WASHINGTON -- As the Iran conflict enters its fourth month, the world is watching to see whether Washington and Tehran will accept a temporary deal or risk a deeper confrontation in the Middle East.
Expectations of a breakthrough, however, remain uncertain. Despite talk of a possible 60-day cease-fire and renewed diplomacy, key disagreements persist over sanctions, Iran's nuclear program, and control of the Strait of Hormuz.
RFE/RL spoke with Tina Fordham, founder of Fordham Global Foresight and a geopolitical strategist, about the state of negotiations, the market's assessment of the talks, and the broader geopolitical consequences of the standoff.
RFE/RL: Here in Washington, everyone is waiting for news from the White House. Are we watching peace talks unfold, or are these negotiations over the terms of a strategic stalemate?
Tina Fordham: There's been a lot of optimism around an imminent resolution, and that's really on the back of [President Donald] Trump's comments on Truth Social saying that a deal is coming soon. But from my perspective, the two sides are really quite far apart.
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'Fundamentally Different Ideas' Cloud US-Iran Talks, Former Senior US Diplomat SaysWhat I think is encouraging is that neither Iran nor the US looks like it wants to escalate the conflict from here, so that's undoubtedly a positive from a security and defense perspective. But Iran is still controlling and monetizing the Strait of Hormuz, and I think market participants are overestimating how quickly this will be resolved, and maybe that Trump is getting bored.
RFE/RL: Is this becoming less about concessions and more about who blinks first?
Fordham: Well, in negotiation, the parties are trying to assess the weak points and the perspective of their counterparty. Here is where Iran has 47 years of experience as a very tough negotiator that has always been good at stonewalling and playing for time. They are, I think, quite rightly banking on the idea that Trump, ahead of the US midterms in November, needs a deal sooner than they do.
RFE/RL: Both sides claim they have leverage. If neither side can walk away, who is actually negotiating from a position of strength?
Fordham: Well, this is where you might call it the geostrategy calculus. If we think about the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the overwhelming opinion in those early days of the conflict was that Russia, with its superior military, would be able to make short work of its invasion of Ukraine.
Likewise, the US military is undoubtedly the biggest and most well-equipped in the world, and Iran has been under sanctions for decades. Yet we are at this diplomatic stalemate. It is not historically very successful to use air power to dislodge a regime, especially an entrenched regime like the one in Iran that has not only a formal military but also the informal military apparatus, the Basij, and others.
I mentioned the behavior of financial markets because if financial markets were showing more concern and oil prices were higher, that would be another way of forcing negotiations. It would mean the White House would be more inclined, possibly, to make concessions.
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Iran-US Talks 'A Dangerous Game,' Says Ex-Pentagon OfficialThe US retains its maximalist red lines in the rhetoric in terms of turning over the highly enriched uranium supplies, which Iran has not disclosed the location of, and also a moratorium on further development of Iran's nuclear program, which has been something the regime has opposed since the beginning.
But there is a change in tone from the US: At the beginning, President Trump talked about capitulation. He's not talking about that as much now. What I surmise, and what reports suggest, is also that the Gulf states, while Iran has been a problem for them and indeed attacked them, may not be willing to ramp up military operations to a significant enough level to dislodge this regime.
We do kind of have a stalemate. But one of the things I have been arguing is that Iran, although much weaker than the United States by every metric, now has some new sources of strength, and I think they will be unlikely to let go of them.
Specifically, they are not only controlling the Strait of Hormuz but monetizing it, with estimates of $1 million to $2 million a day in cryptocurrency being paid to them. They've got a new source of leverage that's arguably even more impactful than their nuclear program was. The nuclear program is about the potential use of nuclear weapons -- the big issue in geopolitical terms and one that humanity must hope never transpires. But this new button they can push is turning out to be quite handy.
Iran's New Bargaining Chip
RFE/RL: If Iran gives up that choke-point toll in negotiations, what leverage does it have left?
Fordham: I think you're hinting at exactly what the challenge is. The leverage they have left is that they could do it again. I've been a geopolitical strategist for 25 years, and it was always considered almost unthinkable that Iran would do this because the presumption was that it would invite the annihilation of the country.
Well, that hasn't happened. In fact, I was at the Semafor CEO Summit in Washington, and there was the CEO of a European energy company who said, "We war-gamed the idea of the closure of the Strait [of Hormuz} for 20 years, but we never really thought it would happen. And now here we are."
Iran is very good at negotiating. For the right price, they might be willing to open it up again, and they've said this in the memorandum of understanding. But look at what they want in return: reparations. I'm not optimistic that the White House is going to agree, in this economic climate, to pay Iran reparations any more than Russia wants to leave Ukraine.
RFE/RL: Are Washington and Tehran even negotiating the same deal? Publicly, Trump is demanding irreversible nuclear concessions, while Iran wants sanctions relief upfront.
