According to a video posted on MSNBC News, on Thursday June 18, 2026, former United States Secretary of Energy and lead architect of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Ernest Moniz, delivered a frank and unsettling assessment of where nuclear diplomacy with Iran currently stands, telling MSNBC that the world is effectively back to square one, and that the starting position today is significantly worse than what negotiators faced over a decade ago when the landmark agreement was first being built.
Moniz made the remarks while discussing the newly signed Memorandum of Understanding between Washington and Tehran, which he described not as a comprehensive Iran deal but as an oil and commodities arrangement that leaves the most difficult and consequential issues entirely unresolved.
He noted that the MOU makes no mention of missiles, drones, or Iranian proxies operating across the region, issues he considers central to any meaningful and lasting diplomatic framework.
He explained that while the Obama administration made the deliberate strategic choice to address these challenges one at a time, and made genuine progress on the nuclear front, that progress was abruptly interrupted when the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement in 2018...CONTINUE FULL READING>>>