NEW BRİEFİNG NOTE
FROM INTERNATIONAL
CRISIS GROUP
Iran Crisis Monitor #3
Over the past week, the confrontation between Iran and the U.S. has revolved less around whether negotiations should resume than around what the terms for restarting them should be. For now, the dispute appears to focus on sequencing. Tehran says the U.S. naval blockade must cease before broader talks can commence; Washington sees the blockade as a source of leverage for those talks and is not inclined to call it off in advance.
In this weekly update, Crisis Group experts take stock of developments in the Middle East war and the progress of efforts to end it.
What Happened
Over the past week, the confrontation between Iran and the U.S. has revolved less around whether negotiations should resume than around what the terms for restarting them should be. For now, the dispute appears to focus on sequencing. Tehran says the U.S. naval blockade must cease before broader talks can commence; Washington sees the blockade as a source of leverage for those talks and is not inclined to call it off in advance. President Masoud Pezeshkian described the blockade as the chief obstacle to “genuine negotiation”, while Iranian officials told mediators they would not return to talks under duress. The U.S. first signalled optimism about renewed dialogue in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, only to abruptly cancel a planned trip by its envoys, suggesting it had mistakenly believed that Iran was on the verge of ceding to its demands given the prospect of sharply mounting economic pressure. According to press reports, in its latest proposals Iran has sought to move beyond substantive deadlock into diplomacy by offering to open the Strait of Hormuz alongside a U.S. agreement to halt the blockade and end the war, with negotiations on core issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, deferred to a later phase. U.S. officials, however, note that Tehran’s proposals to reopen the strait are predicated on Iran maintaining control and charging tolls for passage. Washington says it will not accept that condition. Most other littoral states oppose it, too.
Though the ceasefire has imperfectly remained in effect, the U.S.-Iran standoff has heightened at sea. Iran seized two merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on 22 April and continued to interfere selectively with shipping. The U.S. Central Command, for its part, announced further interdictions of Iran-linked vessels, while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the blockade was “going global” with the U.S. stopping Iranian-flagged vessels in Asian waters. The U.S. Treasury Department also expanded its Iran sanctions, designating a Chinese oil refinery, along with some 40 shipping firms and vessels, on 24 April. Four days later, it blacklisted nearly three dozen persons and entities it said “oversee Iran’s shadow banking architecture”. Only a handful of ships passed through the strait over the past week, while hundreds of vessels and thousands of seafarers remained stranded and energy markets under strain. The U.S. also indicated that it will not renew a waiver for Russian and Iranian oil shipments that were already at sea, which had been aimed at easing the economic stress generated by the war.
The Lebanon front has also become more consequential. Washington announced the extension of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire by three weeks, but that step did not freeze the fighting. Israel continued strikes, widened the scope of evacuation warnings and, by 27 April, was threatening or carrying out operations outside its earlier buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Hizbollah dismissed the truce as meaningless and kept striking back at Israel, albeit on a reduced scale. Tehran continues to treat Lebanon as part of the wider bargaining environment. The U.S. denies any formal linkage between the two tracks. But it has tacitly accepted the tie, by urging Israel to restrain its attacks as well as by sponsoring peace negotiations between the Israeli and Lebanese governments in Washington.
The View from Iran
Iran’s strategy is not merely to preserve a pause in fighting, but to renegotiate the rules of de-escalation and the sequence of a potential diplomatic resolution. Senior officials insist that Tehran will not enter “imposed” talks while under blockade, threat and intensified U.S. military pressure. This position is not just rhetorical. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s shuttle diplomacy – which has included trips to Pakistan and Oman, and then to Russia, supplemented by calls with his Saudi and Qatari counterparts – shows that Tehran still wants mediation, but only through formats that preserve its agency and make any return to talks appear reciprocal rather than compelled. Its insistence that talks cannot proceed under blockade conditions reflects a broader effort to avoid entering negotiations when visibly under coercion. Official messaging reinforces this stance, presenting the blockade as a ceasefire violation and Iranian responses as legitimate resistance. This framing allows Tehran to keep working through intermediaries while resisting direct participation on terms it sees as unfavourable.
