On Saturday, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye arrived in Islamabad for a meeting with their Pakistani counterpart on the pursuit of a diplomatic end to the US-Israeli War on Iran and the Iranian retaliatory attacks on Arab Gulf countries.
Ahead of the meeting, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held a round of calls with counterparts from countries, in and out of the region, who are involved in promoting an end to the war that started on 28 February and has since prompted instability in the Arab Gulf region and economic alert worldwide.
According to an Egyptian official who spoke on Saturday evening, the talks will not discuss a truce deal. This, he explained, is still a remote objective. What is at stake now is to get the parties involved, particularly Iran and the US, to agree to suspend military action pending a diplomatic process “that might take weeks before it actually produces a final ceasefire."
The official confirmed “the essence of the leaks” on the 15 American conditions and the 5 Iranian conditions for a ceasefire, but said these were the initial negotiating positions and that the three key mediators are there to try and draft a basis for “indirect negotiations” between the US and Iran.
If an agreement is reached to launch these negotiations, he explained, the US would negotiate on Israel's behalf, with close consultations between Washington and Tel Aviv.
He added that the “challenge now is to get the two sides to agree on a base for the start of negotiations in view of the very far apart positions of the two sides,” as expressed in their list of conditions.
In essence the US wants Iran to agree to a full and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear facilities, to surrender its stockpile of enriched uranium, to allow for an unconditional IAEA inspection, to put a cap on the operation of and support to all Iran-affiliated groups, to put a cap on the advancement of its missile capabilities and to commit to full maritime security of the Strait of Hormuz.
In return, the US would grant Iran full sanctions relief, support for a closely monitored civil nuclear programme, and the removal of the Snapback mechanism that allows for immediate reimposition of UN sanctions.
For its part, Iran demanded an immediate end to military hostilities and guarantees against further military attacks, an end to hostilities against all its affiliated groups, reparations for damages, and acknowledgement of Tehran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.
So far, both sides have rejected one another's core demands. According to diplomats with experience on the Iran file, some elements of the US demands are simply not going to fly with Tehran, especially since the influential figures who were willing to walk the path of negotiations were all eliminated in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran throughout the past month.
According to one of the diplomats, today, no one in Iran would agree to the core of the 15 points put forward by the US, especially since they are coming along with enough clear signs of a planned amphibious operation and also with an attempt to put Iran under more dramatic UN sanctions through the UN.
He added that if Iran were to bow to these 15 points, this “will simply be perceived as an act of surrender and there is no way, literally no way, that the Iranians would agree to this – not after the damage they have sustained, not just during this war but also during the previous war."
In the summer of last year, Israel started a war on Iran, targeting nuclear and military capacities and experts. The US joined the attack at the far end of the 12-day war to target heavily protected underground Iranian nuclear facilities.
“There was a diplomatic process that was initiated after this war and a deal was possible but [US President Donald] Trump decided to go along with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and start a new and much more aggressive war,” another diplomat said.
He added that the current war has not just been very damaging but has also crossed the key redlines for the Iranians, especially with the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top figures of the Iranian leadership.
“There were things that the Iranians could have agreed to before the current war started but they would no longer agree to,” he stated.
According to the Egyptian official, the objective of the three-country mediation (Egypt, Pakistan, and Türkiye) is to get both sides to start with what would be agreed on first and then move to the more difficult points.
He added that if the Iranians felt they would get a decent deal that they could sell as a new version of the JCPOA, then a deal could be delivered. He, however, acknowledged that this is a very challenging task, especially concerning the Israeli lobbying for a longer war that would inflict more damage to Iran.
In 2015, the US, UK, France, China, Russia, and Germany signed a deal with Iran that essentially agreed to limit the expansion of Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the end of the crippling US and international sanctions that Iran had been under for a long time.
However, in 2018, during his first term in office, Trump pulled out of the JCPOA. Initially, Iran accommodated the wishes of the European signatories to give time to reverse the US decision. Later, it decided to resume higher levels of its uranium enrichment and to limit the access of IAEA inspections.
During his term in office, Joe Biden tried but failed to negotiate the reintroduction of the JCPOA. According to a European source with expertise on the matter, there were two reasons that Biden failed. “Biden wanted to expand the deal to include Iran’s missile capabilities and this was not something that the Iranians were willing to discuss at all,” he said.
According to Wael Rabie, a senior military expert, “it is really very hard today to see a truce being delivered when the US is making such a significant amphibious military deployment in the region, with marines and troops being summoned from bases in Asia and the West Coast of the US. In Rabie, short of the highly unlikely total surrender by Iran, the US seems set on an amphibious operation that would allow for the seizure of Qeshm, Iran’s biggest island in the Strait of Hormuz. It is situated next to the harbour of the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas.
If the Americans take control of this island, Rabei argued, then they would be able to lift all constraints that have been imposed by Iran, as of the second week of the war, on the operation of the Strait of Hormuz.
Rabie added that to secure their presence in Qeshm, the Americans might need to control a segment of the coastline of Bandar Abbas. “Clearly, this is no walk in the park and clearly the Iranians will fight back,” he said.
According to Rabie, the Americans could execute this operation, but the outcome and consequences are not that straightforward. Much, he explained, would depend on the Iranian reaction – not just in the Strait of Hormuz but also elsewhere where there are groups who are allied with Tehran.
Rabaei said that the decision of the Houthis, in Yemen, to execute their first missile attack on Israel, on Saturday, in parallel with the increasing signs of an amphibious operation, “is a clear message that the Iranians are going to use every card they have."
Two diplomatic sources, in the Gulf and in the US, agreed with Rabaei’s assessment that an amphibious operation on the island of Qeshm is in the works.
One of the sources went as far as saying that it is almost certain that the operation will happen and might be followed by another operation to take control of the Iranian island, northwest of the Strait of Hormuz. Khark is the island that provides 90 per cent of Iran’s oil products.
If this happened, he said, then it should not at all be unexpected that Iran will see that all red lines have been crossed, and then it could get the Houthis to close Bab al-Mandab, the strait situated between Yemen, Djibouti, and Eritrea. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, and then to the Indian Ocean. It is the primary passage for ships moving from the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal.
None of the sources who spoke to Al-Ahram Online had any firm estimate for a timeline towards the end of the war if the amphibious operation is executed. Only one of five sources said it could be between two and three weeks. However, he said that “this is a very rough estimate and much depends on what Iran is capable of, especially in terms of killing American soldiers”.
All sources agreed that Trump’s eyes are now mostly focused on the midterm Congressional elections in November this year. According to the diplomat in the US, “Trumps wants to end the war with a major victory claim after taking control of the operation of the Strait of Hormuz”. “What might happen on the ground might and might not allow for such a victory claim,” he added.
Meanwhile, an Arab diplomatic source said that the Arab Gulf countries are being directly involved in the consultations that are currently taking place in Pakistan. “The participation of the Saudi foreign minister in the meeting of the three mediators is specifically designed to put in the Arab Gulf perspective,” he said.
He added that the Arab Gulf countries are determined to get confirmations on a security regime that will spare them from coming under such Iranian strikes in the future, in case of any confrontation between Iran and the US or Iran and Israel.
On mid-day Sunday, Arab foreign ministers were scheduled for a video conference meeting, with a single item agenda: the Iranian aggression on the Arab Gulf countries. The Arab diplomat said that in the meeting, the Arab Gulf countries will table some very firm positions on what they expect of Iran in terms of non-aggression commitments for the future.
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