The US administration is eager to start talks with Iran, so eager that it has threatened Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that if he does not accept an invitation for a White House meeting with US President Donald Trump, he could face sanctions.

Flabbergasted, Zarif told reporters in Tehran that “I didn’t accept and was sanctioned.”

Zarif criticised the US sanctions against him, calling the move a “failure” for diplomacy. He told reporters that “imposing sanctions against a foreign minister means failure” in any efforts at negotiations, with the side imposing the measures “opposing the talks”. He stressed that Washington’s policy of “talking about war as an option that remains on the table cannot stand”.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the sanctions on Zarif on 31 July, days after Iran’s foreign minister visited the US for meetings at the Iranian UN mission in New York and a month after Trump had imposed similar sanctions on Iran’s supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The latter had said that Tehran would never talk to Washington with sanctions still in place.

Responding to the US decision, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani stated that if Washington wanted to open negotiations with Tehran, it must lift all sanctions against his country “before everything else”.

Rouhani repeated his famous line that “peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” Iranian state TV said Rouhani had made the comments during a meeting with Zarif on Tuesday. He had also reiterated that America’s sanctions on his country were an act of “economic terrorism.”

US officials have not confirmed Zarif’s claims about his being warned about the sanctions and the alleged invitation for talks. But US media reports say that Trump had given anti-war Republican Party senator Rand Paul his blessing to speak to Iran’s top diplomat in an effort to help reduce tensions and discuss the possibility of talks between Tehran and Washington.

The White House declined to comment, as did Paul, but neither the Trump administration nor the senator have outright rejected the reports.

During his US visit, Zarif signalled that he was open to meeting with US lawmakers to discuss potential ways to ease the tensions but did not say whether he was meeting with Paul specifically, according to the New York Times.

“I am seeing people from Congress,” Zarif said.

Meanwhile, the European Union has reiterated its commitment to the nuclear agreement with Iran, saying that an EU joint mechanism that will help Tehran mitigate the effects of the US sanctions will be ready “within weeks”.

Iran has also made the price of passage in the Gulf very costly. Britain was forced to send two warships to escort British-flag-carrying tankers after Tehran seized a British oil tanker last month in response to London’s seizure of an Iranian tanker in Gibraltar.

On Tuesday, Rouhani said “a strait for a strait. It can’t be that the Strait of Hormuz is free for you, and the Strait of Gibraltar is not free for us,” warning the UK that its oil tankers would not be safe in the Gulf if Iran tankers were not safe in Gibraltar.

With the refusal of European countries to increase their military presence in the Gulf or coordinate with Britain and the US to protect oil tankers in the region, Washington and London were left alone to coordinate their actions without the EU.

Tensions have escalated since the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers last year and imposed new and harsher sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors.

The US strategy of “maximum pressure” has failed so far to achieve its goals, which include forcing Tehran to come back to the table and negotiate a wider deal that would take in Iran’s nuclear activities, missile programme, and regional behaviour.

“Time is playing in Iran’s favour. The EU is finalising the joint mechanism to help Tehran mitigate the effects of US sanctions. If Tehran can cope with the economic pressures and US sanctions until the joint mechanism is up and running, Washington will be the biggest loser because this will prove that the strategy of maximum pressure did not achieve its goals,” a senior European diplomat told Al-Ahram Weekly.

“The strategic cost of the escalation with Iran is felt in the Trump administration, as it is felt by Britain, which has entered the quarrel with Iran without prior calculations of the consequences on its interests or its alliance with the Europeans” he said.

On Monday, Britain said it would join a US-led naval security mission in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran’s seizure of merchant vessels has raised tensions.

The US has deployed military reinforcements to the region. Britain’s ministry of defence said it “will draw largely on assets already in the region”. It said the Royal Navy would work alongside the US Navy to escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, which sits at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, a shipping channel for one-fifth of all global crude exports.

Two UK warships are currently in the region, the frigate HMS Montrose and the destroyer HMS Duncan. The Montrose is due to leave for planned repairs later this month.

Britain has been giving UK-flagged vessels in the region a naval escort since the Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized a British-flagged oil tanker last month. Some Iranian officials have suggested that the seizure of the Stena Impero was in retaliation for the seizure of an Iranian oil tanker off the British overseas territory of Gibraltar.

Last month, then UK foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt announced that the UK would join with European allies to form a “maritime protection mission” in the strait.

Hunt has since lost his job, and that effort appears to have foundered. Britain’s ministry of defence said the US and the UK hoped other countries would still join the new mission. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman James Slack said Britain was still seeking an international coalition, though he did not say who would be in it.

Britain’s statement that it would join a US-led naval security mission in the Strait of Hormuz came a day after Iran announced its forces had seized a foreign ship in the Gulf suspected of carrying smuggled fuel but providing no details on the vessel or the nationality of the crew.

It was the Revolutionary Guard’s third seizure of a vessel in recent weeks and the latest show of strength by the paramilitary force amid the spike in tensions. Referring to the seizure of the British tanker, Zarif said on Monday that it was not a reciprocal action for the seizure in Gibraltar.

Six oil tankers have also been targeted in the Gulf of Oman in unclaimed acts of sabotage that the US blames on Iran. Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks.

In June, Iran shot down an American surveillance drone in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump came close to retaliating but called off an air-strike at the last moment.

Maritime security in the region was further jolted in mid-July, when the Revolutionary Guard’s naval forces confirmed they had seized a United Arab Emirates-based oil tanker, the Panamanian-flagged MT Riah, for allegedly smuggling fuel from Iranian smugglers to foreign customers.

The European nations have distanced themselves from the US “maximum pressure” strategy on Iran. Unlike the US, they still adhere to the international nuclear deal, and they are watching how the US policy toward Iran will develop if the current one of “negotiating at gun point” fails.

The remaining options are few, and they include a deadly war in the region or a radical change in Washington’s strategy. Both are equally plausible but with profoundly different outcomes.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 August, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Negotiations at gunpoint