Iran’s engagement with Oman, and its effort to sustain indirect channels with Washington through Pakistan, also reflect a bid to create a parallel diplomatic framework on the Strait of Hormuz. By casting the strait’s closure as a Gulf security issue rather than part of a bilateral confrontation with the U.S., Tehran is trying to draw regional actors into a process that dilutes U.S. leverage. This approach reflects an effort – thus far, judging by the reaction in most Gulf Arab capitals, an unsuccessful one – by Iran to portray its negotiating position as aligned with the interests of Gulf Arab states that depend on stable maritime flows, but would never accept Iranian dominance and are wary of an erratic U.S.
Domestic constraints are also shaping Tehran’s calculations. Iran’s leadership faces pressure from constituencies that would interpret compromise as strategic retreat, especially after the country has suffered so heavily from military strikes and economic coercion. Public statements rejecting talks “under threat” narrow the leadership’s room for manoeuvre. But these should be set against the mounting financial toll of a blockade and sanctions on an already battered economy, as well as the potentially declining returns for Iran of maritime leverage that is useful only if it can eventually be traded for financial reprieve.
The View from the U.S.
Washington is trying to project an image of Iranian weakness and intra-regime strife while containing the confrontation through coercive diplomacy. The ceasefire extension on 21 April suggests that the administration prefers not to seek an immediate return to large-scale conflict, even as its continued military build-up, including the arrival of a third aircraft carrier, preserves that option. At the same time, the blockade reflects a judgment that pressure must be heightened if Tehran is to make meaningful concessions. The U.S. approach rests on the belief that Iran’s economic and strategic vulnerabilities can be exploited while still managing the risk of escalation. Despite the deadlock, President Donald Trump has continued to insist that the U.S. “has all the cards”, contending on 26 April that Iran’s pipelines might explode by month’s end because the blockade creates a build-up of oil Iran cannot load or store. This view somewhat over-dramatises what industry experts assess is a real and growing crunch for Iran’s storage capacity.
There is thus a fundamental tension between the U.S. and Iranian positions that makes diplomacy especially difficult. From Washington’s perspective, pressure creates negotiating leverage and is a necessary response in light of the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz. To concede on the blockade at the outset might therefore lessen the imperative for Iran to engage in meaningful talks on the nuclear file. From Tehran’s perspective, maintaining the U.S. blockade – which it views as an act of war amid a supposed ceasefire – destroys the basis for reciprocal bargaining. The stalling of the Islamabad track reflects this disconnect.
Meantime, the administration finds itself trying to walk a difficult line in the maritime domain. Effective blockade enforcement requires both operational capacity and political staying power. Expanding interdictions puts more pressure on Iran, but also on the global economy, while raising the risk of confrontation at sea, particularly if enforcement reaches more third-party vessels. Easing enforcement lowers the risk of escalation but would weaken the blockade’s coercive effect.
Washington’s posture is therefore best understood as selective escalation. It is not pursuing a rapid diplomatic exit. Nor is it angling for an open-ended war. Rather, it is searching for a face-saving outcome by using coercive tools to shape the negotiating environment while preserving the ceasefire. The risk is that this approach depends on Iran absorbing pressure without responding in ways that destabilise the maritime or regional balance. That assumption may not hold if Tehran concludes that it has more to gain by escalating than sticking with the status quo. Alternatively, if the Islamic Republic feels that it can endure economic pain indefinitely, U.S. tactics may fail to compel it to back down. Meanwhile, the domestic and global economic pressures generated by the war are only growing, deepening the Trump administration’s potential vulnerabilities and those of his Republican party as November’s midterm elections draw closer. Still, President Trump appears willing to accept the economic and political costs. He seems persuaded that Iran cannot sustain the pressure as long as the U.S. can, meaning that Tehran will eventually agree to make greater concessions.
The View from Israel
Israel’s strategy reflects deep scepticism toward any diplomatic outcome that leaves Iran with residual strategic capacity. Israeli leaders define success in terms of devastating the regime’s nuclear, missile and proxy capabilities and constraining its ability to rebuild them. That objective sits uneasily alongside a U.S. approach that may put stabilisation over comprehensive rollback.
