Ali tuygan (Rtd. ambassador) - April 27,2026 - A War of Nerves

 

A War of Nerves

Posted on April 27, 2026 by Ali Tuygan

April 27, 2026

Merriam-Webster defines the title of this post as “a conflict characterized by psychological tactics (such as bluff, threats, and intimidation) designed primarily to create confusion, indecision, or breakdown of morale”. The targeting and seizures of ships by both Iran and the US in the Strait of Hormuz, and the US naval operations against Iran expanded to the Indian Ocean, the arrival in the region of the third US aircraft carrier can be considered acts of intimidation. Doing his part, Israel’s  Minister Katz has said that Israel is “prepared to resume the war against Iran”, adding that his country is awaiting a green light from the US to return Iran to “the Stone Age”.

Trump, after days of endless conflicting remarks to the media, decided to continue with the blockade of the Strait, but extended the ceasefire until “Iran’s proposal is submitted and discussions are concluded, one way or the other.” He said that the ceasefire is extended because Iran’s leadership – decimated by the war – is fractured and needs time to come up with a proposal to end the conflict.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi said ‌the US blockade of ​Iranian ports ​was an “act of war” ⁠and ​thus a violation ​of the ceasefire. In response, Iran imposed its own blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. Interestingly, Washington has said that the seizure by Iran of non-American ships is not a violation of the ceasefire.

Before the war, the Strait was an international waterway free for the passage of ships of all nations. Today, however, Tehran appears determined not only to regulate passage but also to impose tolls on ships passing through the Strait.

According to the White House, the US is completely strangling Iran’s economy through this blockade; Iranians are losing $500m a day; they can’t move oil in and out; and the Iranian leadership can’t even pay their own people as a result of this economic leverage that President Trump has inflicted over them. Reportedly, the US Navy has turned back 27 ships since the blockade began.

However, it is not only Iran that is paying the price. Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), has said that with the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz,  the ​world is now facing the worst energy crisis ever. Before the war, about a fifth of the world’s oil supply and a significant share of its natural gas went through the Strait.

The US-Israeli war on Iran has dire security and economic consequences for the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).[i]

Trump has said that the US Navy has started mine-clearing operations to open the Strait of Hormuz. Reportedly, however, it could take six months to fully clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines deployed by the Iranian military.[ii]

As the New York Times has reported, the Asia-Pacific has been the war’s first and worst zone of impact outside the Middle East. It is vulnerable because it relies heavily on energy imports from the Middle East. And its huge economies are deeply integrated, with complex supply chains that crisscross borders.

Thus, while Washington is after winning by ruining the Iranian economy, Iran is seeking to gain leverage to increase global pressure on Trump to end the war.

A decades-old US law allows the president to wage war without congressional approval for only 60 days. Thus, as of May 1st, Trump will also come under domestic pressure to seek congressional approval to continue the war.

Trump says that there was “no time pressure” on his extension of the ceasefire with Iran, he is “not in a rush” to end the conflict, and he wants a “good deal”. Yet, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he would prefer quick results before the approaching November midterm elections, where “affordability” is likely to be a campaign issue.

Although Iranians are forever negotiators, Iran’s economic downturn is also forcing the current leadership into a deal at some point. Yet, they may believe, at this juncture, that they have a chance of playing for time. There is no question that the leadership structures in Iran are shifting. However, despite the reports about a “fractured leadership”, a regime change in Tehran is not in the cards, at least in the near future.

“The DEAL that we are making with Iran will be FAR BETTER than the JCPOA,” Trump has said. In other words, he is after a “JCPOA PLUS”. The question is whether the word “plus” will be written in majuscules or minuscules.[iii]

Today, the two sides appear to be in an active stalemate. Talks are resumed in some form, and the war would end at some point, but not with a final peace agreement. Disagreements will persist, the top one being diametrically opposite views regarding the “winner” of this “having the upper hand” game.

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[i] https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2026/04/iran-war-stress-test-gulf-states

[ii] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/04/22/iran-hormuz-mines/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert

[iii] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/04/22/trump-iran-negotiations-obama/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert

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CT -Critical Threats and ISW - Iran Updates - April 26, 2026 -

 

Iran Update, April 26, 2026

Prospects for meaningful US-Iran negotiations remain low due to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) domination of decision-making and opposition to compromise.  Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi travelled to Muscat, Oman, on April 26 to discuss security in the Strait of Hormuz with Omani Sultan Haitham al Tariq. Israel deployed an Iron Dome battery and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) personnel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which demonstrates the deepening of Israeli and Emirati security ties as a result of the war.  Two Israeli officials and one US official told Western media on April 26 that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF to send an Iron Dome battery and “several dozen” IDF personnel to operate it after a phone call with Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed.

