US Memorandum of Misunderstanding with Iran Hits a New Low

Does Iran have a right to impose transit fees across the Strait of Hormuz and shoot at vessels crossing it?

Does Israel have the right to continue bombing Lebanon despite Trump's shoddy Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Iran?

Per AI:
An Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is a maritime area defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that extends up to 200 nautical miles (370 Km) from a coastal state’s baseline. Within this zone, the coastal state holds sovereign rights to explore, exploit, conserve, and manage all natural resources, both living (e.g., fish) and non-living (e.g., oil, gas), as well as jurisdiction over marine scientific research and environmental protection. But other states retain the freedom of navigation, overflight, and the laying of submarine cables and pipelines, provided these activities do not interfere with the coastal state’s resource rights.

Unlike the EEZ, a country's Territorial Waters extend only 12 nautical miles (22 Km) in which it has full sovereignty.

Since the closest distance between Iranian land territory and United Arab Emirates (UAE) land territory is 24 nautical miles (44 kilometers), which occurs across the Strait of Hormuz, a critical narrow stretch of water separating the two nations, it is clear that Iran has no legal or legitimate right to impose fees on transiting ships across the Strait, since its territorial waters do not encompass the remaining 22 Km of international/UAE territorial waters.

Be that as it may, Iran has managed to interfere with shipping across the Strait, which has caused oil prices to skyrocket, and in turn caused Donald Dumb to retreat from his war against Iran because he feared that high gasoline prices at the pump in the US would hurt the Republican Party's chances at the midterm elections in November.

After signing the American surrender document, the so-called "memorandum of understanding", Iran continues to invoke the right to control shipping across the Strait of Hormuz. And to poke the dumb criminal felon in the eye, it just attacked a vessel in the area, as if Iran is playing into the elections. If Iran manages to keep oil prices high by disturbing oil shipping, it could indeed increase the chances of Trump and his party losing Congress.

According to CNN, Iran struck a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, demonstrating its continued ability to restrict the critical waterway, despite the agreement reached last week with the United States. A US official told CNN the vessel was attacked by an Iranian drone, challenging the Trump administration's claim that the strait is free and open once more.

The attack, the first since the US and Iran agreed signed the MoU last week, prompted a jump in global oil prices and came as Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to sell the agreement to skeptical Gulf nations. 

This week, ship movements in the Strait of Hormuz hit their highest point since the war began in late February, with MarineTraffic data showing 70 crossings on Wednesday. Most of those vessels using a route that followed the coast of Oman, the maritime monitoring group said. Traffic dipped again on Thursday, however.

Iran sees control of the waterway as a key point of leverage in negotiations. On Thursday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp warned that safe passage would only be given to ships via routes declared to Iran.

After the attack, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority – an agency Tehran recently established to manage the strait – said safe transit would not be guaranteed. "The consequences of traveling on unauthorized routes will be the responsibility of the owner, operator, and commander of the vessel," the agency said on X.

The current agreement between Washington and Tehran includes a commitment to reopen the waterway without tolls for 60 days, and has already seen the US lift its blockade of Iranian ports. But the 14-point memorandum also grants Iran a formal role in overseeing commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz alongside Oman.

Tehran began to enforce tolls on vessels wishing to transit the strait during the conflict, something the Trump administration has vowed not to allow under a long-term peace deal.

"The reality of it is that no country on Earth has a right to charge for the use of international waterways, and that will never be an acceptable condition of any deal," Rubio said at a meeting with foreign ministers of Gulf Arab states in Bahrain on Thursday. A joint statement later said the ministers "rejected any tolls, fees, or attempts to assert control over the Strait."

Tehran, which disputes the waterway being international waters, has previously raised the prospect of charging a kind of service fee, rather than toll, alongside Oman in the future.

The memorandum is meant to halt fighting, open the Strait of Hormuz and offer economic relief to Iran in exchange for a pledge never to develop nuclear weapons - just a pledge that can easily be broken. (The US under Trump broke its own pledges and signature by wantonly withdrawing from the JCPOA, the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran, the US and Europe).

But the MoU leaves the critical details, like Tehran's nuclear program and its stocks of enriched uranium, to be hashed out over 60 days of high-stakes negotiations.

The process has been riddled with stumbling blocks – including persistent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which threatened to derail US-Iran talks last week. Rubio has tried to separate the Israel-Lebanon talks from the US-Iran negotiations, even as Iran has repeatedly insisted that the issues are entwined. The agreement itself declared an end of fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon. But just as Iran has struck a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, the US client Israel launched airstrikes on targets near Nabatieh in southern Lebanon. It therefore seems that Iran is trying to counteract Israel's continued attacks on Lebanon by its own attacks in Hormuz.

Iran has so far succeeded in driving a wedge between Israel and the US. As long as Israel's campaign in Lebanon continues, Iran says it will not cease interdicting oil shipping in the Gulf. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is skipping Israel on his ongoing Middle East visit, which some describe as a snub of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.