Israel has taken a distant back seat in Iran diplomacy, leaving Lebanon as the main arena through which it seeks to shape the broader confrontation. Continued Israeli operations beyond the buffer zone it has carved out in the south, and wholesale demolition of abandoned villages inside that area, suggest that the ceasefire, largely forced by Trump, is not being treated as a return to pre-war conditions. Rather, Israeli leaders see it as an opportunity to consolidate gains, and to further degrade Hizbollah, so as to placate citizens in northern Israel whose lives have been disrupted by the war. In this way, Israel can also keep pressure on Iran indirectly while avoiding direct interference in U.S.-Iran talks. But Israel’s posture also carries escalation risks. Hizbollah has been weakened, and it can no longer rely on an easy flow of Iranian money and munitions, but it remains a potent threat.
The View from the Gulf
Gulf Arab states remain caught between competing concerns. They want the confrontation to end and predictable maritime flows to resume. But they are opposed to an outcome that either validates Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz or entrenches its prolonged closure. Their overriding preference is a lasting ceasefire that includes their interests: an unconditional reopening of the strait, as well as a rapid restoration of trade and economic activity.
Oman’s role captures this. By facilitating engagement with Iran and framing the Strait of Hormuz as a regional security issue, Muscat offers a channel to the other Gulf states for managing tensions without direct confrontation. (Saudi Arabia, by contrast, is focused on broader mediation efforts as part of an ad hoc group that includes Egypt, Pakistan and Türkiye.) Other Gulf states, with the notable exceptions of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, also appear to support mediation, recognising that a negotiated framework is the only sustainable route to maritime stability. But formalising anything resembling Iranian control of the strait would be anathema.
At the same time, Gulf states are increasingly uneasy about the broader trajectory of regional dynamics. A prolonged “no war, no peace” scenario would expose them to economic disruption and possible military entanglement. The risk that Iran or its non-state allies might strike Gulf infrastructure in response to U.S. pressure, or that Washington might escalate enforcement or reach a separate deal without fully accounting for regional consequences, reinforces the urgency of a negotiated off-ramp in a format that gives them a voice.
Outlook: The Sequencing Trap
The most likely trajectory over the next week is prolonged coercive bargaining, rather than either a diplomatic breakthrough or a full return to open war. Pakistan and Oman, along with other regional parties, will probably keep trying to reconstruct a format for talks, and neither Iran nor the U.S. appears eager to declare diplomacy dead. But competing assessments of the other side’s staying power and resilience (with both Washington and Tehran persuaded they can sustain the current situation longer than their foe) and the order of concessions remain central obstacles. Tehran wants visible relief from the blockade before serious negotiations, while Washington wants serious negotiations – and likely Iran’s acceptance of serious concessions – before meaningful easing of pressure. So far, both appear willing to hold firm until proven right.
The most dangerous escalation pathway remains maritime. Further U.S. interdictions, renewed Iranian fire on commercial traffic or evidence of further Iranian mine laying could force both sides to choose between public retreat and escalation in a domain where signals are hard to calibrate. Europe’s posture is telling. Britain and France are organising around the idea of a future mission to restore navigation, not around joining the U.S. blockade itself. That distinction matters. It suggests that even close U.S. partners who see the restoration of lawful traffic as a crucial objective are uneasy with an open-ended coercive regime from any side.
Separately, in Lebanon, if Israel continues expanding operations beyond the earlier buffer zone and Hizbollah responds with strikes into Israel, whatever remains of that ceasefire could vanish while Tehran comes under pressure to harden its negotiating position.
The indicators to watch are concrete: whether U.S. interdictions continue or quietly slow; whether Iran publicly accepts another Islamabad round and on what preconditions; whether Washington dismisses Tehran’s latest proposals or sees something in them it can work with; whether daily traffic through the Strait of Hormuz rises beyond token levels; whether Israeli operations remain limited or move deeper into Lebanon; whether Hizbollah expands the scope of its strikes; and whether Gulf states shift from quiet to public mediation between Tehran and Washington. If these indicators deteriorate together, the confrontation may remain formally under a ceasefire, but in practice revert to escalation management under fire.
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