Negotiating Time

U.S. priorities in the war are shifting quickly – but there’s no denying, Iran holds the key cards

Dear readers,

Are we in the end game of the Iran war? One day it’s civilizational erasure, the next day peace negotiations. But negotiations for what? Donald Trump started the war to engineer regime change (?) and failed. American oil executives are developing a taste for something quite different. But as Washington continues talking about crafting “its own plan”, it appears to be operating in a state of cognitive denial. The fundamental truth is: in this negotiation, Iran holds most of the cards. Who controls the Strait of Hormuz controls the outcome of the war.

After a 5-week bombing campaign across Iran, Israel, and almost every country in between in the Gulf Region, Iran and the U.S. agreed on a cease-fire for two weeks to work on a lasting peace agreement. Iran sent a ten-point proposal to Donald Trump which Trump called “a workable basis on which to negotiate”. Iranian officials published the following items:

1. A binding pledge the US will not strike again

2. The Strait remains under Iran’s authority

3. Formal recognition of Iran’s right to enrich uranium

4. The end of direct US economic restrictions (including banking, oil exports, financial systems)

5. No more penalties on third countries doing business with Iran (i.e. “secondary sanctions”)

6. Termination of past UN Security Council resolutions (which formed the legal basis for global pressure)

7. Relief of International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring activities

8. Financial compensation for reconstruction

9. Pullback of American troops from Middle East bases

10. The Truce covers Iranian allies and halts hostilities against groups like Hezbollah

U.S. government officials quickly pushed back and said negotiations were about a different 10-point plan.

Donald Trump sent the U.S. into the war without any specific strategic deliverables, but a vague idea of regime change. The attack on February 28, called a decapitation strike, targeted the Ayatollah. His assassination was supposed to lead to a collapse of the theocratic state, the Islamic Republic, basically over the weekend. Somehow, the Iranian people were going to institute a new government which would make lots of deals with the U.S. and hand over its stockpiles of enriched uranium.

That plan, as basic and naïve as it was, failed. American interests are now shifting to two other targets: Iran’s oil, and control over the Strait of Hormuz.