Iran may appear weakened, to an extent it is.
But it is still-standing firm and has also tightened control over the Strait of Hormuz.
On Pakistan mediating US-Iran peace talks, British Political Commentator & Writer David Vance says,
"... The fact that Pakistan, which I consider to be a terrorist state, somehow positioned itself as a neutral arbitrator.
I find that very strange. If they wanted to have a neutral arbitrator, it could have been India... I'm very distrustful of these talks. It's being held in the wrong place and on the wrong principles... What can even be a positive outcome?... Is it just to say, let's have a form of peace and abandon the Iranian people who rose and were slaughtered in their thousands?
Is that a positive outcome?... Also, just as it legitimises Pakistan, which shouldn't be legitimised in my view anyway, it also gives Iran credibility, which it shouldn't have.
The Iranian machine has been smashed into a thousand pieces over the past five weeks, but now Iran is suddenly holding global oil to ransom, and the Americans want to negotiate. I don't think they should be negotiating...".
US President Donald Trump posts on Truth Social, "Massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers, some of the largest anywhere in the World, are heading, right now, to the United States to load up with the best and “sweetest” oil (and gas!) anywhere in the World. We have more oil than the next two largest oil economies combined - and higher quality...".
Not for the first time, Donald Trump had disregarded Iran’s history of resilience. As the late Iranian essayist Bastani Parizi once wrote:
“Sometimes the fate of this kingdom hangs by a hair, but that hair does not break.”
Trump likes to portray Europe as being under civilisational threat from migration, but this week he threatened that a 7,000-year-old civilisation would “die … never to be brought back” if it did not comply with his demands.
"He swiftly discovered it was not a threat on which he could follow through, and had to be extricated from it in a rescue mission led by Pakistan and, ignominiously for him, China. He pulled back in a social media post issued just 88 minutes before the implied destruction of Iran," ran an article in 'The Guardian'.
Faced by Iran’s refusal to back down, symbolised by millions of Iranians volunteering to stand on the bridges of their homeland, a late-night White House scramble ensued to find a justification to bring his latest piece of brinkmanship to a semi-dignified end before his ghoulish deadline.
Poor Vance and his Mission:
Vance's diplomatic mission to Islamabad is a political minefield. To make progress in reaching a permanent agreement to end the war, he will have to satisfy several stakeholders with competing interests, and who all distrust each other after a six-week military campaign that has engulfed the Middle East and roiled the global economy.
Conflicts within a Large Conflict:
Israel is still an US ally but that is very wary of a region-wide ceasefire.
US allies in Europe opposed the war and have been reluctant to come to America's aid in reopening the Strait.
Iran may appear weakened, to an extent it is.
But it is still-standing firm and has also tightened control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Vance will also face pressure to somehow satisfy Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) base. Many are opposed to interventions abroad.
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