Iranian parliamentary budget committee member Mohsen Zanganeh said the combination of a US naval blockade and the resulting economic pressure was harder on Iran than the 40-day war. He also stated that the key difference between the current MOU and the JCPOA is that Iran made concessions in the nuclear deal that were hard to reverse, while under the current agreement it can "return to the previous state at any moment," according to a single Iranian source.
In remarks reported Monday afternoon via an Iranian parliamentary source, budget committee member Mohsen Zanganeh offered a rare comparative assessment of the pressure Iran faces under the current US-led sanctions and naval posture versus the 40-day conflict. He stated that the naval blockade and the economic squeeze that followed have inflicted more hardship on Iran than the war itself, signaling the depth of the regime's economic pain.
Zanganeh also addressed the emerging US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding, contrasting it with the 2015 JCPOA. He argued that the nuclear deal locked in concessions that are difficult to reverse, whereas the current MOU allows Tehran to "return to the previous state at any moment" — a framing that suggests Iran views the present agreement as a reversible, less-committing arrangement compared to the Obama-era accord.
This assessment from within Iran's legislative body comes as The Zioneer has previously covered wide-ranging skepticism from Israeli security officials, American senators, and commentators over the MOU's terms. Earlier reports noted that top Israeli defense brass view the deal with suspicion, and a Democratic senator described it as worse than the JCPOA. Zanganeh's remarks, however, present the Iranian internal perspective: the agreement is limited and tactical, not a permanent strategic concession.
It remains unclear from the single-source report whether Zanganeh's statements reflect a broader factional position within the Iranian parliament or his personal view. The Zioneer has not independently verified the remarks with a second source.
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Source and signal
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