The Guardian view on US-Iran talks: Trump’s diplomacy falters as risk of war grows | Editorial
AAs US Vice President JD Vance took to a podium in Pakistan after 21 hours of diplomacy and declared that no deal had been reached to end the war with Iran, his boss Donald Trump was in Miami to watch a mixed martial arts fight. The contrast was striking. Just when the outcome of a war and the stability of global markets were at stake, the president chose spectacle over engagement. Mr. Trump may be intent on projecting strength. But the impression he creates – in Tehran and among America’s allies – is that of a president less interested in the substance of diplomacy than in the politics surrounding it.
The Islamabad talks did not fail by chance; the United States and Iran were talking to each other. Washington’s position is that Iran must give up its ability to develop a nuclear weapon, while Tehran insists it is not seeking one and has a right to a civilian nuclear program. The US vice president’s “best and final offer” would have required Iran to give up this capability altogether – conditions that looked less like the basis for a negotiation than an attempt to impose the conditions for victory.
Washington also wanted free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global energy artery. Tehran, on the contrary, sought to control the strait by imposing transit taxes, obtaining the lifting of sanctions, the unfreezing of assets and the payment of reparations, alongside a broader regional ceasefire. Given the gap, it is unlikely that the positions will be reconciled in a single round of negotiations. The result was talks without trust – and war without resolution.
Winston Churchill rightly argued that war was preferable to war. Talks are preferable because fighting is destructive, unpredictable and costly. The irony is that Mr. Trump is negotiating on a nuclear program that was once contained by a deal he broke, while trying to reopen a strait closed by an illegal war he chose to start. An agreement between Iran and America – however imperfect – would leave the world better off than continued conflict. This is especially true when the oil, gas and financial markets are so intertwined.
Time is running out to return to the negotiating table. The fate of the current ceasefire depends not only on Washington and Tehran, but also on Israel, whose forces’ expanded campaign in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah – razing villages to establish a buffer zone – has seen it accused of war crimes.
Markets are unlikely to react positively to the weekend’s events. The White House treats threats as diplomacy, bizarrely expecting compliance. Mr. Trump may want to play tough, but American voters face a different reality every time they stop at the pump. With fuel prices already rising, its decision to impose a naval blockade on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz risks intensifying the very pressures it is intended to alleviate. Disrupting a route that carries a fifth of the world’s oil would cause prices to rise, with effects that would reverberate far beyond the Gulf. For Tehran, survival is in itself a form of success.
The ceasefire expires in just over a week. The negotiations are not over, but they are at an impasse. However, the logic of escalation takes hold. Iran is unlikely to back down – preferring to test American resolve at sea. A large-scale land offensive may be limited for now by the Gulf summer heat, but the conflict risks taking more dangerous forms – naval confrontation, airstrikes and proxy warfare – with no outcome. In such a scenario, there will be no winners, only losers.
