“Don’t rush me.”
Three words. Spoken from the Oval Office, directed at reporters pressing the President for a timeline on the Iran war. Nobody in that room quite knew what to do with it.
The ceasefire clock has been reset more than once. The deadlines have moved. And yet the blockade holds, the Navy is still in the Gulf of Oman, and Tehran still hasn’t shown up at the table with anything worth signing.
Something is working. The question is whether Washington has the patience to let it.
A Fractured Regime and a Stalled Clock
President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would extend its ceasefire with Iran, hours before the two-week agreement was set to expire. But the extension didn’t come from a position of weakness. Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asked the U.S. to “hold our attack on the country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.” Trump obliged — not because Iran earned it, but because the regime on the other side of this negotiation is visibly falling apart at the seams.
Trump claimed his decision was “based on the fact that the government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so.” And the evidence backs him up. Ali Larijani had the authority and political weight to hold Iran’s decision-making together. His replacement, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr — whose job is to coordinate between the IRGC, civilian leadership and the supreme leader — is not effective, a U.S. official said.
That’s not a negotiating partner. That’s a cabal of IRGC generals playing musical chairs while American warships sit on their doorstep.
The last 48 hours have been extremely frustrating for the White House — particularly for Vice President Vance, who had his suitcases packed for Islamabad to lead a second round of peace talks. Instead, he found himself waiting for the IRGC generals now in control of Iran to let parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Araghchi travel to Pakistan to meet him. Air Force Two sat for hours on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, ready to depart — until it became clear the trip wasn’t happening.
What Trump Actually Demanded — And Got
Let’s be straight about what this president has already accomplished. To end the war, the U.S. is seeking a complete shutdown of Iran’s nuclear programme as well as limits on its missile production and its support for regional allies, including Hezbollah and Hamas. Those aren’t talking points — those are red lines drawn in ink, not pencil, and Tehran knows it.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared: “The United States has never been closer to a good deal with Iran, unlike the horrible deal made by the Obama Administration, thanks to President Trump’s negotiating ability.” And she’s not wrong to say it. The framework being discussed right now would have been unthinkable three years ago.
Trump said Thursday that he was making a “moral request” of Iran when he asked authorities not to execute eight women protesters as part of ongoing negotiations. “Eight young women were going to be executed yesterday afternoon, at 6:00, and I asked them — call it a favor, or call it just a moral request — that they not be executed. And they came back with an answer that they won’t be executed,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. That’s leverage. That’s what it looks like when the other side respects the man across the table.
But here’s the thing that doesn’t fit neatly into the victory lap: nearly a month into negotiations, there remains little evidence Iranian officials have ever offered major concessions. The administration’s allies on the Hill have noticed.
Tehran’s Faction Plays Games While the Strait Stays Shut
On Monday evening, the Iranians appeared to have given Pakistani mediators the green light for talks. By Tuesday morning, that signal was gone, replaced by a demand that the U.S. lift its naval blockade. That’s not diplomacy. That’s a stall tactic dressed up in diplomatic language, and the Trump team didn’t fall for it.
Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, told state television that “no final decision” had been made on whether Iran will attend talks, citing the uncertainty was due to “contradictory messages” from Washington. “The reason for this is not indecision; it is the contradictory messages, contradictory behaviors, and unacceptable actions of the American side,” he complained. Classic deflection. Iran’s regime has been running that playbook since 1979.
The U.S. Navy seized an Iranian ship in the Gulf of Oman over the weekend after it attempted to bypass the U.S. blockade. Iran argues both acts — the seizing of the cargo ship and the blockade itself — are violations of the ceasefire. Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Today, an Iranian-flagged cargo ship named TOUSKA, nearly 900 feet long and weighing almost as much as an aircraft carrier, tried to get past our Naval Blockade, and it did not go well for them.”
And the blockade isn’t going anywhere. Pentagon officials briefed lawmakers this week on an intelligence assessment that found it could take up to six months to fully clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines after the war with Iran ends. Six months. That’s not a crisis — that’s a commitment, and it signals that the U.S. military posture here is built for the long game whether Tehran likes it or not.
Congress Watches, Senate Leadership Hedges
Back in Washington, the president’s supporters on the Hill are largely holding the line, even as the timeline stretches. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump’s involvement in Israel-Lebanon mediation “made it possible” for the ceasefire in Lebanon to be extended. “The president wanted to be personally involved and glad he was, because it made it possible to get this extension,” Rubio said Thursday in the Oval Office.
But not everyone in the Capitol is content to wait indefinitely. Senators Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski have indicated they are open to backing a vote on authorizing military force once the conflict hits the 60-day mark, and Senate GOP leadership has not ruled out taking that step after 90 days. However, when asked about an authorizing vote, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters, “I don’t see that happening just yet.” Thune’s hesitation may be strategic patience, or it may be something less comfortable than that.
One U.S. source close to Trump said, “It certainly looks like Trump doesn’t want to use military force anymore and has made a decision to end the war.” And maybe that’s exactly right. Maybe the bombs-and-blockades phase of this thing has run its course and the real pressure now is economic and diplomatic. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “They can’t even pay their own people as a result of this economic leverage that President Trump has inflicted over them.”
Iran’s fractured faction of hardliners is running out of room. The Pakistani intermediaries are still on the phone. And the President of the United States is telling reporters not to rush him — which, given everything that’s happened in the last eight weeks, might just be the most honest thing anyone in this whole ordeal has said out loud.