury, one page 30 days of negotiation,
12 to 15 years of enrichment moratorium.
Those are the numbers that now define where this war might end.
Iran is expected to reply within 48 hours.
And after 69 days of bombs, blockades, ceasefire violations,
rejected proposals, Islamabad sessions, straight
confrontations, and Operation Eternal Darkness, the specific
shape of a deal is finally visible in a piece of paper that
both sides are reportedly negotiating over.
This is episode 69 of Epic Fury, the US Iran war podcast.
Follow on Spotify, an Apple podcast to stay with this story
as it develops. Let's get into it.
Begin with the Mou, because it is the most consequential single
diplomatic development of the entire 69 Day War, and because
it's terms define for the first time publicly and specifically
what the two sides are actually negotiating and what a
resolution of this conflict would concretely look like.
Axios and Reuters both reported on Wednesday independently and
from multiple sources that United States and Iran are
actively negotiating A1 page memorandum of understanding.
The document in its current reported form would declare an
end to the war throughout the region, a formulation that
explicitly and specifically includes Lebanon, marking the
first time AUS Iran Framework document has directly addressed
the Lebanon front. It would establish a 30 day
period of negotiations on a comprehensive agreement covering
the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's nuclear program, U.S. sanctions
relief and the release of frozen Iranian fonts.
During those 30 days, both sides would gradually ease
restrictions in the Strait. Iran's closure and the US
blockade would both be progressively lifted in parallel
rather than sequentially, giving each side a proportional and
simultaneous de escalation pathway.
And both sides would retain the explicit option to restore their
previous positions, returning to bombing or reimposing the
blockade if the 30 day negotiations collapse without
agreement. The nuclear terms being
negotiated are the most consequential component of the
Mou and the ones that have defined the entire diplomatic
impasse since the first Islamabad session.
Iran would commit to a moratorium on uranium
enrichment. The duration is actively
disputed and remains the last major unresolved numerical gap
in the reported framework. Iran has proposed five years.
the United States has demanded 20 years.
Three sources familiar with the negotiations told Axios that the
likely landing point is somewhere between 12 and 15
years. A fourth source told Axios that
15 years is the likely specific number.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing an Iranian
official. That one idea under discussion
would allow Iran to enrich uranium at low levels,
specifically up to 3.67% purity, after the moratorium expires,
before any further permanent restrictions are applied.
Those numbers are worth pausing on.
Iran currently holds uranium enriched to 60% purity. 90% is
the threshold for weapons grade material capable of powering a
nuclear warhead. 3.67% is the enrichment level of civilian
nuclear reactor fuel, the kind used in power plants to generate
electricity. The moratorium's function is to
freeze the program at its current state, prevent Iran from
advancing toward the 90% threshold, and give the
international verification infrastructure time to establish
itself around the agreement. The 12 to 15 year duration
determines how long that freeze holds before the question of
Iran's enrichment capability is revisited.
Five years. Iran's proposal is a duration
shorter than two US presidential election cycles is long enough
to produce AUS administration that might not share Trump's
nuclear red lines. 20 years. the US demand is longer than any
previous major nuclear agreement in the modern era and longer
than the Obama era JCPOA by a decade. 12 to 15 years is the
range that both governments may be able to present to their
respective domestic establishments as a workable
outcome. For Iran, it is not permanent
dismantlement of the nuclear program.
It is a temporary moratorium after which enrichment can
theoretically return, giving common a the ability to tell the
IRGC that Iran has not surrendered its nuclear
sovereign right permanently. For the United States, it is
longer than the 10 year sunset provisions in the 2015 JCPOA
that Trump withdrew from in 2018 precisely because he judged the
time frame too short. It is also long enough that no
U.S. President currently in office
would still be serving when the moratorium expires.
The 12 to 15 year range is the number that the negotiators on
both sides apparently believe they can get past their own
domestic hardliners, which is why it is the range Axios is
reporting as the likely landing point.
