Hormuz Blockade | Diplomacy ends, pressure starts

The impasse mirrors Cold War bargains — economic pressure as a substitute for military escalation

Call it a third successive act of deception or whatever, the collapse of the United States-Iran talks in Islamabad last weekend seems of a piece with the earlier two episodes: the abrupt breakdown of nuclear deal negotiations that gave way to Israel’s attack on Iran in June, and the joint US-Israel attack on Iran in February. But as veteran Washington Post columnist David Ignatius concluded after speaking with people close to the negotiations in Pakistan, the end state today is more of an impasse that won’t necessarily mean a return to war.

Curiously, however, the impasse happens to be a contrived occurrence. The idea of a US naval blockade of Iran was anything but an impromptu thought: US President Donald Trump had at least six telephone calls with Vice-President J D Vance during the negotiations, and the US Central Command (CENTCOM) in Doha was ready with a notification almost in real time after Trump’s proclamation.

Trump declared that he would blockade the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to clear mines and open the route to global shipping—but insisted that Iran must not be allowed to profit from controlling the waterway.

In its Sunday notification, CENTCOM said, “in accordance with the President’s proclamation”, its forces would begin implementing a blockade of all maritime traffic entering and leaving Iranian ports from 1400hrs GMT the following day. The command emphasised that the blockade would apply impartially to vessels of all nations, covering every Iranian port along the Gulf and Gulf of Oman.

CENTCOM said its forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the strait to and from non-Iranian ports; additional information will be issued to commercial mariners through a formal notice ahead of the start of the blockade. Mariners were advised to monitor Notice to Mariners broadcasts and contact US naval forces on bridge-to-bridge channel 16 while operating in the Gulf of Oman and approaches to the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump ordered the naval blockade in response to what he termed Iran's "unyielding" refusal to give up its nuclear ambitions during peace talks in Islamabad. “Other countries will be involved in this blockade. Iran will not be allowed to profit off this illegal act of extortion,” Trump said on his Truth Social media platform on Sunday. Trump also noted that the marathon talks in Pakistan had gone “well” and “most points were agreed to.” But, Trump said Tehran refused to concede on the issue of its nuclear programme.

The currently suspended hostilities have looked like the Russia-Ukraine war — attritional, with the use of “inexpensive, one-way attack drones, rapid advancements in surveillance and targeting, huge use of munitions and the expansion of the battlefield well beyond traditional military targets,” former Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin pointed out in the New York Times. Austin asserted that “the Iran war … shows that the lessons of Ukraine were not an anomaly.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed that the talks had come within "inches" of a memorandum of understanding, but at that moment "we encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade.” There is widespread speculation that this late shift was the result of an intervention by Trump whose particular style of diplomacy is indeed what is driving world events.

In his WaPo column titled What really happened in Islamabad — and what Trump is trying now, Ignatius writes that Trump “has no appetite for further armed conflict” and instead wants to put “a severely battered Iran into an economic vise,” wagering that “economic pressure can do what bombs couldn’t” — a predicament that Russia’s Vladimir Putin also faces in Ukraine.

By Ignatius’ narrative, Vance and Iranian Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf opened with “hard‑nosed” positions, but by the end US officials saw Ghalibaf as “a refined and professional bargainer — and potential leader of a new Iran,” while some IRGC figures “are opening their own channels because they want to be part of the future as well.” Now, such a scenario of 'divide-and rule' is entirely plausible, involving the billionaire politician from Tehran.

Trump’s aim, Ignatius said, is a “Tiffany deal”: “a big, glittering package of economic benefits, including removal of economic sanctions, in exchange for a full renunciation of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and support for proxies.” In Ignatius’ prognosis, the White House sees three scenarios if the blockade tightens: regime overthrow; Ghalibaf or another leader crossing a “golden bridge” to a new future; or IRGC hard‑liners trying to break the blockade, risking “the escalating military confrontation he [Trump] hopes to avoid.”

Framing Trump’s strategy as an attempt to move Iran “from a revolutionary ‘cause’ … into a country that can modernise quickly and profitably,” Ignatius invokes Henry Kissinger’s image of post‑war realignments and concludes that the night‑long talks in Islamabad had “a quality at once of both impossibility and inevitability.”

But wasn’t this existential choice more or less what the US offered to Mikhail Gorbachev’s Soviet Union? For someone who lived in Moscow during those tumultuous times, with the Old Guard in the communist party as well as the stakeholders drawn from the security and military establishment were overwhelmed initially by the tide of ‘westernism’ sweeping the urban middle class and political elites. The parallels are striking.

In the near term, much depends now on how the US blockade pans out. In a first shot across the bow already, Chinese Defence Minister Admiral Dong Jun stated, “We have trade and energy agreements with Iran; we expect others not to interfere in our affairs. The Strait of Hormuz is open to us.” He also asserted that Iran controls the strait. This is only the beginning.

The blockade could primarily harm Washington-friendly Persian Gulf states, since it will certainly lead to a reduction in their revenues from oil and gas exports. Arab states will likely try to pressure Trump to lift the blockade. But even if the US leadership has a unified, consolidated position in the negotiation process, Israel — the main instigator of this entire regional war — is not interested in US-Iran dialogue, because it believes it has not achieved any of its goals in the conflict.

Continued US-Iran dialogue will only be possible after another military escalation, as the current context apparently doesn't seem convincing enough for Trump to end the war. The signs are that the US will resume hostilities to improve its negotiating position, either through bombing or a ground operation. To this end, the Pentagon is currently increasing its ground forces in the region. Aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has entered the Gulf of Oman and is now approximately 200 km to the south of Iran’s coast.

The bottom line is that a colossal collective diplomatic effort is required to stabilise the situation. The fragmentation of international politics does not make that easy — although both Washington and Tehran seem open to holding a second round. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s hurried consultations in Beijing on April 14-15 augur well. Any timeout for diplomacy risks an increase in regional escalation.

(M K Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat).

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.