Both sides have weaponized the impasse in the Iran war

Open this photo in gallery:

History holds examples of countries winning wars (the Union during the U.S. Civil War, for example) and of countries losing the peace (arguably the Allies after the First World War). But increasingly it is becoming apparent that the critical task in the Iran war is to win the impasse that has settled in since the April 7 ceasefire.

It is this impasse, arching toward the end of its third week, where the seeds of victory, defeat, triumphal resolution or awkward compromise are being sown. With the two sides increasing their resolve since the interruption of all-out conflict, the terms of negotiation are being adjusted in this critical intermission.

Both sides have weaponized the impasse, with Iran all but closing the Strait of Hormuz and the United States mobilizing a near-impenetrable blockade of Iran’s ports.

And both sides come to this impasse with deep experience in the tactics of impasse.

Tony Keller: What Iran has taught Canada about negotiating with Trump

For decades, Iran artfully used intervals to its advantage as it inched toward becoming a nuclear power amid negotiations, economic sanctions and billions in frozen assets. Donald Trump has polished the art of scoring political points during five government shutdowns spanning his two administrations.

This period is not a Phony War like the time between the 1939 Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland and the outbreak of combat across several frontiers in Europe in the spring of 1940. It is instead a Phonic War: the manipulation of sounds to change the relationships of power.

And in this interlude, the terms of peace have shifted dramatically, from the multiple goals set forth by Mr. Trump winnowing down to two major areas – navigation of the strait and the mitigation or survival of the Iranian nuclear project – even as this transformation has lengthened the impasse and made it more difficult to pierce.

The result: The process that has made the areas to negotiate smaller has had the perverse effect of rendering the obstacles to agreement larger.

For 10 weeks at the end of the 1960s, the parties to Vietnam peace talks fought over the shape of the negotiating table: round or rectangular. This period is a struggle over the metaphorical table − what is on the table for negotiating.

The notion of regime change has been abandoned − or has backfired. The killing of the top tier of Iran’s leadership produced a change far different from what Washington wanted: a theocratic “kitchen cabinet” – to cadge a phrase from the Jackson administration of the 19th century – even more radical and resolute than the one it replaced. No one speaks of a popular uprising any more; despite the desperate conditions on the (rubble-littered) ground in Iran, there is no evidence that an Iranian Spring is stirring.

Open this photo in gallery:

At the same time, the two sides have stiffened their stubbornness and raised their rhetoric as they come to the conclusion that the pause has given them power.

Indeed, Iran has skillfully made its blockade of the strait and the survival of the nuclear project the preconditions for negotiations rather than the subject of the negotiations. At the same time, Mr. Trump is holding the threat of resuming a massive military onslaught over the back-channel negotiations; on Thursday he ordered that there was “to be no hesitation” for U.S. Navy forces to “shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be … putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.”

All this has complicated the low-profile negotiations that preceded the high-profile negotiations set to resume as early as this weekend. The U.S. is dispatching negotiators Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner to Islamabad to meet with Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi.

“Winning this impasse is important because the peace process is not going to be clean,” said Donald Heflin, a senior fellow of diplomatic practice at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. “The two sides will haggle. But the country that positions itself in this period is halfway there. And it is possible that Iranians have figured out that in this period the Strait of Hormuz is their nuclear weapon.”

Analysis: Ahead of peace talks in Pakistan, the stakes are high for the U.S. and Iran

One of Mr. Trump’s unspoken but vitally important goals: to avoid a settlement that would allow commentators, critics and cynics to say that an Iran settlement merely replicates many of the principal elements of the 2015 Barack Obama deal, just as the 2020 Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement gave some analysts the opening to call the accord a rebranding of NAFTA. Mr. Trump had been insisting he would win an agreement that was “FAR BETTER” than the one sealed by his presidential predecessors.

In the background is the finding Friday by The New York Times that Mr. Trump is operating with the poorest rating of his second term, with 58 per cent of poll respondents disapproving of his job performance.

Amid all this, a frustrated President seems to be projecting a new characteristic, almost surely a virtue of necessity: patience.

He said public impatience with fuel prices would not “rush” him from getting the “best deal” with Iran. He said higher gasoline prices “for a little while” were the cost of victory for Americans. “You know what they get for that? Iran without a nuclear weapon.”

This impasse cannot go on for weeks.

“In almost all cases, there are pressures that eventually cause both parties to compromise,” said Allen Ponak, a Toronto-based mediator and former president of the National Academy of Arbitrators. “But that assumes both parties want a compromise. And if one party is forced to accept unfavourable conditions, they characterize their concessions with face-saving language saying they’ve won a good deal for the circumstances they’re in.”