THE IRAN TALKS: HOW THE ADMINISTRATION SEES THINGS NOW. In the last couple of days the Iran war has been going through another one of the up-and-down news cycles — in which some sort of resolution seems imminent and then not so imminent — that have become a familiar story. In this case, President Trump, who has seemed to want to rush good news into the conversation, on Saturday announced that “an agreement has been largely negotiated,” subject to a final OK by the U.S., Iran, and others, and that “final aspects and details of the deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly.”
There quickly followed lots of leaks about what was in the deal. Nothing was terribly clear, but some reporting seemed to suggest Trump was getting ready to give away the store. Iran hawks, like Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, reacted with alarm. “I am deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran ‘deal,’ being pushed by some voices in the administration,” Cruz posted on Saturday. Praising Trump’s decision to attack Iran, Cruz added, “if the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime — still run by Islamists who chant ‘death to America’ — now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.”
As such talk spread on Saturday night and Sunday morning, the administration sought to push back with some vigorous fact-checking. And so a senior administration official briefed reporters on what was happening — and not happening — from the U.S. point of view.
“What we’re trying to do here is twofold,” the official said. “We’re trying to prevent Iran long term from having the means, the resources, and the capabilities to develop a nuclear weapon. We’re also over the short term trying to relieve some economic pressure that exists on the world economy.” To do that, he explained, the administration is focusing on two steps. “Step number one, they open the Strait, we lift the blockade, we give the world economy some breathing room, and then part of step one is they commit to giving up their highly enriched material. And then step two is you actually figure out the details, the mechanism by which they give up that highly enriched stockpile, and you negotiate over a certain period of time, probably 30 days.”
“One of the things I’ve heard reported is that the Iranians get a lot of money without any commitments being made, and that’s just not true,” the official continued. “They don’t get any money….We are structuring this in such a way where they make commitments on the enriched stockpile but they don’t get a dime unless they deliver on their commitments. And so, fundamentally, they can make a lot of commitments that are bullshit, and they don’t get anything, or they can make a lot of commitments that they follow through on, and then they are rewarded for having done so.”
“It’s basically a no dust, no dollars concept,” the official concluded, citing President Trump’s habit of referring to Iran’s enriched materials as the “nuclear dust.” The plan is based on distrust of the notoriously untrustworthy Iranians, he continued; promises will get them nothing, while actual actions will.
That’s the pressure on Iran. But the briefing also brought with it a sense of the pressure the Trump administration is under. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has told top officials that the “shock absorbers” the U.S. has used to help the world energy economy deal with the Strait of Hormuz crisis have absorbed about all the shock they can. “He’s been [saying] for the past few weeks that we have got to get the Strait open, that this becomes more of a significant issue the longer this goes on,” the official said. “And so what we’re trying to do is re-establish the free flow of commerce, get everything back on track, give the world economy, and particularly the American economy, some breathing room.”
Then there is the fundamental difficulty, from the American perspective, of the plan that is currently under discussion. The idea is to pressure Iran to not just give up its nuclear weapons ambitions but also to physically hand over its enriched material. The method is to make sure the U.S. does not give Iran any money, in the form of sanctions relief or anything else, until the country’s leaders actually follow through on their agreements.
But look at the two-step plan. If Iran opens up the Strait, that will certainly relieve some of the pressure on the United States. But if the U.S. lifts its blockade, that will relieve some of the pressure on Iran. Remember that the president has characterized the blockade as the main method of pressuring Iran, saying it costs the Iranians $500 million a day. Ending the blockade would be a huge relief for them.
So then, if both those things happen — the U.S. is relieved by the opening of the Strait and Iran is relieved by the ending of the $500-million-a-day blockade — what is the pressure for Iran to proceed to step two of the plan, which is to hand over the “nuclear dust”? It seems that step one, if it happens, might actually reduce the pressure to go on to step two.
The senior administration official disagreed. “The blockade actually allowed us to both exert some pressure, but also bought us some time to accelerate additional economic leverage points,” he explained. “So the idea that the lifting of the blockade means that all of the economic pressure they felt over the last two month goes away — that’s not true…There is a lot happening economically that they get no relief from unless they give us the dust.”
Nevertheless, it seems likely Iran would feel some relief from the lifting of a $500-million-a-day burden. How could they not? In any event, the official also argued that the United States would get more benefit from the opening of the Strait than Iran would receive from the lifting of the blockade — “We think that re-opening the Strait gives us an asymmetric advantage here.”
Whatever proves to be the case, the official stressed that, no matter what was said on Saturday, a resolution will not come quickly. The Iranians move very slowly, the official noted — that’s just how they work — but they are moving especially slowly now in the wake of the Israeli assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top leaders. “They’re trying to protect the Supreme Leader from us, or from the Israelis if the military campaign restarted, but it is quite shocking the length to which they are going to ensure that the Supreme Leader is never in a vulnerable spot,” the official said. “They’re practically communicating by [carrier] pigeon at this point, and that does make it hard, makes it hard for them to make decisions.”
So that is where things stand now, or at least where they stood early Sunday afternoon. Iran is under pressure to agree to U.S. conditions, but the U.S. is under growing pressure from the increasing damage the Strait situation is doing to the world economy. And what we know about the talks between the two countries suggests there are many, many points to be settled before the standoff is resolved.