Donald Trump’s latest public attacks on Iran and the prospects for a negotiated settlement must be taken seriously — he is, after all, the president of the United States. At the NATO summit in Turkey he denounced the Iranian leadership in the bluntest terms, calling them ‘scum’ and ‘sick people’, and warned that if they had a nuclear weapon they would use it. Yet his rhetoric has not been consistent: it has swung from triumphalism to threats of annihilation and at times to a grudging acceptance of talks.
He later reinforced his threats, saying the US would ‘probably hit them harder again tonight’ and that he had ‘given them a little warning.’ The United States certainly has the capacity to inflict severe damage on Iran. What it has repeatedly failed to do, however, is to compel the regime to abandon core strategic demands — most importantly its insistence on control of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
Buried in the president’s latest tirade was an acknowledgement that negotiations are continuing, even if he pronounced them likely to be futile. Talks over a memorandum of understanding have been paused while Iran holds funeral rites for its former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who — the article reports — was killed by Israel and the US on the first day of the war on 28 February. When asked whether recent exchanges of strikes between the US and Iran, and some Gulf Arab states aligned with the US, meant talks were over, Trump said his negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, ‘can talk’ though he thought they were ‘wasting their time.’ He also dismissed the Iranian leaders as ‘a bunch of lying guys.’
That mixture of contempt and tacit acceptance can be read as recognition that, despite his bluster, the president has no better option than continued negotiations. The US and Israel have tried and failed to topple or destroy the Tehran regime. Military force has not produced the strategic outcome Washington sought.
But the negotiating process is delicate. Mediators describe the recent developments as ‘a setback’ and say the atmosphere is ‘very tense.’ Those are diplomatic ways of saying the recent escalation creates a horrible backdrop for talks between two powers that have virtually no trust that the other will honor commitments.
At the centre of the confrontation is Tehran’s determination not to revert to the pre-attack status quo. Control of the Strait of Hormuz is vital to Iran’s strategic posture: the capacity to disrupt shipping through that narrow chokepoint — through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes — gives Tehran leverage over the global economy that it regards as more immediately usable than the distant possibility of a nuclear weapon.
Iran has signalled it will not cede control of the strait. That is why it is prepared to risk the memorandum of understanding, even though the draft MOU reportedly includes significant concessions and incentives for Tehran. The regime is willing to gamble on continued conflict to protect what it views as sovereign rights in the Strait.
Tehran’s leaders have been emboldened by the failure of the US and Israel to dismantle the regime. The public funeral rituals for the supreme leader killed in the opening days of the war have underscored that the Islamic system retains a core of support. Domestic opposition has not disappeared, but the regime’s brutal suppression of January protests — during which thousands were reportedly killed — has driven dissent underground.
If escalation can be halted, mediators believe a deal is still possible that would allow shipping to transit the Strait. Such an agreement would need to be part of a broader package: unfreezing Iranian assets abroad, allowing Iran to sell oil again, and, crucially for Tehran, some recognition of its authority over the Strait. In return, Iran would be expected to accept limits on uranium enrichment, readmit UN nuclear inspectors, and account for enriched uranium stocks often referred to as ‘nuclear dust.’
Even so, the events of the last days show how difficult that path will be. With mutual distrust high and recent strikes fresh in memory, negotiators face a narrow and fragile window to convert diplomatic momentum into a durable deal.