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Prospects for meaningful US-Iran negotiations remain low due to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) domination of decision-making and opposition to compromise. Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi travelled to Muscat, Oman, on April 26 to discuss security in the Strait of Hormuz with Omani Sultan Haitham al Tariq.  Araghchi then travelled to Islamabad, Pakistan, to discuss Iran’s preconditions for talks with the United States with Pakistani mediators, including the end of the US blockade on Iranian ports.   IRGC-affiliated media reported on April 26 that Araghchi discussed the implementation of ”a ⁠new legal regime over the Strait of Hormuz,” war compensation, and a guarantee of no future US attacks.  There was no reported discussion of Iran’s nuclear program, which is a key issue for the United States. US President Donald Trump said that Iran sent the United States a “much better” offer 10 minutes after he canceled US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s planned trip to Islamabad, Pakistan, for talks with Iran on April 25.  Trump said the new offer involves Iran not having a nuclear weapon but added that it is “not enough.”  Israel deployed an Iron Dome battery and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) personnel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which demonstrates the deepening of Israeli and Emirati security ties as a result of the war. Two Israeli officials and one US official told Western media on April 26 that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF to send an Iron Dome battery and “several dozen” IDF personnel to operate it after a phone call with Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed.   Unspecified Israeli and Emirati officials also told Western media that both countries have been “coordinating closely military and politically” since the start of the war.  Israel and the UAE have been expanding their defense cooperation since the UAE normalized its relations with Israel by signing the Abraham Accords in 2020.

The Iran Update aims to inform national security policy by providing timely, relevant, and independent open-source analysis of developments pertaining to Iran and its Axis of Resistance. This update covers political, military, and economic events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. It also provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. The American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project and the Institute for the Study of War will provide regular updates, including daily updates, as the crisis warrants.   Not subscribed to Iran Updates? Click here to receive regular email updates.

FP - Argument - By Daniel Forti - April 20, 2026, 1:05 PM - Back to Basics at the U.N. Rather than climate, disease, or artificial intelligence, the next secretary-general should stay focused on conflict resolution.

 Argument

An expert’s point of view on a current event.

Back to Basics at the U.N.

Rather than climate, disease, or artificial intelligence, the next secretary-general should stay focused on conflict resolution.

By Daniel Forti, the head of U.N. affairs at the International Crisis Group.

U Thant speaks during a session of the Security Council focused on the Cuban missile crisis.

United Nations Secretary-General U Thant speaks during a Security Council session on Oct. 25, 1962. AFP via Getty Images

April 20, 2026, 1:05 PM

Diplomats at the United Nations will soon hold formal hearings with the current candidates for the organization’s next secretary-general. They will discuss topics ranging from climate change to human rights. But many participants will be listening most closely to what the would-be leaders have to say about the U.N.’s mandate to maintain international peace and security.

Both the U.N.’s current secretary-general, António Guterres, and its member states have downplayed peace and security in discussions about the organization’s future. They believed that, in a period of big-power competition, the U.N. was better positioned to help broker agreements on issues like climate change, artificial intelligence, and pandemic response.

But this bet has proven to be a bust. Inevitably, the same pressures that have stymied multilateral conflict resolution efforts continue to make cooperation in other arenas harder. As a result, there is no alternative but for the U.N. to get back to basics. More than 80 years after it was founded, in the shadows of multiple wars from Iran to Sudan, the organization needs to once again show that it is serious about its founding mission of solving conflicts.

---

Four candidates have thrown their names into the ring for secretary-general so far: Rebeca Grynspan, Rafael Grossi, Michelle Bachelet, and Macky Sall. Others may enter the race later in the year. Each person will need to demonstrate how they would tackle fundamental questions of peace and security. By doing so, they could breathe life into an institution perceived by many as irrelevant and declining, as severe financial pressures and a complex political landscape threaten the organization’s very existence.

It won’t be an easy task. The U.N.’s credibility has been repeatedly undermined by divisions among the Security Council’s permanent members. The United States and Russia have brazenly acted in seeming defiance of the U.N. Charter—most recently with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. decapitation operation in Venezuela, and the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran. It is no secret that, under the weight of major-power divisions, diplomats have found it much harder to work through the Security Council to end wars or even mitigate their dire consequences.

