Donald Trump has shared a draft peace agreement for the war with Iran with allies including Israel, because nothing says 'diplomacy' like a document that's been passed around more than a joint at a Grateful Dead concert. Both sides are trying to prevent fresh breaches of the ceasefire from escalating out of control and scuppering any deal, which is diplomatic parlance for 'please don't start shooting again just yet.'
In an attempt to speed up negotiations, Pakistan's foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, will fly to Washington on Friday to meet his US counterpart, Marco Rubio. Because when you need a peace deal fast, you call in the guy from the country with nuclear weapons and a history of playing both sides.
Tehran targeted a US airbase in Kuwait on Thursday after Washington struck what it described as an Iranian drone operation near the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting the fragile situation as both sets of negotiators refuse to cede ground on final points of disagreement. Trump's Wednesday cabinet had been expected to discuss the deal, but Axios reported the US president as saying he needed a few more days to think about it. Because nothing says 'leadership' like 'I'll get back to you on that.'
The draft Trump has shared is not vastly different to the one that has been circulating across the Middle East for days, under which the Strait of Hormuz would be opened to commercial shipping, the US blockade of Iranian ports would be lifted, and Iran would be given access to as much as $12bn (£9bn) in frozen assets. The aim would be for commercial shipping in the strait to return to pre-war levels within 30 days and for negotiations envisaged to last as long as 60 days to commence on the future of Iran's nuclear programme. This would include discussions about its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, a time-limited suspension of further enrichment, and supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog. Iran would renounce the use of nuclear weapons. Because promises are cheap, and uranium is expensive.
US vice-president JD Vance said on Thursday that both parties were close to a deal, but there were a couple of sticking points in talks with Tehran concerning its enriched uranium stockpile and the question of enrichment. 'It's hard to say exactly when or if the president is going to sign the [memorandum of understanding]. We're going back and forth on a couple of language points,' Vance said. Translation: They're arguing about commas and semicolons.
China is pressing for the UN security council to ratify any agreement. Because if there's one thing the UN Security Council is known for, it's swift, decisive action.
The current scope of the agreement would be deeply unpalatable for Israel, because it defers Iran making any firm nuclear commitments and requires a permanent ceasefire to include Lebanon. So Israel gets to watch Iran keep its centrifuges spinning while Hezbollah gets a breather. What could possibly go wrong?
The draft is less specific than Tehran's version about lifting sanctions on Iran's oil and petrochemical exports. It also asserts toll-free navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is trying to negotiate an agreement with Oman separate to any memorandum of understanding that would result in fees imposed for 'navigational services.' In remarks that produced no official response from Muscat, Trump threatened on Wednesday to 'blow up' Oman if it tried to reach a deal with Tehran that included the imposition of tolls. Because nothing says 'diplomatic finesse' like threatening to bomb a country that's been a reliable US ally.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' navy issued a statement reasserting its control of the strait, saying that 26 commercial ships and oil tankers had been given permission to pass through the waterway in the past 24 hours. The IRGC said 'seeking permission is mandatory and passage through other routes will be considered as disruption.' It intervened on Wednesday night to prevent four ships trying to sail through the strait with their transponders off. It said two were stopped in place and two forced to turn back. Because the IRGC is essentially the hall monitor of the Persian Gulf.
Any skirmishes so far between the US and Iran have not stopped their indirect contact mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, but if oil tanker operators step up their efforts to pass through the strait without Iranian permission, the fragile ceasefire agreed on 8 April could collapse. Oil prices climbed 2% on Thursday morning, but remained below $100 a barrel. So the markets are nervous but not panicking. Yet.
In Moscow, Iran's deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri, reiterated the demand that frozen assets be released into Iranian bank accounts with no conditions attached. Washington has countered by imposing sanctions on Iran's nascent Persian Gulf Strait Authority set up to manage the passage of vessels through the waterway. Tehran has been trying to gain Oman's agreement to coordinate. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, threatened on Thursday to target Oman if it helped impose a toll system in the strait, warning of sanctions against any countries involved. So Oman is caught between a rock, a hard place, and a US Treasury secretary with a grudge.
As tensions grow inside Iran about the wisdom of negotiating with Trump, the country's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, told officials not to turn differences into divisions, and to make sure the parliament, which is currently closed, dealt with the public's economic concerns. Khamenei said the US and Israel were seeking to 'bring the country to its knees. The enemy's blind plan ... is to create division and destruction in order to compensate for its military defeats,' he said. Because nothing says 'supreme leader' like blaming your problems on foreign enemies while your parliament takes a nap.
Senior diplomats in Oman were reportedly shocked and furious at Trump's threat on Wednesday. Oman, seen as a western ally with a commitment to mediation in the Middle East, has been in talks with Iran over the future of the strait, but does not favour an agreement that results in tolls or heavy-handed Iranian interference in free navigation. Omani newspapers did not report Trump's threat. Because if you ignore it, maybe it will go away.
In a sign of continuing repression inside Iran, Amnesty International reported that the authorities had arrested more than 6,000 people since the US and Israel launched their offensive on 28 February, including protesters, journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders, dissidents and members of ethnic and religious minorities. So while the leaders play chess with nuclear fuel, the pawns are being swept off the board.