The sudden shift followed a volatile day in which US forces were reportedly hours away from launching new strikes inside Iran before Trump called off the operation and said the two sides had reached what he described as a “great deal.”
Reports by Axios, Politico and other outlets said the emerging memorandum of understanding would immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz without tolls, lift the US blockade, extend the ceasefire for 60 days, including in Lebanon, and leave detailed nuclear negotiations for a second stage.
The agreement has not been formally signed. Axios reported that it still needed final approval, while Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Tehran had not reached a final decision. Al Arabiya reported that Iran had conveyed approval of a draft through Qatari mediators.
The latest diplomatic push came after a sharp escalation in rhetoric. Trump had earlier threatened new strikes against Iran and suggested the United States could eventually take control of Kharg Island and other parts of Iran’s oil infrastructure.
For Tehran, the public response has mixed defiance with pressure tactics.
Ali Abdollahi, commander of Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned that attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure could threaten exports across the region.
“Either oil and gas exports will remain available for everyone, or they will be possible for no one,” he said, adding that Iran would respond more forcefully if US attacks continued and that “the fire of war could spread further.”
Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf also warned that US actions could destabilize the region and energy markets.
“Wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse, explode energy infrastructure and markets, and create an endless quagmire that you will be stuck in for years,” he wrote on X. “You will see a different Iran.”
Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, mocked Trump’s strategy and said military pressure would deepen Washington’s problems.
“The unhinged US president imagines that bombs can get him out of the quagmire he himself created,” Rezaei wrote. “But Iranian missiles will sink him even deeper into it.”
He added that Washington must choose between accepting Iran’s terms and losing what he called the last remains of its credibility.
Lawmaker Mojtaba Zarei said Iran had effectively moved beyond the ceasefire, saying Tehran was using its military power in three arenas: the Strait of Hormuz, the blockade front, and Lebanon and Bab al-Mandab. He said Iran would not relinquish control over Hormuz.
Iranian state media have also sought to portray the US strikes as ineffective and Trump’s threats as exaggerated. Outlets including Fars, IRNA and state broadcaster IRIB have described the attacks as aggression and a repeated violation of the ceasefire, while emphasizing reported damage to civilian infrastructure, including drinking-water reservoirs in southern Iran.
They have largely ridiculed Trump’s remarks about taking Kharg Island and Iranian oil infrastructure, describing them as delusion, adventurism or hollow threats.
Still, Iranian-linked actions and claims have continued around the edges of the ceasefire. Fox News reported that US forces shot down two Iranian one-way attack drones after an attempted strike on commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian state media also reported that the IRGC Navy had confronted what it described as a “violating” vessel near Sirik and forced an oil tanker to comply with a traffic prohibition order.
The mixed signals have left analysts divided over whether the latest exchange marks a return to war or another stage of coercive bargaining.
Hassan Hanizadeh, a foreign policy analyst, told Fararu that the US strikes appeared aimed less at launching a full-scale campaign than at restoring Washington’s initiative.
“The United States is trying to shift the psychological balance in its favor through limited military actions,” he said.
Hanizadeh argued that the likelihood of a full-scale war in the short term remains low, and that Washington is instead pursuing a war of attrition combining military pressure with economic tools.
Others in Tehran have described the strikes as part of the negotiating process itself. Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of parliament’s National Security Committee, called the military operations “the military annex to the negotiating table.”
Political analyst Hossein Ghatib argued that Washington is trying to turn the Strait of Hormuz from a geopolitical asset for Iran into a source of military, economic and diplomatic vulnerability.
He said recent attacks on coastal radars, air-defense systems, naval command centers, drone bases and missile facilities appeared designed to weaken Iran’s ability to monitor and control the waterway.
But Shahin Shahid-Saless, an international affairs analyst, argued that military pressure is unlikely to soften Tehran’s position.
“Under military pressure, no matter how powerful, the Islamic Republic will not change its position,” he wrote on X. “I would even go further and say that heavy bombing will not soften its stance; it will make it harder and less reconcilable.”
That tension now defines the moment: Washington is using military threats and a blockade to push Tehran toward a preliminary deal, while Iranian officials are threatening Hormuz, US interests and regional energy flows to raise the cost of further pressure.
Whether the emerging agreement holds may depend less on Trump’s claim that the deal is nearly done than on whether Tehran treats the current pressure as a reason to sign – or as another reason to harden its terms.