As a result, the U.N. has found itself on the sidelines of high-profile peace efforts while its blue-helmet operations around the world have struggled to achieve their mandates. But rather than concede the organization’s core function, the next secretary-general should double down on it and reprioritize peace. There are three steps that could help.

First, candidates will need to reestablish the U.N.’s geopolitical credibility and boost the secretary-general’s profile as the world’s diplomat-in-chief. Contenders for the U.N.’s top job must demonstrate that they can work with the permanent members, which is crucial at a time when both Washington and Moscow have kept the U.N. at an arm’s distance.

Beyond simply appealing to these countries to halt their involvement in major wars, the secretary-general needs to work with them to keep the Security Council as a functioning space for diplomacy, especially in cases where they share some interest in de-escalation. Doing so will require candidates to publicly defend the U.N. Charter and call out major powers when they violate it while also using back-channel diplomacy to keep communication open with these same transgressors.

Candidates will also have to show that they understand how the global distribution of power has changed over the past decade and what that means for peacemaking. Middle powers are playing an increasingly important role, both in driving conflicts and resolving them. As a result, next secretary-general will need to show that they are ready to work with coalitions of middle powers, even more so when the Security Council is deadlocked.

Second, contenders should already be thinking about ideas on the U.N.’s contributions as a conflict management actor. The  Black Sea Grain Initiative, spearheaded by Guterres in the middle of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, showed how the U.N. can leverage its legitimacy and technical expertise to address material concerns of all countries, even during a major war. More recently, Guterres lobbied for a U.N. coordination mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz modeled after the Black Sea deal.

Unfortunately, creative and bold initiatives like these have become the exception rather than the norm lately. Guterres’s successor should reset an institutional culture that has grown overly cautious. They can spearhead this change by promoting diplomatic initiatives with or without explicit instructions from the Security Council. Past secretaries-general have embraced this responsibility.

Read More

• 

  A photo illustration shows a candle going out on a birthday cake with the U.N. logo on top of it.

  For Its 80th Birthday, the U.N. Needs More Than a Reset

  Going back to first principles has until recently spooked many diplomats. 

  Argument 

  |

   

  Heba Aly

• 

  Trump beams and sits at a long table while holding up a folder containing printed text as well as his large signature. Other world leaders stand behind him, some with their hands clasped, some clapping.

  The Board of Discord

  Trump’s “Board of Peace” is neither an alternative to the U.N. nor a harmless vanity project but a threat to international cooperation. 

  Argument 

  |

   

  Richard Gowan, Daniel Forti

The U.N.’s best-known leaders even managed to conduct quiet diplomacy even in the depths of the Cold War. In the 1960s, for example, U Thant helped mediate the end of the Cuban missile crisis. In the 1980s, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the U.N.’s first leader from Latin America, worked discretely with major powers on peacemaking efforts in Afghanistan, Cambodia, and the Persian Gulf.

This approach inevitably increases the risk of political blowback on the U.N. Guterres became personally involved in peace efforts in Cyprus and Libya early on in his term, but his efforts lost momentum after being forcefully rejected by the parties involved. Still, his successor should not be deterred. The U.N.’s credibility depends on being able to take political risks and put ideas on the table when no other actor can.

The next secretary-general will also need the entire organization’s support to turn this vision into a reality. Much will depend on who they select to join their cabinet. A strong and diverse collection of advisors should provide independent and critical advice while also marshaling ideas from across the entire system.

Finally, the best candidates will have to persuade the U.N.’s membership to continue investing in the organization’s peace operations. The U.N.’s peacekeeping footprint has decreased by nearly 56 percent over the past decade, with more cuts on deck. Security Council diplomats struggle to agree on what political roles the U.N.’s uniformed and civilian missions should play, leaving them susceptible to the whims of the host governments.

For all their flaws, though, U.N. missions support peace processes and protect civilians when few others can. Experiences with creating and maintaining non-U.N. led missions in Gaza, Haiti, and Somalia—places where countries are skeptical of deploying troops and funding is in short supply—also show how hard it is to replicate U.N. operations. It is true that the next secretary-general will need to think of ways to focus U.N. operations around a more limited and prioritized set of tasks. But if these kinds of endeavors simply cease to exist, the last safety net available to some of the most vulnerable people in the world will disintegrate—and the credibility of the U.N. with it.

