Nearly a month into the war, the United States and Iran struggled to find a way to begin negotiations over peace terms on Wednesday, with each insisting it had the upper hand in the conflict and that the other was desperate for a way out.
The United States circulated a 15-point peace plan, diplomats said, demanding what would amount to a complete termination of Iran’s nuclear program and sharp limits on the reach and size of their missile arsenal. It bore strong resemblance to the U.S. demands in February, during negotiations that collapsed when the United States and Israel struck Iran on Feb. 28.
But the Iranian government, in a statement issued through state television, declared it would not end the conflict unless the United States paid war reparations, and recognized “Iran’s exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz,” suggesting it would continue to decide which ships pass through the narrow strait and which remained bottled up, unable to deliver oil or fertilizer.
The messages between the two countries were being passed by Pakistan, which was trying to assemble peace talks in the capital of Islamabad, proposing dates as soon as this weekend. But neither Iran nor the United States would confirm such discussions, each wanting to avoid seeming the overeager party in a conflict where each wants to demonstrate it holds the upper hand.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, ran through a series of military metrics to make the case that Iran’s forces have been crushed — its navy sunk, its missiles destroyed before they could be launched — and said “that’s why you are beginning to see the regime look for an exit ramp.” But she later warned that Iran’s surviving leaders will bring more destruction to the country “if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily.”
Referring to the breakdown in negotiations in Geneva at the end of February that led to Mr. Trump’s decision to attack the country, along with Israeli forces, she warned that “their last miscalculation cost them their senior leadership, their navy, their air force and their air defense system.” At the same time, the United States was preparing to activate 2,000 paratroopers who could be quickly deployed to the region, for possible additional military action — perhaps seizing the Kharg Island oil port, perhaps keeping the Strait open — if talks never get off the ground, or fail.
Those forces may give the president more leverage in his negotiations but also leave him with the option of doubling down on military force. Their presence could also fuel Iranian resentment that Mr. Trump opened negotiations with them twice in the past eight months and then ordered the bombing of nuclear plans and the broader attack on the country.
But Iran certainly didn’t sound like a defeated regime.
While the Pentagon cites the inventory of destroyed Iranian military equipment, Tehran’s surviving military leadership has found new powers of control over the 21-mile-wide Strait and was boasting about them. Even without traditional military arms, former Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told an audience at the Harvard Kennedy School on Tuesday night that Iran has the “ability to leverage the Straight of Hormuz in ways that are profoundly disruptive and give it an asymmetric advantage in the region and indeed around the world.” It will now have little interest in giving that up.
Diplomats in the Gulf and South Asia said they expected Iran to bounce between defiance and some opening to eventual talks with the United States. They said Iranian officials wanted to conduct that conversation with Vice President JD Vance, who has made no secret of his skepticism about lengthy American ventures abroad.
White House officials, including Ms. Leavitt, would not discuss whether Mr. Vance would travel to Islamabad to meet a senior Iranian official — likely Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister — but the demands issued by Tehran seemed likely to, at a minimum, slow that prospect.
Ms. Leavitt insisted that “productive” talks were underway but would give no details, or say who was involved.
Various versions of the 15-point plan were circulating in Washington and other capitals, with some variation on details. But the core of the American proposal was exactly what Washington demanded before the war began: An end to all enrichment of uranium and the movement of the existing stockpiles of nuclear fuel out of the country, starting with a 970-pound cache of near bomb-grade uranium, enriched to 60 percent purity. The document also calls for free passage in the strait.
But it makes no mention of regime change in Iran, of protection for protesters or for the holding of real elections in coming months or years. President Trump’s military buildup near Iran began after Iran killed thousands of anti-government protesters in January, and the president declared “help is on its way!” But if he signs an agreement with no protections for them, it could be seen as an abandonment of his promise to the Iranian people, who on Feb. 28 he urged to rise up and overthrow their government when the fighting ends.
David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.
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