Talks, ceasefire in peril as Trump grapples with Iran’s new sheriffs in town

Of all Donald Trump’s instincts, perhaps his keenest is leverage. He knows how to use the power gifted to him – whether it be America’s economic size or military strength – to heap pressure on friends and adversaries.

The military campaign in Iran has been about maximising leverage ahead of a deal: essentially, bombing them into submission, and then negotiating with whoever’s left.

Trump entertained the idea of regime change. He told the Iranian people that when the bombs stopped falling, Tehran would be theirs for the taking. But that quickly morphed into an assertion that the regime had already changed because strikes had killed so many former leaders.

The new people, Trump said repeatedly, were much more moderate, more reasonable, “sharper” and “smarter”. They were the type of people he could cut a deal with.

Now, amid a strained ceasefire agreement and confusion in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump is learning that with Iran, it’s not quite that simple.

In Islamabad, Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are dealing with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

Araghchi and Ghalibaf are the “friendly faces” of the regime, the politicians whose English-language jibes at Trump on social media – often about increasing oil prices – appeal to Trump-haters in the US and abroad. But there has always been a question mark over their actual power, and their capacity to make a deal at the table.

Vance said this became evident in the Islamabad talks – it seemed the Iranian negotiators lacked authority and had to go back to Tehran to get approval “either from the supreme leader or somebody else”.

That “somebody else” almost certainly includes leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the supreme leader’s militia.

On Sunday (US time), the Institute for the Study of War said IRGC commander Major General Ahmad Vahidi and members of his inner circle had “likely secured at least temporary control over not only Iran’s military response in this conflict, but also Iran’s negotiating position and approach within the past 48 hours”.

It was the IRGC Navy that fired upon several commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, and declared no ships would pass. That reversed Araghchi’s April 17 statement that the strait would reopen for the duration of the ceasefire.

Vahidi is a hardline IRGC lifer who once led the special ops Quds Force and served as Iran’s defence minister. He has been wanted by Interpol since 2007 over his alleged role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina that killed 85.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, the IRGC’s recent muscle-flexing is intended to be “an internal demonstration of power designed to exhibit the IRGC’s control within the regime, and in particular, its control over Iran’s negotiations policy”.

It seems Trump – who only 48 hours ago was heralding an all-but-done-deal with the Iranians – is now aware of the unfolding power struggle in Tehran. He told Fox News on Sunday (US time) that there was a battle between “moderates” and “crazies”.

“If they don’t sign this thing, the whole country is going to get blown up,” Trump said. “We’re preparing to hit them harder than any country has ever been hit before.”

Three days from the expiration of the two-week ceasefire, the next round of talks is now in peril, with Iranian state media reporting (as of Monday morning AEST) that Iran would not participate. The IRGC-linked Tasmin News Agency said there would be no talks until the US lifted its blockade.

At the same time Trump, in rushing to finish his Iran “excursion” and placate the markets, may have overplayed his hand and surrendered his own leverage. His claims that Iran will surrender its enriched uranium and never again close the strait have likely provoked hardliners in Tehran to push back.

Vali Nasr, an Iran expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said Araghchi’s statement on reopening the strait reflected an understanding in Tehran – “likely based on what they heard from Pakistan” – that the US would reciprocate by lifting its own naval blockade.

“But Trump kept the blockade in place, and through his many tweets, suggested that Iran was surrendering on the nuclear issue,” Nasr said on X.

“This has only fed Iran’s suspicions about Trump and that Islamabad, like Geneva, is a diplomatic ruse before another military attack. The door to diplomacy is not closed, but it has now become considerably more difficult. Deliberately or not, Trump has undermined diplomacy and raised likelihood of more war.”

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