Editor's Note: A ceasefire agreement does not necessarily mean the end of the conflict.
In this standoff between Iran and the United States, what is truly changing is not the battlefield situation, but the very meaning of the "treaty itself" being rewritten. Starting from the 1988 Iran-Iraq ceasefire, this article traces how Khomeini made a crucial turn between theology and reality, and contrasts this logic with the ceasefire decision in 2026, pointing out a deeper structural issue: when a state is placed above the rules, any agreement will lose its binding force.
The article argues that today's ceasefire is fragile not just because of a lack of trust between the two sides, but because this "distrust" itself has been solidified by their respective systems and historical paths. On the one hand, Iran has retained a space for "revocable commitment" in its political theology; on the other hand, the United States, after withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) and turning to maximum pressure and military strikes, has also weakened its own credibility as a party to the agreement.
Under these circumstances, the ceasefire is no longer a "path to peace," but more like a preserved form: it still exists, but lacks the moral and institutional foundation to support it.
When both sides view their own power as the ultimate reliance, is an agreement still possible? And perhaps this is the most crucial starting point to understand this ceasefire.
Below is the original article:
How the Logic of 1988 is Replaying Today
Before accepting the ceasefire with Iraq in 1988, Ruhollah Khomeini was reportedly considering resigning from the Supreme Leadership. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Then-Speaker Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani proposed an alternative solution: he would unilaterally end the war, and then Khomeini would use this as a reason to imprison him. Two men at the pinnacle of the state power of theocracy had to find an excuse for "retreat" because the theological system they had built made concessions almost impossible. But reality forced them to retreat.
Khomeini did not accept this "political show" but personally "drank the poison." On July 20, 1988, he announced acceptance of the UN ceasefire. The government then hastily sought religious legitimacy. The then-President Ali Khamenei cited the "Hudaybiyyah Treaty"—an agreement signed by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century with the enemy that ultimately led to victory.
As Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar recorded in Religious Statecraft, in the days leading up to the ceasefire, the Iranian commentariat had long rejected this analogy; but once it became "useful," it was quickly deployed to "save the regime."
In a matter of months, Khomeini sent a delegation to the Kremlin and issued a religious decree against Salman Rushdie. This external action mirrored the Prophet's letters to foreign rulers after Hudaibiya. Tabaar argues that both were fundamentally political acts—seeking to repair a previously damaged theological system by displaying the "continuity" of the religious stance. The war stopped, but the revolutionary narrative did not end; it continued in a reshaped form.
On April 8, 2026, the Iranian Supreme National Security Council accepted a two-week ceasefire agreement with the United States after forty days of conflict. An official statement deemed it a "major victory" and stated that Iran had "forced the criminal United States to accept its ten-point plan." One line, familiar to those who remember 1988, read, "It must be emphasized that this does not mean the end of the war."
The newly appointed Supreme Leader, the son of the invoker of the Hudaibiya treaty—Mujtaba Khamenei—personally ordered the ceasefire. Simultaneously, his leadership council expressed "complete mistrust" of the American side. A conditional acceptance, a reserved revolutionary narrative. Two Supreme Leaders, spanning thirty-eight years, following the same pattern.
For more conservative observers, this judgment is not difficult to understand. The "Midnight Hammer Operation" targeted three nuclear facilities with 14 bunker-buster bombs and 75 precision-guided weapons. In the February 2026 military operation, the strike coverage extended to 26 out of Iran's 31 provinces. Iran's eventual acceptance of the ceasefire seemed to confirm a conclusion: force achieved what five rounds of Omani-mediated diplomatic talks could not.
When the Nation Trumps the Covenant: All Commitments Can Be Revoked
The suspicion of Iran's potential "default" is not unfounded. This evidence can even be traced back to the founder of the regime himself. On January 8, 1988, six months before the ceasefire, Khomeini made a statement. As Tabaar described, this was "perhaps his most revealing and consequential statement": "The state, as part of the 'absolute governance' of the Prophet Muhammad, is one of the most fundamental laws of Islam, its status being higher than all subsidiary laws, even above worship, fasting, and pilgrimage... When existing agreements conflict with the state and the overall interests of Islam, the state has the right to unilaterally revoke any legal agreement made with the people."
Right here: The Islamic Republic is placed above prayer and fasting, with the power to annul all agreements. Ayatollah Khomeini's early writings had seen the state as a means to divine ends, but this decree reverses that relationship—the state itself becomes the end, authorized to override the rules it should have served.
This can be seen as the core theological logic of the regime, continuing under the "Guardianship of the Jurist" (Velayat-e Faqih) to this day. As Amin Saikal points out in "Iran Rising," this pattern recurs: whenever faced with a major decision, the Supreme Leader both endorses the decision and attaches a "reservatory comment" to allow for a reversal if needed.
In prophetic tradition, a finite institution that claims devotion only belongs to God has a name: idolatry. For treaties, the consequences are also specific—the form of commitment remains, but the basis for genuine fulfillment has vanished, as the committing party has declared the right to retract it.
Supporters of the "Midnight Hammer Operation" may perhaps see this pattern in Tehran. But prophetic tradition never allows one to diagnose "idolatry" solely on external enemies.
Beneath the Ceasefire's Shell, Trust Does Not Exist
Prior to the "Midnight Hammer Operation," before this forty-day war, before the ceasefire, the United States had already exited the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). Under the agreement, Iran drastically reduced its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and accepted IAEA verification under the Additional Protocol. The agency confirmed Iran's compliance in report after report. The agreement did have flaws: some restrictions had sunset clauses, and the missile issue remained unresolved; from a cautionary perspective, there were reasons to leave. But the verification system itself was functioning.