Fordham: Those of us who are trying to keep up with this diplomatic ping-pong match on social media have probably reached the same conclusion that you suggest. Each side seems to be talking about a different document and different conditions, which is why, even though it is in the interest of both the United States and Iran to put an end to this conflict for their various reasons, climbing down from these core positions and red lines is going to be difficult.
That's why I think we are headed for this kind of frozen conflict, with the potential for a resumption of hostilities and the potential for the US to attack again.
Iran still reportedly retains a pretty significant proportion of its missile-launching sites and other military assets that could be targets. That means the sword of Damocles of renewed hostilities stays with us.
There are also medium- and longer-term geostrategic consequences. To my mind, one of them is that the strategic significance of the Strait of Hormuz will probably decline. We're already seeing moves toward new pipeline infrastructure and the use of alternative passageways. Of course, that takes time. But it's also a lesson -- or inspiration -- for other countries that happen to be geographically situated near a major economic chokepoint.
We've heard similar discussions around the Strait of Malacca [in southeast Asia]. This has become a new source of income, leverage, and bargaining power in a world where commodities and control over strategic resources and shipping lanes have become more valuable than we've seen for decades.
RFE/RL: Has control over global energy flows become more important than the nuclear file itself?
Fordham: It's a very good question. I think that in the very near term, and for the US economy, the Strait of Hormuz and passage through it is the most relevant issue. But because Iran has now gained this new source of strength, it increases the likelihood that they get to hold on to the nuclear file.
Having said that, we know the nuclear issue is very important to Trump himself. It's a longstanding concern of his regarding nuclear weapons. Whether we get a cease-fire for 30 days or 60 days, the longer this frozen-conflict stalemate goes on, the more Iran ends up being perhaps the tactical loser but the strategic winner.
Abraham Accords, Gulf Silence, Great-Power Competition
RFE/RL: Trump is now leaning heavily on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, and others to join the Abraham Accords as a counterweight to Tehran. How does that strategy affect the calculations in the Muscat negotiations?
Fordham: You can imagine that President Trump wants to be able to say to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that even though he wants to call off this phase of the war, Israel's security will benefit from more countries joining the Abraham Accords. That would be a big win for the Trump administration and one that would be positive economically and from a security perspective for the wider Gulf. I just don't think it's very likely to happen.
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Fear Of Iran And Public Backlash Stall Trump's Push For Abraham AccordsThere is no love lost between Netanyahu and his government and the Gulf states. Israel also has elections in October. From their perspective, it's only a short wait to see what happens to Netanyahu before agreeing to something that might actually strengthen his chances of staying in power. It genuinely perplexes me why observers don't spend more time looking at timing and sequencing when it's such a key part of these negotiations.
RFE/RL: How are Gulf leaders viewing Washington's approach?
Fordham: I think they are increasingly minded to put their own national interests first. They probably feel something between disappointment and betrayal with the White House. Remember, they gave a lot of support to this administration and promised a lot of inward investment that hasn't materialized. They haven't made those investments. They've also seen how the US treats allies.
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Senior UAE Official To RFE/RL: Restart Of Iran War Would Be 'Catastrophic'Let's not forget that the way Washington has treated its historic allies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific has not gone unnoticed. It suggests that perhaps the US has a short memory and can be a fair-weather friend.
RFE/RL: Finally, what lessons are China and Russia taking from this crisis?
Fordham: There's both a near-term and a medium-term impact for China and Russia. If we look at the optics around Trump's state visit to China and the language that has emerged from statements by China's Ministry of State Security, the wording suggested a view that there is some kind of parity in the US-China relationship and used the language of peers. You could say that is a way of testing the US response. Does Washington lash out and say, "We're not peers; we're still the world's preeminent superpower?" But Trump himself seems comfortable in certain ways with the idea of a G2 relationship and has used that term himself.
None of these calculations happen in a vacuum. China worries that if the United States retreats to its own sphere of influence, while that might appear positive because it creates more room for maneuver in the region, South Korea and Japan could decide they can no longer rely on Washington's security umbrella and develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent. China does not want things to get that acute. There's a whole ripple effect of considerations that come out of this. I call it the geopolitical butterfly effect.
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China Prioritizes Regime Survival In Iran, Analyst Ken Moriyasu SaysDoes Russia like the United States being tied down in the Middle East? It definitely doesn't. Iran and Syria are long-standing allies for Russia. Russia has already lost the use of its port in the Syrian city of Tartus, and now its ally in Iran is under attack. To make matters worse, Ukraine has been able to use the know-how it developed during the war with Russia -- having been on the receiving end of Iranian Shahed drones -- and export that knowledge elsewhere in the Gulf, strengthening its own position.
In terms of a constellation of geostrategic factors, we've got a lot of feedback loops going on. There has also been evidence suggesting that Russia has been sharing location and targeting intelligence with Iran regarding US assets. That's remarkable, and we haven't yet heard a response from the White House, even though those reports have appeared in the press.
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)