Planeloads of negotiators and too little time: US and Iran’s 21 hours of talks

It was as if the two delegations in the Iran-US peace talks in Islamabad hoped that the sheer number of negotiators flown into Pakistan could overcome the handicap of having only a finite number of hours in which to settle a 20-year dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, now overlaid by complex new issues such as future control of the Strait of Hormuz and US compensation for its attack on Iran.Iran sent two planeloads of negotiators. They included many members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), present to ensure that no gains made in the field were relinquished at the diplomatic table. Diplomats fanned out across political, legal, security, economic and military files. One Iranian-drafted technical explanation on nuclear facility safety ran to more than 100 pages.The US, often accused of leaving talks to the “noteless” special envoy Steve Witkoff, sent not just the vice-president, JD Vance, but nearly 300 other officials. It was if it finally realised that the Iranian negotiating team, including figures such as Ali Bagheri Kani, the deputy secretary of the supreme national security council and the chief negotiator in previous nuclear talks, and Abbas Araghchi, the chief negotiator in 2015 and now the foreign minister, might be on top of their brief.Vance spoke to Donald Trump at least a dozen times during the talks, and even once to Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, a conversation Araghchi was quick to claim led to a hardening of the US position. But it was probably unrealistic to expect issues that took up two years of negotiations in Vienna between 2013 and 2015 over the nuclear deal to be resolved in one marathon session.Robert Malley, a veteran of nuclear talks with Iran under Joe Biden, noted pithily: “Twenty-one hours was 20 hours too many if the goal was to reiterate a demand Iran had already rejected. It was many hours too few if the goal was to negotiate.”Another US state department veteran, Aaron David Miller, noted if the administration believed that after only 21 hours of negotiations Iran would give up enrichment – which is what Vance implied – it totally misread the moment and the Iranian delegation.In that context, it was unfortunate that Vance spoke of coming to Islamabad to see “if we could get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms”. The former Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, a brave advocate of talks with the US even in wartime, was not the only Iranian to claim this sentence revealed an unchanging US take-it-or-leave-it arrogance. “No negotiations at least with Iran will succeed based on our/your terms,” he said. “The US must learn: you cannot dictate terms to Iran. It’s not too late to learn. Yet.”But that raises questions of whether the talks process is now complete or continuing, and what the two sides were trying to achieve in a weekend in Islamabad. On the first question, Pakistan, the host for the talks and mediator, is pleading with both sides not to close the door on diplomacy and resume fighting. Israel’s energy minister, Eli Cohen, by contrast is claiming the lack of an agreement means it is possible to attack Iran.Vance was more nuanced. “We leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our best and final offer. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,” he said, implying a continuing conversation.Trump’s stated plan in the interim is to mount a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, trying to grab hold of Iran’s best negotiating card, to prevent Iranian oil being exported. Such a move, as many Iranian diplomats point out, may only add upwards pressure on the price of oil.As to what the two sides were trying to achieve in 21 hours of diplomacy, at one level they turned up to test one another’s resolve after close to 40 days of fighting. Prior to the talks, Iran buckled a little in that it did not secure the full ceasefire in Lebanon it had demanded, nor receive the release of its frozen assets, before meeting Vance. Netanyahu has instead agreed to hold direct talks with Lebanon on Tuesday, for the first time in 30 years.The Iranian aim was to draft a memorandum of understanding before finalising a peace agreement over a period lasting longer than two weeks, implying that the fortnight-long ceasefire would be extended.The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei admitted the timeframe in Islamabad meant no outline agreement had been likely to be reached, and spoke of two or three issues that remained outstanding. These issues are not technical but fundamental: Israel ending its offensive in Lebanon; a protocol for the future governance of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz; and the future of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile, including whether it would be sufficient for Iran to downblend the uranium under the tight supervision of the UN nuclear inspectorate inside Iran, or instead that it has to be exported to a third country such as Russia.On the subject of Iran’s right to enrich uranium domestically, Vance said: “The simple fact is that we need an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon and they will not seek the tools that will enable them quickly to achieve a nuclear weapon.”The qualifying adverb “quickly” may be significant since under one interpretation enrichment at 3.67% purity – the maximum purity level set in Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal – leaves Iran a long way from nuclear weapon-grade purity. Iran’s practical capacity to enrich uranium is currently zero due to previous US attacks on its nuclear sites, so the debate about the right to enrich is largely theoretical and one of national sovereignty.What is less theoretical is the immediate future of the Strait of Hormuz, the poison pill handed to the world by the Trump team’s inability to imagine Iran’s response to an attack that it said would last a few days.At the moment, Iran is picking and choosing the nationality of the ships going through the strait. On Saturday, according to Tanker Tracker, 2m barrels of Iraqi oil and 4m barrels of Saudi oil went through the strait. Ad hoc permissions, on a grace-and-favour basis, may give Iran a new economic and diplomatic weapon but it is not a sustainable basis on which to conduct global trade. For one thing, Iran simply does not have the administrative apparatus to impose selective tariffs or police the strait, something it would have to do in conjunction with Oman, on the other side of the strait.But it is hard for Iran to give up its new weapon since it has been the source of its salvation in this war. Mohammad Taghi Naghdali, a member of the Iranian parliament, said: “The Strait of Hormuz is something beyond the atomic bomb for us, an atomic bomb that operates continuously on a global level and demonstrates the strategic depth of the Islamic republic.” He said the options were a return to war or keeping the bone stuck in the throat of the world.Iran’s deep problems have not evaporated. Inflation is heading for three figures. A way has to be found to lift the internet blackout or businesses will fold and civil society will lose patience. The country remains cut off and its leadership under threat of assassination at any point. Surviving for Iran so far is a stunning achievement, but survival, like patriotism, may not be enough.