Iran war is reaching a tipping point – and Trump is being pushed into a corner

Iran’s foreign minister has offered the US a new ceasefire proposal that would see the crucial shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz reopened within a week. The proposal puts Donald Trump in awkward position: accept it and he will be seen to backdown over the rising political pressure and support, reject it and Iran will as the peacemaker while a costly war continues. Although experts say Trump may resume bombing the country within weeks, though Iran may still count its offer as a strategic victory. “It’s a win-win,” Professor Georges Fawaz, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told The i Paper. “They get to test the waters and see if President Trump wants an off-ramp, but if he refuses it they are signalling to the international community, particularly the Gulf states, that Iran is genuine about finding a diplomatic solution.” Shorts Deal or no deal Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, told the media at the United Nations in New York this week that Iran had offered a seven-day ceasefire to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened, delivered via the mediator Qatar. War broke out on 28 February this year after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, prompting the country to retaliate with strikes on Gulf allies and to close the Strait to disrupt global shipping. The conditions for the ceasefire from Iran’s side would be adhering to the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the US and Iran on 18 June. This 14-point plan includes Iran committing to not having a nuclear weapon, restarting nuclear inspections, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping traffic, in exchange for the ending of strikes on Iran, lifting of economic sanctions and investment in the country. It fell apart shortly after it was signed and strikes have continued by both sides ever since, with Iran attacking ships that have passed through the Strait, whilst the US claims some oil tankers have made it through. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian also went on the US network CBS News to support the deal. “We had previously reached an agreement based on the MOU that was signed in Pakistan… if the United States agrees to proceed in that way, everything will return to the way it was before,” Pezeshkian. Professor Scott Lucas, an expert in US foreign policy in the Middle East, told The i Paper that the President’s TV appearance was a calculated move to humiliate the Americans. “The Trump folks have been putting out the lines that you can’t have talks because the Iranians are divided,” Lucas explained. “And the Iranians, I think they did it quite effectively this week, are showing, no, we’re not divided.” Pressure points Professor Gerges thinks Iran has chosen a “critical moment” to make this proposal, with economic and political pressure on both countries reaching breaking point. “The Iranian people are suffering a great deal, no food is coming to he country, no medicine, no cooking oil,” he said. The war is also unpopular in the US, where the closure of the Strait of Hormuz driving up fuel prices, and a recent poll by CNN showed just 26 per cent of Americans support the President’s handling of the war. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced the proposal to journalists at the UN headquarters in New York. (Photo: AP/Yuki Iwamura) “President Trump is also in a strategic bind, given the inflationary cycle in the United States, the prices of gas and oil and also the mid-term elections coming up,” Gerges said. Any attempts to restart the war before November’s elections would likely harm the President Trump’s at the polls, with prominent Republican senators including Mike Rogers calling for the war to end in their campaign materials. ‘It would be seen as surrender’ Trump said in his speech to the UN this week that he expected the war with Iran to be resolved only after the elections, and has indicated that he could resume a bombing campaign according to the Wall Street Journal. Lucas suspects this leak came from the hardline faction of the White House that wants to war in Iran to continue, rather than from the President, noting that it doesn’t “make sense” as an electoral strategy. “I’m not sure how they’re calculating this, how this helps them in terms of those elections, to say ‘we’re not gonna talk to the Iranians at this point, and then we might bomb them’,” he said. “I doubt very much if the Trump administration would accept such a deal, because it would be seen as a major concession and surrender by President Trump,” said Gerges. “My take on it is that the likelihood of a breakthrough is 40 per cent.” But a rejection of this deal would not mean the end of negotiations, Gerges thinks. “I think Iran’s seven day proposal is a strategic move, and we are seeing a new revival of diplomacy,” he said. “Both sides are now engaged in talks, both sides want a way out.” Lucas agrees, and thinks that talks could resume mediated by Pakistan or Oman, which borders the Strait of Hormuz, in the coming weeks. Iran’s most recent move could give it an advantage in these talks if it appears as the more willing negotiator. “Everybody knows what the Iranians are doing,” Lucas said. “But the question here is, not do you favour one side or the other, but which side’s more reliable right now? And I think the Iranians may come off as more reliable.”