US-Iran negotiations are framed as a path to peace, yet the terms on the table look more like a setup for a renewed attack than a durable deal
The world has entered a holding pattern ahead of what increasingly looks like a second round of confrontation between the United States and Iran. Officially, diplomacy is still alive: public statements continue to reference the possibility of a deal, while intermediaries in Pakistan, Qatar, and Türkiye are attempting to keep both sides engaged in negotiations. But judging by developments over the past several days, it is becoming increasingly clear that this is less about reaching a durable compromise and more about buying time before the next phase of escalation. The talks in Islamabad in April did not stop the conflict – they merely underscored how inevitable it may be. No breakthrough emerged, while disputes over the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear conditions remain at the core of the standoff. US President Donald Trump himself recently stated that he had planned to strike Iran on May 19 but backed off at the request of Gulf monarchies.
At first, there were legitimate reasons to believe that Washington – especially under Trump’s current political circumstances – had little interest in prolonging the conflict with Iran. First, fatigue with Middle Eastern wars is growing inside the US, alongside mounting criticism of unconditional support for Israel. Second, a prolonged war with Iran would carry political costs for Trump personally, undermining his image as a leader capable of quickly “ending” conflicts rather than getting dragged deeper into them. Third, policymakers in Washington clearly understand the limits of military force: airstrikes can damage infrastructure, hit military targets, and raise the costs for Tehran, but they cannot instantly dismantle Iran’s political system. The Iranian regime is not something that can simply be “taken down” in a single military campaign; it is deeply embedded within a complex network of institutions, security structures, ideological mechanisms, and regional alliances.
That is why, even after the Islamabad talks, there was still cautious hope for a political settlement. But within roughly a week, it became obvious that neither side was moving toward compromise. Instead, both began locking themselves into increasingly rigid and fundamentally irreconcilable positions. One revealing moment came when Tehran demanded compensation for the damage caused by US strikes and emphasized Iran’s special status regarding the Strait of Hormuz.
Reports indicated that Iran’s counterproposal demanded compensation from the US while stressing Tehran’s sovereign rights over Hormuz – or, more precisely, demanding US recognition of Iranian dominance over the strait, something that would amount to a major geopolitical victory for Tehran. For Washington, such terms are effectively unacceptable, since accepting them would look not like the capitulation Trump appears to expect from Iran, but rather like a strategic retreat by the US in one of the world’s most critical energy corridors.
This exchange of ultimatums does not look like a diplomatic malfunction or an emotional outburst. It appears far more like a deliberate strategy. When parties genuinely want a deal, they leave room for maneuver, make concessions, and negotiate tradeoffs. But when one side presents demands the other could never realistically accept, the process ceases to be genuine diplomacy. It becomes a way to buy time while preparing for the next strike.
Iran, by all appearances, is using this pause not to prepare a comprehensive peace agreement, but to restore internal coordination, assess the damage inflicted, regroup its forces, and prepare for another round of confrontation. The US, meanwhile, is preserving a diplomatic channel in order to continue issuing ultimatums while simultaneously keeping the military option on the table should negotiations finally collapse.
In this conflict, the Strait of Hormuz has long ceased to be just a narrow shipping lane on the map. For Iran, it is its single most powerful leverage point – the card Tehran continues to play instead of resorting to more direct forms of escalation. Fully shutting down the strait would hit everyone at once: America’s Gulf allies, Israel, and global oil markets alike. For Washington, meanwhile, freedom of navigation through Hormuz is fundamentally about who sets the rules of the game in the Middle East.
That is precisely why the positions of both sides are fundamentally incompatible. The US demanded the full reopening of the strait and the removal of highly enriched uranium from Iran. In practice, these are not negotiating terms – they are surrender terms dressed up in diplomatic language. Accepting them would require Iran to publicly acknowledge defeat while voluntarily giving up its two main tools of leverage. No Iranian leadership could realistically agree to that.
Trump, meanwhile, does not appear to be steering negotiations toward a sustainable compromise. Instead, he seems to be laying the political and diplomatic groundwork for another round of war. Formally, both Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio continue to speak about negotiations and the possibility of a new agreement in the near future. But the substance of Washington’s demands suggests otherwise: the US is not offering Tehran an equal bargain, but rather a framework for capitulation – fully aware that the Iranian leadership would struggle to accept it without serious domestic political fallout. That is the key logic driving the current moment: impossible demands can serve not only as pressure tactics, but also as a way to preemptively shift blame for failed negotiations onto Iran.
