Former President Barack Obama has warned that the United States may find itself “a little bit worse off” than before the recent war with Iran, despite the ceasefire memorandum signed by the Trump administration. Speaking at the opening of his presidential centre in Chicago, Obama expressed relief that the fighting had stopped but questioned the original rationale for the conflict. “We’ve now fought a war, spent billions and billions of dollars, put enormous strain on our military. A lot of people have died, and it feels like we’re back where we were before we started the war, except maybe a little bit worse,” he told NBC News. The remarks came as the 60-day memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Washington and Tehran drew comparisons with the 2015 nuclear deal Obama brokered.

Viewed from Washington, the former president’s critique centres on the decision by the first Trump administration to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. Obama argued that the pullout prompted Iran to expand its nuclear capacity, undermining the very objective that was later cited to justify military action. President Donald Trump has insisted his MOU is superior, describing the JCPOA as “horrible” and claiming Obama “tried to bribe his way out.” Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, rebuked Israeli cabinet members who denounced the agreement, stating that “the problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump.” Some conservative voices in the United States have noted that the current framework resembles the Obama-era deal, a comparison the White House rejects.

International reactions have been mixed. The European Council welcomed the MOU as an opportunity to strengthen regional stability and declared the Union’s readiness to support its implementation. Senior officials in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan described progress in the next phase of negotiations as vital. Israeli officials, however, have publicly criticised the arrangement, echoing the opposition Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mounted against the JCPOA in 2015. From Tehran’s perspective, the MOU delivers immediate authorisations for oil exports and opens a path to the release of frozen assets, while deferring detailed nuclear commitments to a final agreement.

The two texts differ sharply in scope and detail. The JCPOA was a 160-page, multilateral accord that imposed precise, verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear activities and established an intrusive inspections regime. The current MOU is a bilateral, 14-point document of less than two pages that sets a 60-day deadline for negotiators to reach a permanent settlement. It includes a general Iranian pledge not to seek nuclear weapons but contains no specific restrictions on enrichment levels, no mechanism for international verification, and leaves the fate of Iran’s existing stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium to future talks. The war’s original stated purpose—neutralising a nuclear threat—thus remains unaddressed in the interim framework, even as sanctions relief begins. Negotiators now face a two-month window to convert the temporary truce into a durable accord that will determine whether Obama’s warning proves prescient.