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As the race to become secretary-general carries into the summer, both member states and the candidates will prove what kind of organization they want the U.N. to be. At one of the most difficult points in its history, the ability to tackle war and promote peace, more so than other considerations of gender and nationality, should help to identify the top candidate for the job. With a leader who is prepared to position themself at the helm of the world’s top peacemaking organization, the U.N. has a chance to secure its relevance and legacy—and offer some hope to an increasingly fractured world.

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Daniel Forti is the head of U.N. affairs at the International Crisis Group.

FP - Analysis - By Emma Ashford - America’s Problem With Diplomacy Predates Trump Witkoff and Kushner are merely the tip of the iceberg. - April 10, 2026, 5:40 PM

 Analysis

America’s Problem With Diplomacy Predates Trump

Witkoff and Kushner are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Ashford-Emma-foreign-policy-columnist

Emma Ashford

By Emma Ashford, a columnist at Foreign Policy and senior fellow with the Stimson Center’s Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program.

As Steve Witkoff looks on, President Donald Trump speaks during the Republican Members Issues Conference in Miami, Florida, on March 9.

As Steve Witkoff looks on, President Donald Trump speaks during the Republican Members Issues Conference in Miami, Florida, on March 9. Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

April 10, 2026, 5:40 PM

With the eleventh-hour announcement of a two-week cease-fire with Iran on Tuesday night, America’s most infamous diplomatic duo is poised to once again take center stage in this weekend’s negotiations in Pakistan. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have been instrumental to this administration’s foreign policy, and to U.S. President Donald Trump’s desire to resolve outstanding conflicts around the world through mediation.

Iran War

Analysis and news.

In practice, they have been largely unsuccessful, a fact often blamed on their relative inexperience with diplomacy. Indeed, the president’s son-in-law and friend are both real estate investors, better positioned to manage business mergers than complex questions of nuclear proliferation, war, and peace. But Kushner and Witkoff—and the Trumpian approach to diplomacy more broadly—are merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to America’s diplomatic problems. Until policymakers can figure out how to marry flexible thinking with expertise, America is likely to remain stuck in a diplomatic rut.

---

Few would doubt that diplomacy and peacebuilding are good things in theory. Indeed, as Trump chose to remind everyone last year in various tweets and speeches, the Bible tells us that peacemakers are to be especially revered. The moral obligation to seek peace is often emphasized by leaders of various faiths, most recently the new, unexpectedly American pope, who chose to emphasize the need for peace in his various Holy Week sermons.

In practice, however, there’s often a certain skepticism of diplomacy that pervades Washington’s political and media environment. Talking to adversaries can be wrongly portrayed as a concession, or even a reward that they do not deserve. This isn’t a new development: Ronald Reagan, for example, was infamously criticized by fellow conservatives for opening negotiations on arms control with the Soviet Union.

But whether diplomacy is seen as morally praiseworthy or foolishly sentimental, it is often a strategic good. America has won many of its greatest foreign-policy achievements not through the pure application of brute force, but rather through the negotiation of challenging diplomatic agreements, whether that be arms control with the Soviet Union, Henry Kissinger’s opening to China, or the creation of the United Nations after World War II. At its best, diplomacy offers a way to reduce unnecessary arms races and mitigate the risks of conflict.

In that light, it’s undoubtedly a good thing that the Trump administration has chosen to emphasize peacemaking—and that it is willing to talk to adversaries like Iran, Russia, or China.

But it has become apparent that Witkoff and Kushner, for all their dogged determination to follow through on the president’s mandate to achieve peace in various intractable conflicts around the world, are not well-suited to the job. Neither has any significant experience with diplomacy, which is in many ways quite distinct from the world of real estate and business mergers. Worse, both appear to have financial and personal entanglements that may complicate their ability to act as proponents of American interests, from investment deals in the Gulf states to personal and business ties in Israel.

Both also appear ill-suited to the management of complex diplomatic issues. Witkoff, in particular, is known to have a distrust of expertise. The Trump team has correctly pointed out that Washington’s expert class too often tells us what cannot be achieved, rather than trying to achieve something better. But without some background knowledge, you are bound to repeat the same mistakes as your predecessors. For Witkoff and Kushner, it is less of a problem that they themselves have no deep expertise on the foreign-policy issues being negotiated, and far more of a problem that they are unwilling to build a team that can advise and support them.