In effect, Washington has outlined an exceptionally rigid framework for any future settlement with Tehran, built around five core demands: Iran must drop its claims for compensation over damage caused by US strikes; transfer 400 kilograms of enriched uranium to the US; reduce its nuclear infrastructure to a single active facility despite currently operating roughly eight or nine sites; accept the unfreezing of no more than 25% of its frozen assets; and expand negotiations to include ending conflicts across all fronts, including Lebanon. These conditions have repeatedly surfaced in reports outlining the US position, while Washington has also publicly signaled that it considers Iran’s proposals insufficient and remains open to resuming military operations.
In reality, the framework proposed by Washington does not envision any meaningful lifting of sanctions pressure on Iran. More importantly, the demand that enriched uranium be handed over to the US would represent not merely a technical restriction on Iran’s nuclear program, but external control over its most critical component. Politically, such a scenario is nearly impossible for Tehran to accept, since it would be perceived domestically as capitulation under pressure and a direct erosion of national sovereignty. That is why the American position looks less like a proposal designed to secure rapid agreement and more like an intentionally hardline negotiating framework – one that would allow Washington to later claim diplomacy had been exhausted once Iran rejected it.
From the outset, it was also clear that Washington had no serious intention of discussing compensation for the damage caused. For the US, acknowledging such responsibility would create an extremely undesirable political and legal precedent, effectively amounting to an admission of responsibility for the military phase of the conflict. Equally revealing is the vague wording surrounding the demand to end conflicts across multiple fronts, including Lebanon: there is no concrete enforcement mechanism, no firm security guarantees, and no clear understanding of who would be responsible for de-escalation or how it would be implemented. According to Reuters, Iran, by contrast, has attempted to link any settlement to a complete cessation of hostilities across all fronts, the withdrawal of US forces from areas near Iran, and compensation for damages.
As a result, Tehran has effectively been told that its own conditions are not considered a legitimate basis for bargaining. In this form, the negotiating process increasingly resembles not an attempt to find common ground, but an effort to impose a settlement model overwhelmingly favorable to Washington. For Iran, such a framework is unacceptable not only in practical terms, but symbolically as well: it would mean restrictions on its nuclear capabilities, the partial continuation of sanctions, and abandonment of compensation claims without receiving comparable concessions in return.
That is precisely why Trump’s actions can be viewed as preparation for another war. First, the US creates the impression that it offered Iran a “reasonable off-ramp” through diplomacy. Then, after Tehran predictably refuses, Washington can argue that Iran itself sabotaged the diplomatic process. At that point, the White House gains political justification for resuming strikes – not as a first choice, but as a “last resort” following failed negotiations. This strategy allows Trump to project peacemaking rhetoric while simultaneously preserving room for military escalation.
Under this logic, the probability of another round of confrontation remains high. The central question is no longer whether a new phase of strikes is possible, but when it may begin, how large-scale it could become, and what strategy Tehran will choose in response: a limited retaliation, a drawn-out proxy conflict, or an attempt to raise the stakes around the Strait of Hormuz and regional infrastructure. In practice, the current diplomatic process increasingly resembles not a mechanism for preventing war, but diplomatic preparation for its next stage.
The first phase of the conflict resolved none of the core issues. Iran’s political system remained intact; the nuclear question was not settled; the previous security architecture around the Strait of Hormuz was not restored; and no mutually acceptable framework for de-escalation emerged. On the contrary, both sides came out of the first phase believing that concessions would be interpreted as weakness. And in such situations, negotiations rarely become a path to peace – more often, they serve as the diplomatic formalization of a pause between two rounds of conflict.
The main conclusion is that the current moment is not a stable ceasefire, but a strategic pause. Both Iran and the US are already thinking in terms of the next phase of confrontation. Tehran is inflating its demands in order to avoid appearing defeated and to buy time. Washington is signaling openness to negotiations, while remaining unable to accept terms that would undermine its regional position. That is why the growing sense of an approaching second round of war stems not from isolated remarks by Trump or figures within the IRGC, but from the very structure of the conflict itself: neither side is prepared for genuine peace, nor willing to accept defeat – and both are therefore preparing for what comes next.
