After the collapse of 21 hours of peace talks between Iran and the U.S. in Islamabad, Pakistan on April 12, President Trump ordered a blockade of Iranian ports along the Strait of Hormuz. China, Saudi Arabia and Spain have formally protested or criticized the U.S.-led blockade, labeling it dangerous, irresponsible and a “senseless” escalation.
Iran has called the blockade illegal, warning that targeting its ports could put shipping across the Gulf at risk. Saudi officials reportedly warned Washington that the Iran allied Houthi rebels in Yemen could close the Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea, which has become a key shipping route after the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran was launched on Feb. 28. Britain and France have refused to join the U.S. in blockading Iranian ports and instead are pushing for a separate multinational effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran-U.S. negotiations focused on Washington’s demand that Iran agree to a 20-year moratorium on all uranium enrichment and the physical surrender of the country’s nearly 1,000 lbs. of highly enriched uranium.
Iran is demanding Israel halt its attacks on Lebanon that has killed over 2,000, an end to sanctions and Washington to release Iran’s frozen assets. There are signs that a second round of negotiations between U.S. and Iranian officials could happen before the two-week ceasefire expires on April 22. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Brandon Carr, studies associate at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and Kevan Harris, associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Here they discuss their views on the U.S. blockade, the fragile ceasefire and the future of negotiations to end the war. We first hear from Brandon Carr.
BRANDON CARR: I think the administration is trying to implement a blockade in order to force the regime’s hand, prevent them from being able to sell any oil on international markets and deprive them of their basic economic lifeline. I think the difficulty that the Trump administration is going to run into is Iran has a lot of cards to play in response. They could decide to escalate militarily if they choose to resume the conflict. They could target our ships that are executing the blockade and they could resume strikes on civilian targets in the Middle East and the Gulf, as well as energy infrastructure targets. The administration here in Washington is extremely sensitive to any economic headwinds that result from this war, particularly high gas prices. And this blockade has a pretty good likelihood of spiking gas prices, depending on how long it goes on for. So the blockade could very likely backfire.
Now, there’s been reporting that this blockade is an attempt to enhance their negotiating leverage and that there is not actually real interest in Trump himself of resuming hostilities, but that remains to be seen.
SCOTT HARRIS: Kevan Harris, I wanted to ask you, after these negotiations between the U.S. and Iran collapsed in Pakistan over the weekend, do we know what the points of disagreements were or are?
KEVAN HARRIS: Like many diplomatic negotiations, both sides start with maximus positions and given time, each side is supposed to understand what can be put on the table. Let’s remember that the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or the Iran nuclear deal), which was negotiated between the government of Iran and the so-called P5+1—five members of the Security Council plus Germany—took two years to come to an agreement in 2016, which was then abrogated unilaterally by the United States under the Trump administration. So diplomacy takes a long time.
The positions on both sides that are presented—at least as far as the media knows—in Islamabad were maximus on both sides, with disagreements even on what was even mentioned at the talks. But on the Iranian side, given that they, as Brandan noted, have more cards than the United States realized at the beginning of this war—have asked for the right for nuclear enrichment at some point in the future, lifting of many of the economic sanctions imposed on Iran and are much less willing to negotiate—although they might on issues related to regional security, the missiles, aid to allies in the region, these kind of things.
So the Iranian side brought its own list of demands to the table. As many participants in the negotiations of the JCPOA have noted today, negotiations are supposed to last longer than 12 to 16 hours.
SCOTT HARRIS: As the price of oil and fertilizer goes up essential to agriculture and food supplies, how much pressure is building to force both the U.S. and Iran to come to an agreement to end this war? There’s all these external factors. You’ve got countries in Asia, southeast Asia, rationing all sorts of things, mostly energy. Thailand and some other countries have gone to four-day work weeks. I mean, this is really having a dramatic impact. The big concern is this blocking of the Strait of Hormuz could end up pushing the world economy into a recession or something worse.
And Iran knows that, I think, which is why you’re seeing the strength of their hand in negotiating with the U.S. They do not want a return to the status quo before the war. They would like to fundamentally reconfigure their relationship with the U.S. and the broader Middle East as a result. I think the U.S. doesn’t have a lot of good options to try to undercut Iranian leverage, unless it was willing to significantly escalate militarily in the war using ground troops, which I do not think would be wise at all.
I do not think it’s worth the cost and it’s not clear that it would produce the strategic results that the U.S. seeks.
For more information, visit the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft website at quincyinst.org.
