Iran

Donald Trump is trying to wriggle out of his self imposed Strait-jacket. After a renewed round of bombing Iran and bluster about seizing Kharg Island, he has now announced that is all over, including a planned attack tonight: “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening.” Is it back to the future again? Or are hostilities really about to cease? Any cessation will incense the war hawks in Washington who helped propel Trump into this misbegotten conflict in the first place.

Today marks a hundred days since America and Israel began launching strikes on Iran on February 28. The very next day, Donald Trump told the Atlantic that Iran’s leaders "want to talk," saying they should have made a deal sooner and that "they played too cute." Three days after Trump said this, Iran announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed. Since then, we have been told dozens of times that we are on the brink of a lasting deal between Iran and America, often in the President’s statements on Truth Social. At the end of last month, Axios reported that US and Iranian negotiators had reached an agreement on a 60-day memorandum which would reopen the Strait, which simply needed Trump’s sign off.

Donald Trump was for the Iran war before he was against it. His latest post on social media about the conflict indicated that he is once more calling off a sweeping military action, this time at the behest of his Gulf allies who are apparently quaking at the thought of a renewed conflict.

Robert Kagan has long had a knack for capturing public attention with bold pronouncements about American foreign policy. In 1996, together with William Kristol, he published an essay in Foreign Affairs called “Toward A Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy” that chided the Clinton administration for insufficient martial vigor and argued that the Pentagon budget should be doubled. As a charter member of the Project for the New American Century and a regular contributor to the Weekly Standard, Kagan became an eloquent champion of the George W. Bush administration’s Iraq war.

Is the fragile Iran war ceasefire over? It would appear so, with American and Iranian forces exchanging fire in the Strait of Hormuz. The renewed clashes follow President Trump’s launch of "Project Freedom," which aims to use the US military to escort stranded ships out of the critical waterway. Trump said American forces had hit seven Iranian small boats, with the US military claiming to have intercepted cruise missiles and drones launched by Tehran. Trump earlier warned that Iranian forces would be "blown off the face of the Earth" if they targeted US ships in the strait or the Persian Gulf. Tehran says it fired "warning shots" at US warships, and said it would attack any foreign force that tried to enter the strait.

In declaring an extension to the ceasefire in the Iran war, President Trump signaled clearly enough that he would prefer to strike a peace deal with Tehran. J.D. Vance, the Vice President, has been kicking his heels, waiting to return to the Pakistani capital Islamabad for another go at achieving a breakthrough. The Iranians keep blowing hot and cold on whether they are ready to play their part. Trump suggested in a social media post earlier this week that he believes this is because Iran’s government is "seriously fractured." His ceasefire extension is aimed at allowing the regime time to deliver a new proposal. Trump may want to hammer everything out in Islamabad, but he is not dealing with an ordinary government operating under a straightforward power structure.

Perhaps we should be used to be this by now. Yet again, there have been a flurry of promises to rapidly achieve peace in Iran. Yet again, the American administration has threatened to destroy the nation’s infrastructure. J.D. Vance is again flying to Pakistan for more talks. And yet the conflict shows no sign of ending. We don’t know whether the Iranians will actually turn up. A foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday that Iran will not be joining the talks. The speaker of the parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has also made clear that the regime won’t negotiate under threat of civilizational destruction. Why would they resist peace talks? There is both a diplomatic and domestic answer.