Six Months of War: Iran Drafts Its Price for Reopening Hormuz
On the war’s six-month anniversary, Iran’s top security official said Tehran is drafting formal conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz — sanctions relief, an end to the port blockade and war compensation among them — after a week of shuttle mediation by Qatar, Oman and Pakistan. Washington’s posture hardened in reply: President Trump has reportedly abandoned reviving June’s collapsed memorandum in favour of sanctioning Iran into capitulation. “We don’t want to speak to them,” he said. A further US warship is heading to the region.
Six months in, the war has settled into its true shape: not missiles but a siege, with the world’s most important oil strait as the hostage and both sides now formalising their terms like litigants. Iran writing down its price is progress of a kind — conditions can be negotiated where defiance cannot — but the reported American strategy runs the opposite way, betting that a collapsing rial and secondary sanctions will deliver what talks would not. A mediator’s diplomat says Mr Trump feels “burned” by Tehran; an ex-Mossad chief calls the sanctions a step towards regime change. Between those positions, the mediators shuttle with lists. Watch whether Iran’s conditions are published or passed quietly — public terms are harder to climb down from, for both sides.