USD flows: Iran state of play down to cash is king?
Reuters sources suggest talks continue, political agreement but all down to frozen funds
In some ways good, though there are strong reasons why this is the main last and critical sticking point
There is almost a constant stream of sources stories and they of course present the view of whichever source side is giving the commentary. The latest from Reuters though is interesting and does ring quite true.
This update argues that both sides are still exchanging messages over details on the interim MoU (and say that conceptually a political understanding had been reached), while the current sticking point and main wrangling is more over cash – in some ways even more than the details on nuclear, this is where the crux of realpolitik resides.
Iran needs unfreezing for the cash crunch and support the regime while Trump needs some way to peddle the narrative that it is somehow better rather than an even larger regression from the original Obama deal (that ‘gave Iran massive amounts of CASH’). Trump has huge rhetorical investment in this much more than where the material goes. In some ways this is positive if true, if its down to fine print, though a formulation that frees enough funds but has the right optics is going to need some art, when both sides are desperate to declare total victory