Summary

As Washington abandons talks with Iran for an aggressive economic pressure campaign, a cornered Tehran is now threatening military escalation and a wider war to force negotiators back to the table. US President Donald Trump has dismissed diplomacy with the Islamic Republic, calling a June ceasefire agreement one that “isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” His administration has instead piled pressure on Iran through a global sanctions campaign, military strikes and a maritime blockade that stops goods from leaving or entering the country. The multifront campaign has put Iran under unprecedented pressure, forcing its fatigued population to endure still more strain. Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, meanwhile, remains conspicuously absent. Tuesday will mark his sixth month in hiding in an attempt to avoid the fate of his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike at the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran in late February. Iran’s military officials are increasingly touting new tactics in response to the pressure, threatening to target nations taking part in the blockade and warning that they could broaden the conflict. “We concluded that new strategies must be adopted in the war, in negotiations, and in confronting the blockade,” Iran’s Supreme National Security Council leader, Mohsen Rezaei, said in an interview with Iranian media on Sunday. He also suggested that Iran could expand its own blockade beyond the strait by introducing a new “exclusion zone” in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. Over the past few weeks, Iran and Oman have been slowly negotiating management of the Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said a “temporary safe route” through the strait would likely be registered with the International Maritime Organization in the “coming days.” It remains unclear if the US would recognize the agreement being negotiated between Iran and Oman. For now, mediators have identified two main obstacles to resolving the conflict, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told CNN’s Becky Anderson: political will and technical solutions. “Political will is based on narrative, meaning that we find the right narrative for the parties of the conflict to get out of this crisis. And it’s juggling four or five balls at the same time in trying to find all the solutions needed,” he said. Despite the diplomatic stall, Iran’s top officials, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, have repeatedly signaled their desire to return to the June agreement — one widely viewed by observers as favorable to Tehran. Domestically, however, hard-line conservatives remain critical of any agreement with the US, accusing the Iranian president and his negotiators of compromising Iran’s wartime gains. “Tehran is trying to reconcile two pressures: a war-weary population that needs economic relief and an ideological base that does not want capitulation,” Hamidreza Azizi, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, told CNN. “That is why the preferred outcome is diplomacy, but diplomacy that can be presented domestically as the result of Iranian strength rather than retreat.” Cornered, Iran now faces a quagmire. Without compromise on its demands over control of the Strait of Hormuz, its nuclear program or sanctions relief, pressure from Washington is unlikely to ease, while any compromise with Washington would leave Iran’s top officials answering to ideologically driven hard-line factions within the regime. “The Iranian nation accepts neither threats nor coercion, nor negotiations whose outcome would be the weakening of the country’s rights,” Hossein Taeb, head of the hard-line Basij paramilitary volunteer group, said Monday. “Negotiations are for securing the nation’s rights, not surrendering them.” “Playing out the inevitable” Despite Iranian and Qatari officials talking up efforts to reestablish diplomacy, Trump maintains that his tactics do not seek to “force” Iran back to the negotiating table, instead, signaling Washington’s comfort with the status quo. “I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “They are just playing out the inevitable,” he added, before calling on Iranian people to “rise up and fight” the regime. The memorandum of understanding set a roadmap for further negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions relief, while preparing for a future in which Tehran would have a role in managing the Strait of Hormuz, which is crucial for the transport of a fifth of the world’s oil supply. In the weeks that followed the signing of the agreement, Iran attempted to control traffic across the Strait of Hormuz, while the US launched a heavy barrage of strikes on Iranian targets along the coastline. The US Navy also began escorting vessels carrying crude out of the Strait of Hormuz, slowly ramping up the transit of oil to relieve pressure on markets, while regional countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have shifted away from Hormuz to export oil to their clients. “Our energy exports will not be held hostage, nor will our trade and economic activity,” UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said at the Hili Forum in Abu Dhabi on Monday. “We are actively expanding port capacity along our eastern coast. Together with the pipelines, railways and trade links needed to connect alternative corridors for cargo are being developed and strengthened,” he added. Red lines Washington has also not let up military pressure, ordering strikes on Iranian targets, including last week, when an attack killed 18 people. Among them were four people at a wedding celebration, including a child, after shrapnel from a US strike hit a house in a village along the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian officials. In response, Iran has targeted regional countries and vessels transiting the strait, while its proxies in Yemen have attacked Saudi oil facilities. But the ferocity of the strikes do not compare to the early days of the war when Iran launched hundreds of rockets and drones on regional targets, including Israel, heavily disrupting livelihoods and inflicting damage on stable countries. “The logic is that Tehran cannot simply wait while the US gradually erodes its military and economic leverage,” Azizi, of the ICG, said. “This does not necessarily mean Iran wants another large-scale war. More likely (it) would be calibrated escalation in the sense of greater pressure on shipping, expanding the attacks on US bases or targeting its naval assets, or potentially some targets related to regional energy infrastructure.” Amid the growing pressure, Iran’s lawmakers are sending deterring messages, warning the region of new weaponry and tactics, including attacks on warships and bases, while its military commanders claim that the Iranian army has now updated equipment and systems “in line with new threats.” The objective would be to make the “current situation sufficiently costly” for the US that diplomacy again “becomes preferable,” Azizi said. Such a strategy carries risks, however. “Once both sides begin testing each other’s red lines, the risk of miscalculation increases significantly. An Iranian attack causing substantial US casualties, or a US response crossing one of Tehran’s red lines, could quickly take the confrontation beyond calibrated escalation and back toward full-scale war,” Azizi said.