The Illusive Iran Deal

National Review Online

Monday, April 20, 2026

 

Despite the highly variable mood music around the Iran war driven by President Trump’s ever-changing statements, we are in essentially the same place we were two weeks ago — with preparations for negotiations in Islamabad happening against the backdrop of a fragile cease-fire that the Iranians are flouting.

 

The strategic fulcrum of the war has become control of the Strait of Hormuz. When the Iranian foreign minister declared it open to commercial shipping on Friday (with the caveat that ships had to go through the Iranian-approved route) and Trump said that the Iranians had agreed never to close the strait again, markets rallied and it seemed the U.S. had achieved a breakthrough. The IRGC, though, quickly said that the strait was closed and fired on ships to emphasize the point.

 

By keeping the strait effectively closed, the Iranians have failed to deliver on the most tangible benefit to the U.S. of the cease-fire.

 

The IRGC looks to be increasingly in control in Tehran, and it is not an organization likely to produce a Delcy Rodríguez. The guards presumably think that they can use the strait to exact so much economic pain on the United States that Trump stands down, or, failing that, use the strait for leverage to drive a bargain that falls short of Trump’s red lines.

 

President Trump hopes, in turn, that continuing to devastate the Iranian economy — this time via blockade — will further fracture the regime, or make the IRGC blink as it watches the sources of its revenue disappear. The problem is that the IRGC doesn’t operate by Western standards of rationality or humanity. Having just participated in a crackdown believed to have killed tens of thousands of Iranian protesters, it’s not going to be particularly moved if the daily economic existence of ordinary Iranians becomes markedly more difficult.

 

Trump can gain more leverage if he convinces the Iranians that he is perfectly willing to start shooting again and to use the U.S. forces that have continued to flow into the region to conduct freedom-of-navigation operations in the strait. The president’s constant talk of an imminent end to the war, coupled with rosy portrayals of the state of negotiations, may reassure markets but signals to the Iranians a lack of resolve.

 

Perhaps a deal worth having can be cut that truly reopens the strait (although as of this writing, the Iranians are saying they won’t participate in a second round of talks). But the odds are that the Iranians won’t give up control unless they are convinced that we can take the strait back by force or that the price of retaining it will, one way or the other, be too high to pay.