Iran would also commit to removing its existing highly
enriched uranium stockpile from the country.
Iran currently holds approximately 408 kilograms,
around 900 lbs of uranium enriched to 60% purity.
According to IAA reports from earlier this year, that material
is the most immediate nuclear proliferation risk.
It can be further enriched to weapons grade in a matter of
weeks using Iran's remaining centrifuge infrastructure.
The MO you would require its removal from Iranian territory
before the 30 day negotiation period concludes.
One option being discussed is moving the material to the
United States, an arrangement that would require Iran to
physically transfer its most sensitive nuclear material to
the country that bombed it 69 days ago.
That specific option, moving Iran's nuclear material to the
United States, was until recently, something Iran had
consistently and publicly refused to consider.
Iran's preferred alternative throughout the negotiating
process was Russia's uranium custody offer, first proposed by
Putin and actively discussed by Arachi during his Saint
Petersburg visit last week. Move the material to a trusted
ally, not to the country that bombed you.
The appearance of the US as a potential destination in current
negotiations suggests that either the Russian option is no
longer on the table or that Iran has accepted that the US will
require direct custody as a verification condition.
That Russia's custody cannot satisfy the appearance of the US
destination option in current negotiations is something
actively under discussion rather than something Iran has
categorically rejected, is one of the most significant reported
shifts in Iran's negotiating posture of the entire war.
David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector who runs the
Institute for Science and International Security, told
Israel's Channel 12 on Wednesday that any deal must require the
removal of all 10 tons of Iran's enriched uranium, not merely the
highly enriched stockpile at 60%, but the entire enrichment
programs accumulated material. He warned that if any
significant part of the stockpile remains in Iranian
territory, that is a bad deal without doubt because it leaves
Iran with the material to reconstitute a weapons grade
program faster than any monitoring or verification
infrastructure could detect and respond.
The White House confirmed through an Israeli official on
Wednesday that the removal of nuclear material is Trump's
primary red line in the Mou. Additional nuclear provisions
being negotiated include a clause explicitly committing
Iran not to operate underground nuclear facilities, a direct
reference to the Fur Dao enrichment site buried under a
mountain and calm that survived the opening night of Operation
Epic Fury, and a requirement for SNAP IA inspections at any
undeclared sites, closing the verification gap that allowed
Iran to advance its nuclear program under the eyes of
international inspectors for years.
The combination of a 12 to 15 year enrichment moratorium,
stockpile removal from the country, prohibition on
underground facilities, and SNAP IA inspections constitutes a
more comprehensive nuclear constraint package than the 2015
JCPOA. The JCPOA allowed Iran to retain
limited enrichment capacity, did not require the removal of
Iran's uranium stockpile to the United States, did not
permanently prohibit underground enrichment facilities, and
contain 10 year sunset provisions after which Iran's
enrichment rights would have been restored.
If the MO used terms hold through the 30 day negotiating
period into a final agreement, the resulting nuclear framework
would be stronger than what the Obama administration negotiated.
the United States would, in exchange, commit to a gradual
lifting of the sanctions it has imposed on Iran throughout the
conflict and the gradual release of billions of dollars in frozen
Iranian funds held in accounts in Europe, Asia, and the United
States. How many billions, in what
sequence, and against what Verified Iranian compliance
milestones are questions for the 30 day negotiating period rather
than the MOU itself? That sanctions relief is the
economic counterpart to Iran's nuclear and Hormuz concessions,
the specific cost that America accepts in exchange for the
specific constraints it receives on Iran's nuclear program.
Rubio said on Tuesday that the agreement does not need to be
written in one day, adding that what Washington needs at the
front end is clarity on the topics Iran is willing to
negotiate and the extent of the concessions it is prepared to
make before the 30 days begin. That framing the MOU is a
framework defining what will be negotiated rather than a
document that resolves what it negotiates.
Is the structural design one page 30 days, then the actual
comprehensive deal? The MOU is the entry point to
the room where the deal is made, not the deal itself.
