WASHINGTON — More than three months after the opening of the U.S.-Iran war, negotiators on both sides say the outline of a preliminary peace agreement has long been clear. What remains elusive is something far more politically treacherous: a deal that each government can sell to its own hardliners as a victory.
Both Washington and Tehran are understood to want an end to the conflict. Yet both face domestic audiences whose tolerance for concession is sharply limited — and each side is led by a figure whose approach to diplomacy is, in the assessment of the mediators working to bridge them, making a settlement dramatically harder to achieve.
Trump’s Reversals Undermine His Own Negotiators
A central obstacle to any agreement, according to multiple mediators and officials with direct knowledge of the talks, has been President Donald Trump’s pattern of overriding terms that his own envoys had already presented to Iranian officials. That dynamic surfaced as early as the first formal round of negotiations following the April ceasefire brokered in Pakistan.
At those initial talks, Trump’s envoys — real estate executive Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance — conveyed to Iranian officials that the president would accept a deal under which Iran suspended its uranium enrichment program for ten years. Iranian negotiators, according to mediators involved in the process, agreed to that framework. Then Trump reversed course, demanding a 20-year suspension instead — a reversal mediators cite as a primary reason those talks collapsed.
The pattern continued in subsequent rounds. As negotiators on both sides awaited a response from Iran’s leadership to the latest draft agreement, Trump added new conditions relating to Iran’s nuclear program and the release of frozen Iranian assets. Iranian officials, according to mediators, described the move as confirmation of their longstanding mistrust of the American side. The White House has maintained that Trump’s core position remains unchanged: Iran cannot be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon, and any deal must reflect that absolute standard.
A Supreme Leader in Hiding, a President Impossible to Pin Down
On the Iranian side, the negotiations face an equally unusual constraint. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — who took power following the death of his father, former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the opening U.S.-Israeli strikes of the war — remains in hiding out of concern that he too could be targeted. Mediators say communication with him relies on a courier system that introduces days of delay into any exchange, making even minor adjustments to draft language a drawn-out process.
Khamenei also faces severe pressure from within. Senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, convinced that the United States will eventually attack Iran regardless of any agreement, are pushing for an aggressive posture in negotiations. They point to Iran’s demonstrated ability to restrict traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as leverage that should not be squandered.
The combination of a hidden, slow-moving Iranian leadership and a mercurial American president has left mediators warning that the entire peace process could collapse before it produces anything durable. That fear was sharpened this past week when Israel and Iran exchanged strikes for the first time since the April ceasefire, pulling the region back toward full-scale conflict before both sides stood down.
The Strait of Hormuz and the Question of Frozen Assets
Any framework likely to satisfy both governments would require Iran to allow normal maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the United States to lift its blockade of Iranian vessels. A broader agreement would also be expected to address Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and provide a pathway for easing U.S. economic sanctions. Draft versions of a proposed memorandum of understanding have included commitments from Iran to never pursue nuclear weapons and to negotiate over a suspension of enrichment and the removal of its highly enriched uranium stockpile.
The question of Iran’s frozen assets has emerged as one of the most contentious points in the negotiations. Under terms that U.S. negotiators initially accepted, Iran would be permitted to access up to $24 billion in funds frozen in regional banks, likely only through the purchase of certain goods. But Trump has made clear he will not accept any arrangement that resembles what he spent years attacking his predecessors for — the Obama and Biden administrations’ decisions to unfreeze several billion dollars in Iranian funds. Trump has told advisers he will not sign any deal in which the United States directly provides money to Iran.
Indirect Talks and a Circulation of Competing Drafts
Because Tehran has continued to refuse direct negotiations with Washington, a rotating set of mediating countries — currently Pakistan and Qatar — shuttle between the two sides carrying proposals. The arrangement has introduced its own layer of confusion: at times, analysts say, multiple draft documents are in circulation simultaneously, with only a small number of senior officials on either side aware of which version is operative.
As recently as Monday, Trump told reporters after attending the NBA Finals in New York that the two sides were in the final stages of a deal that would be “very, very good” and would “not in any way allow nuclear weapons,” adding that an agreement could be reached within two or three days. A White House official separately told CNBC that “Iran is desperate to make a deal because of the historic successes of Operation Epic Fury, Operation Economic Fury, and the blockade.”
Trump offered a similar assessment in a Sunday interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” characterizing Iran’s position as one of reluctant inevitability. “They’re strong, they’re proud, there are things they never thought they’d be doing that they’re going to have to do,” he said. “They’ve got no choice, and it takes a little while.”
Iran Calculates That Time Is on Its Side
Iranian leaders, however, do not appear to share that reading of the strategic balance. Mediators involved in the talks say Tehran is operating on the assumption that deteriorating global economic conditions — rising energy prices, a weakening international economy, and inflationary pressures inside the United States ahead of November’s midterm elections — will eventually force Trump to accept terms closer to Iran’s position.
Mohsen Rezaei, a military aide to Supreme Leader Khamenei, stated publicly that any U.S.-Iran peace deal must include Washington’s release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets, warning that a return to hostilities would push the United States into what he called a “dark corridor.”
Iran’s economic situation is itself severe. The country was suffering from runaway inflation and a collapsing currency even before the war began, and the conflict has deepened that crisis considerably. Yet Tehran’s leadership appears to believe Washington’s political pressures will prove more acute, and sooner. The Iranians, analysts warn, believe they can outlast the president by months — while Trump may have only weeks before global economic strain forces his hand.
Military Pressure Continues Alongside Diplomacy
The diplomatic track has not halted military activity in the Persian Gulf. U.S. forces have continued to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz while exchanging fire with Iranian forces, seeking to erode Tehran’s grip on the waterway while reinforcing the blockade of Iranian shipping. U.S. Central Command confirmed that Iran fired a ballistic missile toward Kuwait that was intercepted, as part of what Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps described as a response to U.S. strikes on Iranian drones and a launch site.
The White House has framed this sustained military posture as part of a broader maximum pressure strategy, saying Trump recently deployed a massive armada to the region and urging Iran to negotiate a fair deal with no nuclear weapons or face even stronger consequences. Whether that pressure produces a deal — or prolongs the conflict — remains the defining question of a war neither side has won.