Trump’s social media sabre-rattling won’t get Iranians to the negotiating table

Overlaid with tinkling music, the latest artificial intelligence offering shared by an Iranian diplomatic mission shows a furious Donald Trump at the negotiating table. “If Iran doesn’t come to negotiate we’re going to bomb them,” he fumes, to the sound of crickets chirping. When he declares a ceasefire extension “at Pakistan’s request,” a laughter track plays.

The AI-generated video was an obvious fake, but unfortunately for Trump it hit on a very real problem he is facing: his threats to bomb Iran into submission if they decline to return to the negotiating table are not working.

Not only is the Strait of Hormuz still closed, but the American blockade on Iranian ports has not caused Tehran to capitulate. Instead Iranian forces escalated by attacking three civilian ships, claiming to seize two. Tehran released real-life drone footage, set to dramatic music, showing masked naval forces boarding a civilian cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Trump has not been able to get what he wants, therefore he constantly escalates in the hope that the Iranians will eventually be subdued,” said Ali Vaez, head of the International Crisis Group’s Iran project. “This is why Trump is stuck, he’s constantly thinking about one more tool of escalation that would eventually, magically, conjure the kind of victory he has in mind.”

The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to project the idea that Trump is in control of the extended ceasefire. “Ultimately, he will dictate the timetable,” she told reporters. “He is satisfied with the naval blockade, and he understands that Iran is in a very weak position, and the cards are in president Trump’s hands right now.”

The situation in the strait and the empty negotiating tables in Islamabad suggest otherwise.

The US military released slick footage of Marines descending from a helicopter onto the deck of an Iranian ship earlier this week and claimed the blockade has so far forced more than 30 ships to turn around. Despite the American military push, data from the shipping analysis firm Vortexa shows Iranian ships are simply turning off their tracking signal to make it through the strait: 34 tankers transited this way, even though the US stopped six outbound transits carrying an estimated 10.7m barrels of Iranian crude oil.

Lloyds List, another shipping analysis outlet, said “there are signs of disruption to Iran's shadow fleet operation,” but vessel-tracking still shows 10 tankers headed towards the Persian Gulf.

Dina Esfandiary, Middle East expert at the think-tank Bloomberg Economics, said the US’s “leaky blockade” limits Washington’s ability to extract economic pain from Tehran by blocking oil exports. “Iran has managed to get at least nine million barrels of oil out since the blockade – it’s quite a significant amount, not as much as before but it offsets their losses,” she said. “What is happening in the strait is a new phase: we have no hot war but also no peace. It feels like Trump is trying to wriggle out of it, but this new state of affairs in the Strait of Hormuz is likely to last.”

Tehran can refuse Washington’s timetable for negotiations. Even as military planners from 30 countries gathered in Britain to discuss how to safeguard shipping in the strait once a ceasefire holds, Tehran wants to show it can keep control of the waterway for the foreseeable future.

“The only way to get Iran to open up the strait willingly is through incentives – that means lifting sanctions and ending the war,” said Esfandiary. Iran has discovered the power it holds by controlling the strait – meaning even if it opts to open it, the international community may have to learn to live with the risk Tehran could decide to close it in future. “There is nothing the international community can give Iran for them to say they won’t ever close the strait again,” she said.

Photograph by AFP via Getty Images