Is the agreement to agree backed by the threat of what happens if
agreement fails? Trump wrote on Truth Social on
Wednesday that if Iran does not agree, the bombing starts and it
will be sadly at a much higher level in intensity than it was
before. That warning is the most
specific escalation formulation Trump has attached to a
diplomatic deadline since the opening weeks of the war.
It is not the general maximum pressure language of previous
weeks. It is a qualitative description
of what the next military phase would look like.
Higher intensity Saturn in Trump's framing, suggesting he
would prefer not to return to combat, but specifically worse
than what Iran experienced in the 1st 69 days.
Deeper strikes, more comprehensive destruction of
Iranian infrastructure, less restraint on target selection,
including potentially the power plants, bridges and energy
facilities that Trump threatened in the war's early weeks.
The phrase, at a much higher level, is Trump's description of
the alternative to the MOU, designed to make the document
Iran is reviewing significantly more attractive relative to the
rejection from the Oval Office. On Wednesday, Trump declined to
set a deadline. He said never a deadline.
It'll happen, it'll happen, but never a deadline.
He added They want to make a deal badly.
Asked what was different this time compared to previous
moments when a deal seemed imminent and did not
materialize, he said a few days ago is a long time.
In this context, that assessment is accurate. 72 hours ago, the
Straight was seeing US Iranian fire claims. 48 hours ago
Lebanon was burning under Operation Eternal Darkness. 24
hours ago, the Hormones transit was paused.
And on Wednesday, A1 page framework for ending the war
appeared in Reuters and Axios reporting The speed of the shift
from straight confrontation to deal framework in the same 72
hour window is itself a measure of how far the private track
Trump confirmed last week, the one only he and a handful of
others understand, has actually advanced.
Rubio's declaration that Operation Epic Furies military
phase is concluded is the administration's formal public
claim that the active combat dimension of the war is over.
Combined with Trump's congressional letters declaring
hostilities terminated and the Hormuz Transit pause citing
great progress toward a complete and final agreement, the US
government is now presenting A consistent legal and public
position. The military phase is done.
The blockade continues as economic pressure and diplomacy
through Pakistan is the operative mechanism.
Whether that formulation survives contact with Iran's
response to the Mou, expected within 48 hours, or with any
further Israeli escalation in Lebanon, is the test of the next
two days. A Pakistani source familiar with
Islamabad's mediation told the New York Post that multiple
versions of the Mou draft are under discussion.
Which one is going to be approved?
The source said no one knows. The Israeli dimension of the Mou
is a significant and potentially complicating development.
An Israeli official told Army Radio on Wednesday that Israel
was actively preparing for military escalation, not a deal.
When the Mou framework news emerge from Axios and Reuters,
that disclosure is remarkable. In the hours before the deal
reporting surfaced on Wednesday, Israel was in a pre escalation
posture. Operation Eternal Darkness, the
largest Lebanon strike since the war began, had just killed 357
people on Tuesday. Israel was, according to its own
official, expecting that to be followed by further military
action against Iran, not a breakthrough Framework
agreement. Netanyahu's office rushed to
deny the army radio report, issuing a statement attributed
to a senior Israeli official insisting there is full
coordination between Jerusalem and Washington, no surprises,
and that the premier is in constant contact with Trump.
Netanyahu separately convened a security cabinet meeting on
Wednesday and told ministers he would speak to Trump personally
about the Iran developments that evening.
Netanyahu rarely releases statements from security cabinet
meetings, the Times of Israel noted, describing it as an
indication that he was eager to push back on reports that Israel
had been surprised by a potential agreement.
Trump continues to insist on the removal of nuclear material as
his primary red line, according to the Israeli officials.
Army radio account suggesting that Israel score concern about
Iran's nuclear material is reflected in the MO U's current
draft. The Lebanon clause in the MO U,
however, is a more complicated question for Israel.
