As a 60-day memorandum of understanding between Tehran and Washington reached its expiration, Iran's Parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf stepped forward to claim not one but two victories — military and political — in the long confrontation with the United States and Israel. The moment was chosen with care, arriving precisely at the threshold between one diplomatic chapter and whatever comes next. In the long arc of US-Iran relations, such declarations rarely mark an ending; they more often signal a repositioning, a breath taken before the next move.