Similar problems have bedeviled Ukraine negotiations, which have become bogged down in questions of territorial swaps, issues that do not necessarily reflect the desires or needs of any party to the conflict. The deep fixation on territory appears to reflect the real estate background of the negotiators rather than any specific focus on the conflict or its causes.

But fixing U.S. diplomacy will not be nearly as simple as subbing in better figures for Witkoff and Kushner. Diplomacy has become increasingly disfavored by presidential administrations in recent years. Even before the Trump-era hollowing out of the State Department and related institutions, these entities did not spend as much time on diplomacy—particularly with unfriendly states or on tough-to-crack subjects like arms control—as they did on process, interactions with allied counterparts, and public relations.

Consider the Biden administration, whose major diplomatic achievements were the wrangling of a cross-section of NATO and non-NATO allies to respond to the Russian war in Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, arguably America’s primary diplomat during that period, rarely talked to or met with his counterparts in states with which the United States was at odds.

Read More

• 

  U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner speak at a press conference.

  Witkoff and Kushner Get an F in Diplomacy

  Inexperienced and overextended, Trump’s envoys have failed on three fronts. 

  Argument 

  |

   

  Aaron David Miller, Daniel C. Kurtzer

• 

  The Albina Bulk carrier sits anchored on March 22, 2026 at Sultan Qaboos Port in Muscat, Oman.

  The War Will End With a Hormuz Toll Booth

  Iran will likely control the waterway. The question is whether diplomats find a way of making that workable.

  Analysis 

  |

   

  Amir Handjani

Even when such meetings happened between high-level officials, talks were often unproductive, as with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s meeting with his Chinese counterparts in Alaska, which degenerated into an angry exchange of criticisms. When the Biden administration genuinely needed to conduct a high-stakes conversation with a U.S. adversary, it sent not Blinken but CIA Director Bill Burns to conduct such conversations in private. And ongoing diplomatic processes, like the attempt to restart the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action after the first Trump administration’s withdrawal, were hamstrung by a highly bureaucratic interagency process and a political worry that further concessions needed to be made by Iran to continue with negotiations.

The problem then is twofold: the over-personalized and ill-informed diplomacy of Kushner and Witkoff—which suggests a need for greater expertise and institutional backing—and an excessive focus on process, alliance management, and “safe” negotiations over real diplomacy with adversarial states. And unfortunately, the solutions to these two problems point in opposite directions. How can policymakers rebuild the talent bench of U.S. diplomacy in coming years while also allowing the flexibility and freedom from bureaucratic process needed to engage in innovative negotiating processes?

---

For the moment, the priority must be negotiations to end the war in Iran. This weekend will see negotiations in Pakistan between the U.S. and Iranian negotiators, with extremely high stakes. Six weeks of war have caused massive, ongoing disruptions in the global economy, created fuel rationing in parts of Asia, and caused death and destruction across the Gulf. To restart the war is in no one’s interest, and yet it remains highly unlikely that Witkoff and Kushner will be able to come to an acceptable agreement with the Iranians.

Indeed, this conflict marks the second time in less than a year that Witkoff and Kushner have been actively engaged in negotiations with their Iranian counterparts as the bombs started to fall. It is no wonder that they are not viewed in Tehran as credible negotiators or as truthful interlocutors.

The administration’s choice to send Vice President J.D. Vance is therefore a good one. Vance has been active behind the scenes in diplomacy with his Iranian counterparts, and opposed the war, albeit quietly, from the start. He is a diplomatic novice and will likely struggle to find common ground with a distrustful Tehran, but he is still less likely to give carte blanche to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and more likely to engage in a genuine negotiation process informed by expertise.

For American diplomacy to succeed more broadly in the future, however, it will need to avoid the pitfalls of the last several years and avoid the extreme swings that we have seen in its conduct. It is all too easy to look at the Trump administration and conclude either that its botched attempts to forge diplomatic agreements discredit diplomacy itself, or to simply mock Kushner and Witkoff and the idea of sending business magnates to negotiate complex foreign-policy problems.

But neither response will help to solve America’s genuine problem with diplomacy, which is that we have yet to find an administration willing to marry openness and flexible thinking with expertise. If America is to rebuild its diplomacy for a complex era of multipolar politics, future administrations will need to relearn the lessons of our past diplomatic successes.

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage. Read more here.

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Emma Ashford is a columnist at Foreign Policy and senior fellow with the Stimson Center’s Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program. She is also an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University and the author of Oil, the State, and War. X: @EmmaMAshford