The Islamabad Interlude: War, negotiations and the limits of trusts

WHEN the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the United States (US), now known as the Islamabad Memorandum, was signed on June 17, 2026, many observers were baffled.

Only three-and-a-half months earlier, on Feb 28, 2026, a US strike had pulverised the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab. More than 160 people were killed by a Tomahawk cruise missile, the vast majority of them children aged 7 to 12. It was the first day of the war. The intelligence used to justify the strike was more than a decade old. Even more heinously, witnesses described a “double-tap” sequence: after the first strike, surviving pupils were moved into a prayer hall, only for a second missile to strike the area in which they had taken shelter. Subsequent satellite and forensic analysis showed that the wider compound was hit repeatedly.