{"id":496655,"date":"2026-06-17T03:22:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/496655\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T03:22:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:22:34","slug":"skeptical-republicans-demand-details-of-us-iran-outline-peace-deal-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/496655\/","title":{"rendered":"Skeptical Republicans demand details of US-Iran outline peace deal | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republicans have expressed tentative skepticism of the agreement Donald Trump<\/a> has reached with Iran, and urged the White House to release more information.<\/p>\n

The memorandum of understanding (MOU) announced on Sunday<\/a> to end the war in Iran, set for a ceremonial signing on Friday in Geneva, is centered around reopening the strait of Hormuz and lifting the US naval blockade in the region, along with financial incentives for Iran if it meets certain benchmarks. Both Trump and JD Vance, the US vice-president, have digitally signed the document, along with Iran\u2019s parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf on Tehran\u2019s behalf, a senior US official confirmed.<\/p>\n

In an interview with CNN on Monday, Vance called it \u201ca very general document\u201d with specifics \u2060of the \u200bdeal \u200cto be \u200cworked out during further \u200cnegotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MOU \u2026 is about a page,\u201d Vance \u200bsaid. \u201cOn a number of \u200bissues, \u200bwe are \u200bgoing to \u200bhave \u200cto figure \u200bthis \u200bstuff out during the technical negotiation phase.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also clarified in an interview with NBC News<\/a> that the MOU is \u201cabout a page and a half\u201d long \u2013 slightly longer than he had initially described \u2013 and confirmed that international nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be allowed back into Iran under its terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the core parts of the agreement is that the IAEA and the United States are going to help Iran<\/a> destroy the highly enriched stockpile, and that\u2019s something that\u2019s spelled out very clearly,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n

His comments came as many Senate Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday said there were still many unanswered questions about the deal<\/a> and they need thorough briefings before it was finalized.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t know enough about it,\u201d Republican John Thune told reporters in the Capitol. \u201cEven the people who follow this stuff closely up here don\u2019t know that much about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congressional leaders and intelligence committees generally receive higher-level intelligence briefings before rank-and-file members, and they are notified of major developments before they are announced. But Thune, who is the Senate majority leader, said he had not been personally briefed on the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that my understanding of what it entails \u2013 and, again, not having seen anything \u2026 I think the issues are going to be compliance, and how are you going to enforce that,\u201d Thune said.<\/p>\n

Thune\u2019s concerns were echoed by several other Republican senators. \u201cIf it\u2019s a secret deal then how can I take it seriously?\u201d asked Thom Tillis of North Carolina.<\/p>\n

Democrats have also joined the call for more information, with the US Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, demanding Trump \u201crelease the details publicly, brief Congress immediately, and end this war for good\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"WillWill US-Iran peace deal hold? – The Latest<\/p>\n

Trump has not yet explained how his agreement will address Iran\u2019s nuclear program<\/a>, including who will be in charge of verifying that Iran is in compliance and who will destroy or remove highly enriched uranium believed to be buried under nuclear sites that were badly damaged by US strikes last summer. Vance said such questions would be addressed during a 60-day technical negotiation phase, adding that he expected IAEA access to happen \u201cvery quickly\u201d given the \u201cbroad agreement\u201d on the issue.<\/p>\n

The MOU also includes the possibility of releasing Iran\u2019s frozen funds, sanctions relief and a $300bn fund to help rebuild Iran if Tehran meets certain benchmarks, US officials told reporters on Monday. But the document has not been released.<\/p>\n

Thune said he wanted to know more about the conditions on the financial incentives for Iran. He said the deal would be a \u201cgood one\u201d if the incentives are conditioned upon Iran winding down its nuclear program and getting rid of the enriched uranium, \u201cpreventing them from having a nuclear capability in the future\u201d.<\/p>\n

Iran agreed to sharply curtail its nuclear program in a deal signed in 2015 with the Obama administration. Trump withdrew the US from that accord during his first term as president. That agreement allowed Iran to regain billions of dollars in frozen assets, which Trump has frequently derided as sending \u201cpallets of cash\u201d to Iran.<\/p>\n

Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump<\/a> and a longtime hawk on Iran, expressed scepticism over the emerging agreement, saying he wanted to see the memorandum that the two countries have agreed on, and that Congress would need to review and vote on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way Iran describes it, it\u2019s awful. The way we describe it, it makes sense to me,\u201d Graham said. \u201cLet\u2019s look at it and see what it actually is.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the current skepticism on Capitol Hill and among staunchly pro-Israel Republicans<\/a> did not emerge overnight. When details of the framework first leaked in late May, senior Republicans launched a rare public rebuke of Trump, warning that the reported terms included major concessions that would strengthen Tehran and undermine Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at a moment that will define President Trump\u2019s legacy,\u201d Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who chairs the armed services committee, wrote in a letter. \u201cHis instincts have been to finish the job he started in Iran, but he is being ill-advised to pursue a deal that would not be worth the paper it is written on.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur commander-in-chief needs to allow America\u2019s skilled armed forces to finish the destruction of Iran\u2019s conventional military capabilities and reopen the strait.\u201d<\/p>\n

The criticism was amplified by staunchly pro-Israel Mike Pompeo, who served as Trump\u2019s secretary of state during his first term, and declared the emerging framework \u201cnot remotely America First\u201d, saying it amounted to paying Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard to build a weapons program and terrorize the world.<\/p>\n

The broadside prompted a profanity-laden response from the White House\u2019s communications director, Steven Cheung, who told Pompeo to \u201cshut his stupid mouth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Graham warned at the time that a ceasefire deal on the reported terms would be a \u201cnightmare for Israel\u201d and risked shifting the regional balance of power in Tehran\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n

Vance responded to Graham\u2019s most recent diatribe on Monday, saying in an interview with ABC that he would \u201ccaution Lindsey Graham and anybody else not to believe the hardliner propaganda in Iran, but to believe what\u2019s actually in the agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed reporting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republicans have expressed tentative skepticism of the agreement Donald Trump has reached with Iran, and urged the White…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-496655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}