The month-long ceasefire between the United States and Iran is, in President Trump’s own words, on “massive life support.” Trump declared Iran’s counter-proposal to the American peace framework “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE” and described it as “a piece of garbage,” after Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson called the proposal “responsible” and “generous.” The US-Israel military campaign against Iran began with massive air strikes on 28 February; the ceasefire took effect last month but has been punctuated by exchanges of fire. Iran’s counter-proposal, according to the Tasnim news agency, called for an immediate end to hostilities on all fronts, a halt to the US naval blockade, compensation for war damage, guarantees of no further attacks, and explicit Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. The US 14-point framework, as reported by Axios, required suspension of Iranian nuclear enrichment, free transit through the Strait, and comprehensive sanctions relief contingent on a final agreement. Meanwhile, Trump has also proposed suspending the federal gasoline tax as American fuel prices soar — a domestic political reaction that illustrates the war’s mounting economic cost at home.
The received wisdom
The standard progressive critique of the Iran campaign is by now familiar: it was a war of choice launched on contested intelligence, it has destabilised global energy markets, and Trump’s rhetoric — “piece of garbage” — is precisely the kind of language that forecloses diplomatic off-ramps. The argument holds that a deal was achievable without military action, that Iran’s nuclear programme was containable through multilateral agreement, and that Israel’s maximalist objectives have effectively captured US policy.
There is also a liberal-internationalist version that is worth taking seriously on its own terms: the ceasefire framework, if followed through, could produce a comprehensive Iran nuclear settlement that the JCPOA of 2015 never achieved, because it is backed by credible military force rather than sanctions relief alone. On this reading, Trump’s toughness — his willingness to describe Iran’s proposal harshly — is a feature, not a bug: maximum pressure worked in extracting concessions from North Korea in the first term (somewhat), and may work here if maintained.
A different read
The problem with the maximalist position is that wars are easier to start than to finish, and the gap between the two sides’ current positions is not a negotiating gap — it is an existential one.
Iran’s demands are structured around survival: sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is not a chip for Tehran, it is the central instrument of deterrence. The nuclear question is similar. An Iranian regime that surrenders enrichment capability and dismantles its Strait leverage in exchange for sanctions relief that a future American administration can reverse has not made a deal — it has made a capitulation. The Trump administration, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu — who has insisted that Iran’s enriched uranium must be “taken out” before the war can be considered over — are asking Iran to accept conditions that no sovereign state would accept without regime change as the alternative.
History suggests this creates a very particular diplomatic trap. The most instructive parallel is not the 2003 Iraq war, as critics usually reach for, but the later stages of the Korean War, where armistice negotiations ran for two years while thousands died, because neither side was willing to accept the other’s definition of what a ceasefire meant. Or the Suez Crisis, in which US pressure successfully ended British-French military operations — but produced a settlement that left the underlying regional dynamics unresolved and empowered Nasser. Military pressure without a political endgame does not produce capitulation; it tends to produce a frozen conflict, a nationalist consolidation around the embattled regime, or both.
The Strait of Hormuz dimension is particularly acute. The strait carries approximately 20 per cent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, some 20 million barrels per day, with 82 per cent bound for Asian markets. Iran has been blocking it in retaliation for the US naval blockade. This is not merely a regional irritant: it is a structural shock to global supply chains, contributing to the fuel price surge that has already prompted Trump’s gas tax suspension proposal. The war is exporting inflation to every economy that buys Asian manufactured goods — which is to say, most of the world. China, which buys roughly 90 per cent of Iran’s oil and has built energy reserves sufficient to partially weather the disruption, is in the unusual position of being the only party with both leverage over Tehran and a genuine economic incentive to see the war end. That is why the Trump-Xi summit this week is, in energy security terms, as significant as anything that happens in the ceasefire negotiations themselves.
The domestic political economy of the war also deserves attention. The gas tax suspension proposal is a textbook short-term fix: it reduces federal revenue without addressing the supply-side cause of high prices, which is the Strait closure. It may provide modest political relief ahead of mid-term season. But it also signals that the administration is beginning to feel domestic pressure from the war’s costs — a signal that Iran’s negotiators are certainly reading. Paradoxically, the more Trump shows domestic sensitivity to fuel prices, the weaker his maximalist negotiating posture becomes.
What to watch
Watch whether the Trump-Xi summit produces any concrete commitment from Beijing to reduce Iranian oil purchases — this is the single variable most likely to actually change Iranian calculus, since it removes the economic buffer that has allowed Tehran to resist the blockade. Watch oil price movements: a sustained break above $100 per barrel puts severe stress on Western European economies already dealing with post-Iran-war supply chain disruption. Watch the nuclear enrichment question specifically — if Iran signals any willingness to discuss temporary enrichment suspension (not dismantlement) that might be the thread from which a workable ceasefire extension can be constructed. And watch Netanyahu: his maximalist demands about enrichment sites have repeatedly complicated American ceasefire efforts, and the question of whether Washington will, at some point, press Israel to accept a suboptimal settlement remains unanswered.
— J