Optimism about reaching a diplomatic solution to the Iran crisis is premature. No deal between Iran and Oman has been formally announced, but what we know is not promising. Indeed, allowing the Strait of Hormuz littoral states alone to conduct the negotiations is a fundamental challenge to freedom of the seas, a foundation of U.S. foreign policy. The specifics may be even worse. Under one leaked version of the deal, neither US nor Israeli ships would be allowed to transit the strait, an automatic non-starter for Washington.
Whatever the deal’s actual terms, Iran, on Saturday, unabashedly showed its true colors. Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council issued a list of conditions for opening the strait that is, or certainly should be, utterly unacceptable to the U.S. and its Middle East partners. Even reluctant European NATO allies should see the demands as unacceptable.
Among other things, the regime demands not only that Washington lift its blockade of Iranian maritime commerce, a hugely unwise concession for the U.S. to make, but also lift economic sanctions. Without lifting sanctions, which would be another critical mistake, commercial sources believe that the Iran-Oman agreement alone would be insufficient to induce shippers to resume significant activity through the strait. Trump has repeatedly insisted that ships transiting the strait pay no tolls. Still, talk of “environmental charges” of between 5%-7% of cargo valuations will also increase shippers’ worries.
That’s just the beginning. Tehran’s Saturday statement insists as well that America withdraw forces deployed near Iran; release frozen Iranian assets; pay war reparations; end attacks on Iran’s terrorist proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthis; and stop threatening Iran itself. To be clear, these are conditions of U.S. surrender, not points for possible negotiation. Such concessions are not only mistaken and deeply harmful for America geo-strategically, but they would also be politically and reputationally catastrophic for Trump himself.
To buttress the regime’s new conditions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also on Saturday, proclaimed that, “for us, the Strait of Hormuz is not merely an economic waterway, but rather a key component of our geopolitical and strategic power.” Earlier that day, the Guard had attacked a UAE vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz, as if to underline the point.
The inherent geopolitical and operational difficulties facing the deal were foreshadowed by how it was negotiated. I have previously argued that diplomacy with Iran cannot work today because the country has no functioning government. The U.S.-Israeli attacks devastated the regime’s leadership, leaving not a functioning government, but only competing centers of power. Various elements, like the Revolutionary Guards or civilian bodies like the Foreign Ministry, compete for supremacy. None of them, however, can maintain dominance over extended periods of time.
The Trump administration implicitly accepts this reality. Vice President JD Vance, defending White House reliance on diplomacy, recently blamed the lack of progress on Iran’s “fractured system.” Vance then demonstrated the administration’s naivete, however, when he added that some Iranian officials “want the war to be over and some who are crazy radicals want the war to continue.” In fact, the main policy difference within the regime is whether they have squeezed everything possible from the United States, or whether they can extract further concessions.
This internal Iranian political dynamic, ironically, provides additional leverage over negotiators from the U.S.. We are not dealing with officials who really hold power. Knowing that Americans are genetically impatient to resolve problems and move on, Tehran simply stretches talks out until frustration overcomes the US side and more concessions are extracted. In the current scenario, this has been especially effective against Trump because he is also increasingly pressured by the impending mid-term congressional elections. It also helps explain why reaching an “agreement” with the regime doesn’t resolve problems. Deals the regime makes simply indicates the starting point for the next round of negotiations.
So where does this leave Trump, now less than three months from November’s midterm elections?
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Unsurprisingly, nothing in the pending Iran-Oman deal or Iran’s unilateral public demands says anything about Tehran’s nuclear weapons program or its worldwide terrorist threats. Moreover, the Gulf Arab oil-producing states, already nervous about the clarity of Trump’s thinking and his lack of resolve, have grown steadily more worried whether, looking forward, they can really count on this White House. The newly announced NATO-like alliance among Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan embodies these concerns. Reports that Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is looking for “off ramps” from the current conflict show that Trump’s own senior advisers doubt his staying power.
The only long-term basis for peace and security in the Middle East is eliminating Iran’s current regime. Trump has refused to face up to this reality before. There is little hope he will do so now.