Declaring the war ended throughout the region,
explicitly including Lebanon, marks a significant departure
from the April 8th ceasefire framework, which excluded
Lebanon and Israel's insistence, and which Netanyahu confirmed
was not included because of Hezbollah.
A deal that formally ends the Lebanon War as part of the Iran
framework gives Iran precisely what it has been demanding since
April 8th, the explicit linkage of Lebanon to the Iran deal that
the US has been refusing since Trump said at the ceasefire
press conference that Lebanon was not included.
Israel has not yet publicly commented on that specific
Lebanon provision and its silence on it.
Given Netanyahu's convening of a security cabinet and insistence
of full coordination may itself indicate that the Lebanon clause
is a point of active Washington Jerusalem discussion.
The 30 day negotiation period, if the Mou is agreed, would take
place either in Islamabad or Geneva, two sources told Axios.
During those 30 days, both sides would simultaneously ease their
straight restrictions. Iran's closure and the US
blockade would be progressively and proportionally lifted in
parallel, giving both sides a tangible de escalation incentive
and giving global shipping a path back to normalized Hormuz
transit without either side having to move first.
The 30 day period would also address the full range of issues
that the first Islamabad round attempted to resolve in 21 hours
and failed to close. The precise enrichment
moratorium duration, the stock power removal, logistics
constraints on Iran's ballistic missile program, the future of
Iran's proxy network, the long term Hormuz governance
framework, the sequencing of U.S. sanctions relief and the
release of frozen Iranian funds and a long term regional
security architecture. The Mou does not resolve any of
those issues directly. It creates the framework, the
time window and the incentive structure to resolve them.
The reversibility provision is the structural feature that
makes the Mou signable for both parties if the 30 day
negotiations collapse. If Iran and the US cannot agree
on the specific terms of the enrichment moratorium duration,
the stockpile destination, or the sanction sequencing, both
sides can restore their previous positions. the US blockade can
return, military action can be authorized.
Iran can reclose the Strait. The MOU is not a permanent
settlement. It is a conditional framework
with an exit clause designed to give both governments the
ability to sign something without committing to whatever
the detailed agreement might eventually require them to
accept. The enrichment duration gap five
years proposed by Iran, 20 demanded by the US, 12 to 15 as
the likely landing point, is the last publicly reported major
unresolved number. It is significant because the
duration of the moratorium determines how much time the
international community has to verify Iranian compliance, build
the governance architecture for the Hormuz framework, and
establish the deterrent structure that makes the long
term settlement durable. A5 year moratorium is long
enough to produce AUS presidential election and
potentially A successor administration that inherited a
nuclear program on the verge of returning to enrichment.
A 20 year moratorium is longer than any previous nuclear
agreement. 12 to 15 years is the range that both sides may be
able to present to their respective domestic
establishments as a workable outcome.
For Iran, it is not permanent dismantlement.
For the US it is longer than the JCPOA 10 year sunset provisions.
Day 69 one page Mou on the table.
Iran's reply expected within 48 hours.
The Trump administration is waiting the MO He would end the
war throughout the region, including Lebanon, reopen
Hormuz, remove Iran's uranium stockpile from its territory and
launch 30 days of detailed negotiations toward a permanent
deal. Trump no deadline.
It'll happen. They want to make a deal badly.
And if they don't agree, bombing at a much higher level.
Rubio the military phase is concluded.
The diplomatic phase has 48 hours to produce the answer that
69 days of war have been building toward.
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Apple Podcasts. This has been episode 69 of Epic
Fury, the US Iran war podcast. The one page MOU in the war
enriched no uranium, remove the stockpile, open Hormuz, lift
sanctions. 30 days of talks. Iran's reply expected within 48
hours. Trump if they don't agree, the
bombing starts at a much higher level.
Rubio, the military phase is concluded.
Israel preparing for escalation when the DealNews emerged.
The most consequential 48 hours of the 69 day war begins.
Now. Iran is reviewing the document.
The world is watching. 69 days of war may be approaching a
resolution or another failure. We will be back very soon.