Yet Washington still chose to exit. Regardless of the judgment on that decision itself, its structural consequences are clear: the very country now demanding Iran's compliance in a new agreement is the same one that tore up the old one. When subsequent diplomatic efforts failed to deliver within the framework of the U.S.'s "maximum demands," the answer turned to escalation.
June 2025: 7 B-2 bombers, 14 bunker busters, 75 precision-guided weapons, targeting three nuclear sites. Officially dubbed "a magnificent military success." Yet the Defense Intelligence Agency assessment states these strikes only set Iran's nuclear program "back months." At the main target, Fordow, no destruction was found by the IAEA. Iran's 60% enriched uranium stockpile (440.9 kg) remains unaccounted for: either still under rubble or moved to Isfahan 13 days before the initial strikes. The most technologically advanced airstrike in recent years, yet the lingering question is: What did we actually hit?
February 2026: A full-scale war broke out, affecting 26 provinces and resulting in the death of the supreme leader. According to HRANA, a total of 3597 people died, including 1665 civilians. Forty days later, a ceasefire was reached — but the issue of uranium enrichment remained unresolved, with no formal agreement reached publicly.
Following the airstrikes, Iran suspended its cooperation with the IAEA. Director-General Rafael Grossi informed the Board that the agency had lost "knowledge continuity" of Iran's uranium stockpile, and this loss was "irreversible." Currently, the IAEA "is unable to provide any information on the scale, composition, or location of Iran's high-enriched uranium reserves." Iran completely halted cooperation. But from withdrawing from the agreement, imposing sanctions, to military strikes — it was the party now calling for a new agreement that set off this chain of events.
An imprudent leader might miscalculate; a structural orientation, on the other hand, would repeat the same logic at each decision node: exit the agreement, apply maximum pressure through sanctions, bomb facilities, and then demand that a country that has just been proven "untrustworthy" resign the agreement. At each node, the choice is force over covenant, destruction over a trust architecture. What this consistency reveals is a belief: U.S. military power can achieve the order that should have depended on a moral structure.
Khomeini's directive placed the Islamic state above prayer and fasting; America's pattern of behavior places military superiority above the covenant. They are fundamentally the same: both treat limited power as the ultimate reliance in "idolatry."
It is here that these two forms of "idolatry" intersect: the U.S. can no longer demand trust that it has undermined itself; Iran cannot offer a commitment that retains its own system's right of revocation.
The verification system that once bridged the gap between the two sides has been destroyed in a series of decisions by both countries. What remains now is an agreement shell that retains its form but lacks moral support.
Both sides are discussing a never publicly disclosed agreement text. Iran's Supreme National Security Council has requested it be bound by a UN Security Council resolution; and just hours before the ceasefire was announced, Russia and China had just vetoed a milder resolution on the Hormuz Strait.
On the Iranian side, Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who is also a member of the interim leadership council, is the chief representative for the Isfahan negotiations. He had stated in late March that he had never negotiated with the U.S., but is now the lead negotiator — the one both implementing and devising the agreement.
In Iran's proposed "Ten-Point Plan," the Persian version includes a statement on "acknowledging uranium enrichment," while the English version omits this sentence; Trump has declared that he "will not allow any enrichment." Coercive submission has never healed "idolatry." History since 1988 has repeatedly proven this.
In Tranquillitas Ordinis, George Weigel named this mechanism "the substitution of the infinite" — that is, taking a finite political arrangement as ultimate, thus destroying the foundation on which a polity’s order depends.
To see this ceasefire as a victory of American power, or to simply assume Iranian default as inevitable, is in fact the same error: both take a judgment on a finite arrangement as final.
The "hawks" who believe that force can compel compliance and the "doves" who believe that diplomacy can transform relationships are fundamentally mirror images — both refuse to acknowledge a simple fact: no human tool effects redemption on its own.
Tradition has never offered such certainties. It demands a more demanding path.
In scripture, the prophet always begins with Israel. For only a "covenantal people" have a notion of "idolatry"; and when they refuse to apply that notion to themselves, their sin is especially grave. Amos’s denunciation begins with Damascus not because of its righteousness but because the audience would nod in agreement at the condemnation of "the other" — then he turns to Judah, then to Israel, and the nodding stops.
Discerning a common pattern in the two cases means using these tools of judgment in sequence: first identifying one’s own "idolatry," then assessing the other.
This tradition is known as "the discipline of repentance," and it has clear practical forms: whether in church, at the dinner table, or in the newsfeed chat, discussing this ceasefire should begin with an "acknowledgment" — that the party demanding a new covenant first broke the old one; the "Midnight Hammer" operation embodies a belief: that if destruction is thorough enough, order can be built; a forty-day war, 1665 civilian deaths, 170 children killed in a single school attack, with the starting point — the uranium enrichment issue — unresolved. Before pointing out Tehran's problems, first admit these facts. Tehran's issues are not lesser, but if judgment always starts with the other's wrongs, it is no longer honest.
Iran's unreliability is long inscribed in its institutional theology, a scrutiny of the ceasefire terms remains necessary. But an honest assessment of America must come first. Only by recognizing both forms of "idolatry" simultaneously can the true face of this arrangement be understood, rather than taken as a reaffirmation of existing positions.
This ceasefire is fundamentally a ruin. It may also be the only negotiating table left standing. The just war tradition has a real bias for peace, which means people must engage with this gutted arrangement, not simply abandon it.
Augustine defined peace as "the tranquility of order." The present reality is a two-week, Pakistani-moderated pause: no common text, no effective verification, both sides insisting on their own version of the agreement. Ruins can be restored, but only if one does not mistake them for a cathedral.
