US-Iran ceasefire had a built-in detonator. This week it went off

By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation

The breakdown of the ceasefire between the US and Iran was perhaps the least surprising news this week. The 14-point plan – AKA the memorandum of understanding (MoU) – signed by Donald Trump in Versailles at the end of the G7 summit on June 17 and by the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, the same day had always felt dangerously impermanent.

So the return to what analysts coyly refer to as “kinetic warfare” and journalists call “bang-bangs” seemed inevitable.

For Ben Soodavar, an expert in decision-making in war at King’s College London, the agreement was a

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