As of now, no one with perhaps the exception of US President Donald Trump knows what the outlines of a deal are with Iran. The chief concern in many quarters is of Washington shifting its focus from Tehran’s nuclear programme to a governing mechanism for the Straits of Hormuz, which was not in the picture at all when Israel and the US started their operations on February 28.
From “imminent” to “in the near future” are the words on the peace deal which has raised the eyebrows of even Trump’s hawkish allies on Capitol Hill and his loyal base.
Gleaning from what has been put out in American media and attributed to ‘officials’ and ‘sources’, Washington and Tehran are on the verge of a breakthrough. The issues are: ending hostilities, the gradual opening of the Strait of Hormuz, unfreezing of Iranian assets and the country allowed to sell its oil, a commitment by Tehran not to pursue nuclear weapons; and talks for handing over some 900 pounds of enriched uranium.
But hardliners in Washington, including on Capitol Hill, are saying that the Trump administration is rushing into a so-called memorandum after initially saying that it had all the time. In other words, Washington is seen as “cutting and running”.
Blurred objectives
The problem for Trump is that he was already under pressure in his party and outside for having gone into Iran with a set of blurred objectives that till date have not been outlined. The Iran operations started with the original purpose of blunting the nuclear weapons programme, but soon got into the regime change mode. And now hardliners, who have never been comfortable with Tehran’s posturing on its nuclear programme, its role in the region or propping up proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis, are appalled that the so-called deal leaves the clerics and Ayatollahs and what all they stood for very much in place.
Or as the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker put it, Trump was being “ill advised to pursue a deal that would not be worth the paper it is written on”, and that “everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught”. And an influential Republican Senator Lindsey Graham argued that a precedent of Iran controlling the Hormuz and threatening the oil infrastructure of the neighbours is “a major shift of the balance of power in the region and overtime will be a nightmare for Israel”.
The Netanyahu government has been maintaining a studied silence on the future of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme — with speculation over whether Tehran will fully abandon or postpone it for a period of between five and 20 years; and on the fate of the remaining enriched uranium. Earlier, there was the impression that the uranium stockpile will be transferred to the US; now there are questions as to whether it will be with Iran or in a third country like Russia.
Abraham Accords
Now, adding to the existing confusion is Trump maintaining that Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan should join the Abraham Accords and normalise relations with Israel as he negotiates an accord to end the war with Iran. The UAE and Bahrain have already signed the 2020 Accords. Turkey, Egypt and Jordan have relations with Israel; but many Arab nations, especially Saudi Arabia, are saying that the Abraham Accords do not have a roadmap for Palestinian statehood. Pakistan is said to have rejected the proposal. And Tel Aviv is yet to make an official response.
“Trump is trying to sell an Iran deal as an Abraham Accords sequel: good for Israel, good for the region, tough enough for Washington. But he is trading one fantasy for another — from forcing Iran to surrender to pretending a fragile deal can anchor a new Middle East order”, Ali Vaez, Iran project director of the International Crisis Group has been quoted.
The writer is a senior journalist who has reported from Washington DC on North America and UN
Published on May 27, 2026