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Trump seeks new course in Iran after ceasefire retreat

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by Laura Kelly and Mallory Wilson - 04/22/26 7:29 PM ET

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by Laura Kelly and Mallory Wilson - 04/22/26 7:29 PM ET

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President Trump has moved into an apparent holding pattern after his latest diplomatic retreat in the stalemate with Iran, trying to find an off-ramp to the war that would allow him to claim victory.

Trump unilaterally extended a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday, after backing down from his threats to bomb Iran’s civilization into oblivion earlier this month — both times at the request of Pakistan, which is mediating talks.

Trump’s attempts to strangle Iran’s economy with a naval blockade have yet to pay dividends at the negotiating table.

The U.S. has narrowed its war aims to ensuring that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon, a vague goal the administration has left open to interpretation.

“I don’t think the Iranians will end their nuclear program. Anybody who’s calling for that is basically calling for war, until the place, you know, is occupied essentially by the United States,” said Alex Vatanka, senior fellow and the founding director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute.

However, he said that Iran is “evidently” more willing to “provide more reassurances than they ever did to Obama” in 2015.

Those assurances have not been enough to satisfy Trump so far, as he seeks to strike a deal that is demonstrably better than the one he ended in 2018.

Iran retains a significant stockpile of highly enriched uranium, the fuel needed for a nuclear weapon, and seizing it will either require Iran’s consent or a ground invasion of some sort.

Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz has made the waterway a key focus of negotiations and provided Tehran important leverage in any further talks.

The White House on Wednesday projected control over the war, despite the president being snubbed by the Iranian negotiating team for a second round of talks that were planned for Wednesday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump is “generously offering a bit of flexibility to a regime who has been completely tarnished,” referring to the ceasefire extension.

“This is a battle between the pragmatists and the hard-liners in Iran right now, and the president wants a unified response,” she said.

While the Iranian regime has sent some mixed messages regarding the Strait of Hormuz in the past week, both its supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, and the official leading its negotiating team, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, are seen as closely aligned with the military.

Elisa Ewers, senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said all of Trump’s options carry significant risks.

“That’s part of the danger of where we are in an escalation cycle that is zero-sum — one side escalates with the objective of getting the other side to capitulate. When that doesn’t happen, you are faced with a choice: Muddle along as it is, scale back, or consider the next rung on the escalation ladder. All of these have costs.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian placed the blame on Trump for upending talks — saying the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, the president’s threats of violence against the country and his “breach of commitments” made negotiations untenable.

“World sees your endless hypocritical rhetoric and contradiction between claims and actions,” Pezeshkian wrote on the social platform X.

The New York Post reported Trump and Pakistani officials are pushing for talks with Iran to take place Friday.

But Leavitt also said Wednesday the president has not set a deadline for Iran to deliver a new proposal to end the war, adding that “the timeline will be dictated by the commander in chief.”

Vatanka pointed out that the nuclear deal negotiated under the Obama administration took well more than a year to be ironed out.

“It’s going to take many months this time, too, but you need to have the ceasefire in place,” he said. “You need to have the Strait of Hormuz open, you need to build trust.”

Morgan Viña, who served at the United Nations in Trump’s first term, said the Iranians have a greater ability to withstand pressure than Trump, given his promises to avoid forever wars and his party facing the midterm elections amid high gas prices.

“It is to their advantage to make this as long and as painful,” she said on the “Fault Lines” podcast on Wednesday. “But President Trump being too willing, too eager, to find an agreement here, I think that is to our detriment when it comes to finding a long-term solution.”

Pressure on the strait continued for both the U.S. and I