Brett McGurk is a NCS international affairs analyst who served in senior nationwide safety positions beneath Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
As President Donald Trump searches for a approach to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Washington and Tehran seem like engaged in a normal negotiation.
In actuality, they might be collaborating in two completely totally different ones.
Washington tends to view negotiations with Iran by way of the lens of energy. Tehran views them by way of the lens of possession.
Washington goals to drive Iran to succumb to calls for by way of financial strain and sanctions. Tehran goals to drive the US to succumb after buying one thing invaluable and refusing to provide it again.
I realized that lesson firsthand.
Twice during the last decade, I used to be concerned in protracted negotiations with Iran for the discharge of American hostages held in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison.
Hostage negotiations collapse energy benefits. Iran understands this. It’s why Tehran, because the 1979 revolution, has repeatedly used hostages as bargaining chips with the US.
As a diplomat representing probably the most highly effective nation on this planet, there was nothing in my hand to beat the imbalance on the desk. My counterparts possessed one thing we wished (folks), and they might maintain onto it till we had been ready to pay a adequate worth.
Power mattered lower than possession.
Short of a hostage rescue operation, there was nothing Washington might do exterior of paying an agreed worth.
Time favored the Iranians. They felt little urgency. Their technique was to attend as hostages suffered and strain mounted on Washington to safe their freedom.
In this fashion, Iran’s leverage elevated over time — and so they knew it.
In September 2023, the US struck a deal with Iran for the discharge of 5 Americans wrongfully held in Evin Prison. The talks had lasted months. The breakthrough got here after the US agreed to free a number of Iranians held — after due course of and convictions — in American prisons along with the switch of $6 billion from South Korea to Qatar.
The $6 billion was held in restricted accounts accessible to Iran just for non-sanctioned humanitarian transactions. Iran insisted the funds transfer from Seoul to Doha, the place they might be simpler to entry. As a part of the deal, the US established oversight mechanisms by way of the Treasury Department to make sure no diversion and spending solely on non-sanctioned items.
As a part of the staff that coordinated this complicated association, I defined its deserves on the time in an interview with Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian. Jason was one other former hostage whom we managed to let loose 10 years earlier after a yr of protracted talks.
Three weeks later, on October 7, 2023, Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 251 hostages. Iran’s supreme chief publicly praised the assaults as they had been unfolding. Washington responded by denying entry to the Qatar funds as soon as once more, a establishment that continues to be to today.
Today, Iran seems to be making use of an analogous logic on a a lot bigger scale. Its hostage is not an American citizen. It is among the world’s most necessary financial arteries.
The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly one-fifth of world petroleum commerce. Iran is successfully controlling it by way of threats and use of drive — missiles and drones — and institution of what it says is a brand new Iranian-led authority to meter entry out and in.
For Iran, that is possession. It now has one thing the US (and for that matter, the remainder of the world) desires. And it is not going to give it up except and till America pays an exorbitant worth. In Tehran’s eyes, the strait has now grow to be probably the most invaluable hostage it has ever possessed.
All of this was introduced residence by NCS’s Fred Pleitgen’s extraordinary interview with Mohsen Rezaei, navy adviser to Iran’s new supreme chief. The interview gave me chills as a result of it introduced flashbacks to sitting throughout from Iran’s safety officers in a hostage negotiation.
Rezaei said the strait stays shut except and till Washington releases $24 billion in frozen Iranian belongings. “You must release them,” he mentioned. “If Trump takes the negotiation seriously … this $24 billion is a test of trust. It’s a test America must pass.”
His components is straightforward: Give us the cash otherwise you don’t get what you need — and what we possess. The sum Rezaei is demanding consists of the $6 billion on the middle of the 2023 hostage deal. This is revealing. For Iran, the present talks seem like one other hostage negotiation — besides this time, the hostage is the worldwide financial system, and the opening demand is 4 instances bigger.
The administration has tried to reverse Iran’s leverage by way of financial strain of its personal. By stopping Iranian oil exports by way of a blockade of Iran’s ports, Trump has sought to create prices that outweigh no matter advantages Tehran believes it would derive from a chronic standoff.
The technique is logical. The financial affect inside Iran will compound over the next weeks and months. By most indicators, the nation is on the verge of an financial collapse with hyper-inflation and lack of billions of {dollars} in revenues wanted to pay authorities salaries.
But financial ache and the struggling of Iran’s folks doubtless gained’t transfer the brand new leaders in Tehran. Rezaei represents the hardcore of the Islamic Republic, and his worldview now seems to be ascendent in Tehran — along with Ahmad Vahidi, the brand new head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which purports to manage entry to the strait. These are the leaders now calling the pictures (actually).
On Sunday, Iran launched its first missile attack targeting Israel since an early April ceasefire, marking a contemporary escalation after weeks of negotiations.
Tehran believes that Trump can not stand up to the macroeconomic strain imposed on the world longer than Iran can stand up to strain from the US blockade. Trump’s repeated predictions {that a} deal is close to might solely reinforce Iran’s perception that Trump wants an settlement way more urgently than Tehran does.
Militarily, the US may nonetheless search to impose its management and safe the worldwide route by way of the strait. This was tried in “Project Freedom,” which lasted solely sooner or later. It could be tried once more — Trump has speculated about “Project Freedom Plus” — however Iran is threatening to battle again even when the US blockade merely stays in place.
As Rezaei said on NCS: “If the naval blockade is not lifted, we will drag the war to the Indian Ocean, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.”
In different phrases, if you happen to attempt to battle us, we’ll take extra hostages. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait controls practically 10% of all seaborne commerce.
This is why the talks are caught and there’s no breakthrough in sight.
The query in Washington is when a deal could be concluded following exchanges of texts by way of mediators. The query in Tehran is just whether or not Trump can pay the worth they are demanding.
It’s the traditional dynamic of a hostage negotiation.
For Washington, the three choices stay what they’ve been for weeks:
Endure: Seek to outlast the macro strain and rising gasoline costs as financial ache compounds inside Tehran to some distant and unsure breaking level.
Concede: Pay the up-front price with billions to Iran in trade for a return to establishment earlier than the conflict — a humiliating retreat for Trump given the said aims on the outset.
Fight: Seek to manage the strait militarily and renew main operations inside Iran, with danger that Tehran then seeks to broaden the conflict to different fronts.
For Tehran, the calculation is easier: maintain the asset and wait.
This is the dilemma of negotiating with a celebration that possesses what you need again.
Unless and till the leverage modifications, Iran is not going to give up it cheaply — and talks will stay as in the present day: deadlocked.