Although Pakistani, Qatari and other mediation efforts continue, the prospects of Washington and Tehran returning to negotiations are diminishing, while the likelihood of renewed and fierce war is increasing.
This is particularly the case after the expiry of the 60-day period that had been set for the memorandum of understanding to remain in force. Tehran insists on returning to its provisions and treating them as the basis and reference point for any subsequent agreement.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, appears inclined to cast aside the memorandum altogether. The Iranians regarded it as a victory for themselves and a defeat for the United States, an assessment publicly expressed by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator and parliament speaker.
Iranian negotiators have effectively reproduced the memorandum’s conditions as prerequisites for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump, for his part, continues what amounts to crude psychological messaging. On Truth Social, he published a map of the strait accompanied by the phrase “New American Territory”, in an explicit indication of his intention to seize full control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Yet Trump himself has repeatedly claimed that the US Navy already has complete control of the strait. The visible reality does not support that claim. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continues to control the waterway and has at times closed it completely, to the point that on some days not a single ship or tanker passes through.
This stands in direct contrast to the claims made by Trump and his administration.
The US president also claimed at one stage that a secret channel of communication and negotiation existed between the Americans and the Revolutionary Guard. Iran denied this, and Trump later contradicted his own assertion, saying there were no negotiations of any kind.
Negotiations Remain Deadlocked
Overall, there appears to be little prospect of renewed negotiations between Iran and the United States in the near term.
The situation has become a classic “chicken or egg” problem.
Iran and its Supreme National Security Council have set six conditions for reopening Hormuz. The first is the immediate lifting of the US naval blockade on Iranian ports, followed by the removal of US sanctions restricting the export of Iranian oil and petrochemical products.
The position of the US administration is precisely the opposite: Iran must first reopen the strait, after which Washington would lift the blockade.
For days and weeks, some believed the deadlock might be broken through Tehran’s negotiations with the Sultanate of Oman.
Although some progress was made in those talks, the Iranians remained determined to distinguish between negotiations with Oman over regulating traffic through the strait and any understanding with Washington over reopening Hormuz.
Tehran maintained that an agreement with Oman would not automatically amount to an agreement with Washington.
This further enraged Trump, who once again threatened to bomb Oman itself.
Iran’s Leadership Changes Point Towards Harder Confrontation
Following the latest changes to Iran’s power structure and appointments made by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei to the leadership of the army, the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij, the Iranian system has appeared to be preparing either for a tougher round of negotiations or for another war.
Most, if not all, of Mojtaba’s decisions have strengthened the influence of more hardline figures.
This was particularly evident in his appointment of General Mohsen Rezaei as Secretary-General of the Supreme National Security Council.
Rezaei is known to have expressed discomfort with the late Imam Khamenei’s fatwa prohibiting the production of atomic bombs.
This may reflect a tendency on Mojtaba’s part to move away from that prohibition, particularly following ambiguous remarks by reformist Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian after a seven-hour meeting with Mojtaba.
Pezeshkian said that depriving Iran of certain capabilities had created opportunities for repeated American-Israeli aggression against the country.
This comes alongside a now-established shift in Iranian military rhetoric from defence towards offence, including discussions of Iran potentially taking the initiative to break the US naval blockade by force.
With negotiations effectively blocked, the cumulative picture is that another war may be approaching, centred on Hormuz, its surrounding waters, and the nearby Iranian islands overlooking the strait.
Hormuz as Iran’s Strategic Economic Weapon
There have already been clashes in the Strait of Hormuz, initiated by Trump, who repeatedly announced what he called “Project Freedom” operations.
All of them failed, while Iran continued to tighten its grip over the strait.
Tehran regards Hormuz as one of its most important strategic assets, effectively an economic nuclear weapon more significant than its stockpile of highly enriched nuclear material and even more important than negotiations over the Iranian nuclear programme, which have in practice been postponed following the breakdown of the memorandum of understanding.
Trump, meanwhile, is focused on reopening Hormuz first.
His generals may advise him not to rely solely on maximum economic pressure against Iran and instead test the possibility of a limited ground landing in southern Iran, particularly an attempt to seize Kharg Island.
Such an option would represent a middle ground militarily.
It would stop short of a full-scale US ground invasion of Iran, a decision Trump may be unwilling to make because of the expected human cost to American officers and soldiers.
The combination of Iran’s apparent shift in military doctrine and Trump’s current strategic predicament could point towards the outbreak of a wider war in the coming days or weeks.
And its main theatre could be the geography of the Strait of Hormuz and its surroundings.
US-Israeli Discussions Over a Renewed War
In recent meetings between General Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, CENTCOM, and military commanders from the Israeli occupation entity, leaked reports said Israel proposed a complementary role alongside US forces in a renewed comprehensive attack on Iran.
Under the proposal, the Israeli Air Force would carry out devastating strikes for 15 consecutive days against Iranian civilian infrastructure, including bridges, power stations, electricity facilities and desalination plants.
This is presented as a highly plausible scenario, particularly because Cooper is described as more enthusiastic about resuming an intense war against Iran.
His position contrasts with that of US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine, who was reportedly said to have warned Trump during a secret meeting that US stocks of offensive and defensive missiles were declining and possibly approaching exhaustion.
Caine was also reported to have argued that there was no longer a military solution in Iran through aerial bombardment, regardless of how intense such strikes became.
Trump may therefore move towards accepting Cooper’s plans with the Israelis after failing to force Iran into submission through economic pressure and after repeatedly making unsupported claims that the United States has complete control over the Strait of Hormuz.
He has also called on Iran to raise the flag of total and unconditional surrender.
Trump’s Unpredictability and Iran’s Strategy of Attrition
With a figure as volatile as Trump, whose positions can change from morning to evening, no single prediction about his next move can be considered reliable.
He may yet cancel all military plans again and present the intervention of his regional allies as justification for doing so.
Instinctively, however, he appears to sense that the road ahead in Iran has become blocked.
Iran has not yielded either to intense firepower or to economic pressure and is showing an increasing willingness to move from defensive deterrence towards offensive initiatives.
Iran also retains most of its drone arsenal, along with cruise missiles and more accurate ballistic missiles.
At the same time, the Iranian system is working to reorganise its ranks and mobilise allied forces, particularly the Houthis and pro-Iranian groups in Iraq, with the aim of involving them in a war extended both geographically and over time.
The objective would be to gain additional time in the conflict and potentially destabilise the Trump administration’s position ahead of the US midterm elections on the first Tuesday of November.
Iran may also seek to drag Trump into a prolonged war of attrition lasting until the end of his final presidential term.
The Hormuz crisis could also be extended into an additional crisis around the Bab al-Mandab Strait, with the aim of multiplying the domestic cost of war in the United States and increasing inflation and fuel prices.
Israel Remains the Most Vulnerable Pressure Point
Iran should avoid repeating the same series of mistakes in any expected new round of war.
America’s most vulnerable and painful pressure point remains Israel, to which Washington has transferred most of its military assets in the region.
This is especially significant amid the intensification of Israeli aggression in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, where Israel has established what it calls its “yellow” security zones, continues to expand them and refuses to withdraw from any part of them.
The war against Iran has been, and remains, an Israeli war, even when many of its rounds have been fought by American forces.
The army of the occupation entity may soon join it again.
Benjamin Netanyahu continues to pressure Trump over agreements concerning Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, while continuing wars of extermination without end and using Arab blood as political currency ahead of the approaching Knesset elections.
