WASHINGTON – The ball is in Tehran’s court.
President Trump is willing to give peace talks a chance but demands that Iran agree to a cease-fire, a US official told The Post, placing the next move squarely on Tehran.
“That’s the basis for any type of negotiation; it starts with a cease-fire, and it has to start with Iran,” a US official told The Post on Thursday.
Much of the difficulty in coming to a deal lies with Iran and its internal politics, where the Ayatollah’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is clashing with the civilian leaders.
On the civilian side, President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have pursued a peace deal through diplomatic channels, but the IRGC has repeatedly gone rogue, launching military strikes and insisting on control of the Strait of Hormuz.
“It’s incumbent on the Iranian leadership to get their house in order,” the US official said.
Trump has said he will give the peace talks time to come to fruition, but he’s also been clear he will order decisive military action to counter moves by Tehran: a “head for an eye” approach as described by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Case in point: Iran was hit with a heavy wave of US strikes on Wednesday night in retaliation for its attack on a US base in Jordan.
“The president has been very clear that he wants a deal done sooner rather than later. But if the Iranians are going to keep attacking ships, attacking US bases, attacking Gulf allies, then there will be a price to pay for that,” the US official said.
While the US waits for Iran to show its willingness to stand down militarily, talks continue on both sides via technical teams and international mediators.
The goal of these talks would be a sort of Memorandum of Understanding 2.0 – not quite the same as the first agreement but retaining some key elements. Trump continues to demand the Strait of Hormuz remains toll-free, opposing Iran and Oman charging fees for passage, the official said.
The IRGC, however, is showing no signs of backing down.
The IRGC “will punish the aggressor today,” the group said, adding that countries aiding the US in the conflict would also “receive a harsh response,” according to Iranian state media.
Tuesday’s surprise attack by the IRGC on Jordan came as the US was standing down its own attacks in the hopes of jumpstarting the peace talks.
US defense missiles countered the Iranian attacks toward US forces but, still, CENTCOM hit back hard, striking targets across Iran, including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, and defense sites.
The strikes were aimed at further degrading threats from Iran and its proxies to US forces, commercial shipping and neighboring Gulf states, the US military command said.
Trump retaliated, vowing to “beat the f–king s–t out of” Iran.
“We’ll be hitting them hard,” Trump told Fox News chief foreign affairs correspondent Trey Yingst in a brief interview early Wednesday. “They’re going to get a beating.”
Still, despite the plans for additional retaliation, Trump later said that negotiations with Iran will continue, saying “we’re going to let them keep talking.”
