Vice President JD Vance’s failure to win the concessions the United States sought from Iran in a single, marathon negotiating session over its nuclear program was no surprise.
But what now?
The failure leaves the Trump administration facing several unpalatable options: A lengthy negotiation with Tehran over the future of its nuclear program, or a resumption of a war that has already created the largest energy disruption in modern times, and the prospect of a long struggle over who controls the Strait of Hormuz.
White House officials said they would defer to President Trump, who traveled to Florida for the weekend to attend an Ultimate Fighting Championship match, to announce the administration’s next move. But each of those paths carries significant strategic and political downsides.
Mr. Vance said little about what took place during more than 21 hours of negotiations, suggesting he had handed the Iranians a take-it-or-leave-it proposal to forever terminate their nuclear program, and they left it.
“We’ve made very clear what our red lines are,” Mr. Vance told reporters, “what things we’re willing to accommodate them on.” He added, “They have chosen not to accept our terms.”
In that respect, this negotiation appears to have differed little from the one that ended in deadlock in Geneva in late February, leading Mr. Trump to order what became 38 days of missile and bombing attacks across Iran, aimed at its missile stockpiles, its military bases and the industrial base inside Iran that produces new weaponry.
But Mr. Trump’s bet, one he described several times over the past month, was that Iran would change its mind once faced a huge demonstration of American military prowess, with more than 13,000 targets hit, according to the Pentagon. The Iranians, for their part, were determined to show that no amount of American ordnance would force them to give way.
“The heavy loss of our great elders, dear ones, and fellow countrymen has made our response to pursue the Iranian nation’s interests and rights firmer than every before,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement as Mr. Vance headed to a military airfield to leave for home, empty-handed for now.
Perhaps that will change. But the administration’s fear of being sucked into a complex, lengthy conversation with Iran is palpable. Mr. Trump believes that he emerged the victor of the conflict, and therefore, as the special envoy Steve Witkoff puts it, Iran should simply “capitulate.”
That is not how it happened in the past. The last major agreement between Tehran and Washington, reached during the Obama administration, took two years to negotiate. And it was full of compromises, including allowing Iran to retain a small amount of its nuclear stockpile, and gradually lifting the restrictions on its nuclear activities until 2030, when Iran would be permitted to conduct any nuclear activity permissible under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
But the deadlock Mr. Vance ran into was essentially the same as the ones that derailed negotiations in late February, and prompted Mr. Trump to order the attack. (That negotiation was run by Mr. Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who were present in Islamabad during the more than 20 hours of negotiations.)
Back then, the Iranians offered to “suspend” their nuclear operations for a few years, but not to give up their stockpiles of near-bomb-grade uranium or permanently surrender the capability to enrich uranium on their own soil. To the Iranians, that is their right as a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which commits them to never making a nuclear weapon. To the Americans, it is what Mr. Witkoff called “a tell” that Iran always wants a ready option to build a nuclear weapon, even if it never exercises that option.
Thirty-eight days of war appear to have hardened that view, not loosened it.
Mr. Trump’s chief leverage now comes in his ability to threaten to resume major combat operations. After all, the fragile two-week cease-fire ends on April 21. But while the threat of resuming combat operations may be invoked in coming days, it not a particularly viable political choice for Mr. Trump — and the Iranians know it.
Mr. Trump declared the cease-fire last week in large part to stem the pain from the loss of 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies, which was sending the price of gasoline soaring, creating shortages of fertilizer and, among other critical supplies, helium for the production of semiconductors. Markets rose on the prospect of an agreement, even an incomplete or unsatisfactory one. Should the war resume, the markets would likely decline, the shortages would worsen and inflation — already up to 3.3 percent — would almost inevitably rise.
And that leaves the most urgent issue: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians, in their own description of the meeting, put it first among their list of issues discussed. “In the past 24 hours, discussions were held on various dimensions of the main topics, including the Strait of Hormuz, the nuclear issue, war reparations, lifting of sanctions and the complete end to the war against Iran,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement.
It was a notable list, since the closing of the strait was not an issue until after the war started and the Iranians decided to make use of their most potent weapon of economic chaos.
Now control of the waterway is wrapped in Iran’s other demands, including that the United States pay for damage done to Iran in the course of the bombing and missile strikes, and that it lift more than two decades of sanctions against the country. The United States has rejected the first idea, and said the second could happen only slowly, as the Iranians implement their part of the bargain.
What Mr. Vance’s trip made clear is that both sides think they emerged as the victor of the first round: the United States by dropping so much ordnance on Iran, the Iranians by surviving. Neither seems in the mood for compromise.
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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