An extended ceasefire over Iran, but for how long?

YET again, there was a certain sense of déjà vu. A ticking clock, a threat of catastrophic war, a behind-the-scenes diplomatic scramble—and then, at the last minute, a reprieve.

On April 21st Donald Trump said that he would extend America’s two-week ceasefire with Iran, which had been due to expire within hours (its blockade of Iranian shipping remains in effect, however). This was the second time in two weeks that the American president had retreated from a threat to bomb Iran’s power plants.

A delay was necessary, he said, because Iran’s “seriously fractured” government had yet to respond to his latest proposal for ending the war. Those divisions are real. But they do not entirely explain why Iran refused to attend another round of negotiations in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, planned for this week.

The regime thinks it has the upper hand and is keen to extract concessions—in this case, the removal of America’s blockade of its ports—as a condition for simply showing up. But Mr Trump takes the opposing view: he thinks the blockade has given him the advantage, and that a cash-strapped Iran will soon fold. It is hard to end a war that both sides believe they are winning.

The ceasefire announcement capped a bewildering few days of diplomacy. On April 17th Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said the Strait of Hormuz was now “completely open”. Yet the next day the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired on ships that tried to use the waterway. Meanwhile, Mr Trump seemed unaware of the whereabouts of his lead negotiator. He said J.D. Vance was en route to Islamabad on April 20th, only for the vice-president’s motorcade to arrive at the White House hours later.

Mr Trump did not specify how long the truce would remain in effect. In practice, a formal deadline may not matter: it will hold until one side decides to break it. How long that takes will depend on how much they can tolerate the economic pain caused by their mutual blockades.

The Pentagon says it has stopped 29 ships from transiting Hormuz. It has also seized at least two Iranian vessels, one of which was in the Bay of Bengal, 5,000km away from the strait by sea. The barricade is not hermetic: Lloyd’s List, a shipping journal, believes more than two dozen Iranian ships have dodged it. Still, Iran will probably have to start cutting oil production within days as storage fills up, and a prolonged closure of its ports will drive up prices of food and other essentials.

Meanwhile, non-Iranian traffic remains at a standstill. Only one ship passed through the strait on April 21st. On April 22nd the IRGC fired at a container ship. It also seized two other vessels trying to exit the Persian Gulf. Oil markets were unimpressed with the extended ceasefire: the price of Brent crude remains around $100 a barrel. Mr Trump needs the strait open before high petrol prices sink his Republican Party in the midterms.

This is not sustainable. At some point either America or Iran will be tempted to break the deadlock by resuming the war. Yet that will only worsen the economic damage, with America bombing Iran’s infrastructure and Iran doing the same to Gulf oil-and-gas facilities. Mediators are still trying to organise another round of talks, but that will require America or Iran to relent on the issue of the blockade.

Even if they do meet, a deal is hardly certain. The first negotiation, on April 11th, ended with no agreement on key issues, such as whether Iran could continue to enrich uranium. America proposed a 20-year moratorium; Iran countered with five years. The latest proposal would start with a ten-year ban, followed by a period in which Iran could refine limited amounts of uranium to a low level of purity. They also disagree on how to dispose of Iran’s stockpile of more than 400kg of uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade.

Fearful of the consequences, Mr Trump seems loth to resume the fight. Iran, too, would prefer to avoid more destruction. Logic would suggest they find a face-saving compromise that lets them meet—but in war, logic too rarely wins out. ■