Why the Cease-Fire With Iran Keeps Crumbling

[00:00] Hey, hold up. This is your minute, your day, to play, to make, to move, to move through, to explore. It's your body to rest, to nourish, to grow. It's your mind, you know. It's your place, your life, to love, to dream, to change. It's your world to understand. The New York Times. Find out more at nytimes.com slash yourworld. [00:31] From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. [00:44] On Monday, the U.S. and Iran exchanged attacks and increasingly fiery rhetoric for the third day in a row, leaving both sides on the verge of a full-blown return to the war. [01:01] what this new phase tells us about how difficult it will be for the war to end. [01:07] It's Tuesday, July 14. [01:14] David Sanger, welcome back to The Daily. Good to be with you, Rachel. [01:18] David, the last time we had you on the show, Iran and the United States had just reached what felt like at the time to be quite a shaky ceasefire. We knew that the agreement had been pretty rushed. And since then, it feels like everything has basically just fallen apart. The U.S. just announced a blockade of Iranian ports. It's going into effect Tuesday afternoon. And so...

[01:39] I guess my first question is, is the agreement that we last talked to you about, is it? [01:44] even still in effect. There's not much of it left. We all suspected, Rachel, that this agreement had the seeds of its own destruction built in. But I think... [01:57] Even the most cynical about how the Iranians and the Americans would interpret it differently did not expect it to fall apart quite as quickly as it did. And I think if you're trying to figure out why that's happened, it basically lies in the fact that it was so hastily pieced together. It was so hastily announced when Vice President Vance was sent over to sign a document. [02:27] and they wouldn't shake hands with him. It was bound to fail. Right. You had basically told us, I think, that this agreement essentially kicked the can down the road on a lot of kind of really big, important issues between the United States and Iran that both sides needed to hash out. That's right, Rachel. And we were all pretty focused at the time on what needed to be accomplished in this 60-day-long negotiation. The first issue, of course, was the nuclear program [02:57] statement only said that Iran would blend down its nuclear material, essentially dilute it, so that it couldn't be used for weapons. But it left... [03:08] unclear who was going to ultimately have possession of that nuclear material, or whether there would be negotiations to limit Iran's missile program, or whether there would be any language in a permanent agreement that would benefit the protesters who have taken to the streets. But while we were looking at all of that, Rachel, the fact of the matter is, we never even got to that negotiation. There were some brief discussions, but we

[03:36] What overwhelmed the entire thing was poor wording on the question of what it even meant [03:43] to open the Strait of Hormuz. I want to talk about that poor wording for a second. What specifically did both sides agree to vis-a-vis the Strait? Well, Rachel, I think, [03:52] The controversy really focuses on the meaning of the fifth paragraph of this very short agreement. Do you want to read us? Yeah, I'll just read it to you. It says, Iran will make arrangements. [04:05] using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, [04:16] and vice versa. [04:17] It's a single sentence. Seems pretty clear, but there are some wiggle words in it. [04:23] its best efforts. [04:25] for safe passage. And the interpretation that the American side was pushing was that this commits the Iranians to opening up the narrow Strait of Hormuz, which has three different channels, one near Iran, one in the middle of the Strait, one closer to Oman, and that traffic would essentially be restored to what it was before the war started on February 28th. [04:49] But the fact of the matter is, Rachel, that never happened. The Iranians immediately said that. [04:56] Yes, we'll reopen the street. [04:59] But we're only going to open up one channel. It's the channel closest to Iran, the one that takes you through Iranian territorial waters. And can you just explain, David?

[05:09] These three channels, why are they only suggesting that that one should be open? [05:14] Because that channel is the one that's closest in their control. It's within their territorial waters. They patrol it with their own ships. And ultimately, if that's the only channel open, it's the one they plan to go charge a toll or some kind of service fee for if you want to get through the Strait of Hormuz. [05:44] It's all open. And the Iranians are saying, well, actually, there's three channels and we can just choose to open one of them. [05:48] Well, that's right. And I asked some administration officials who were briefing us on Friday, was this just a difference of interpretation? And one of the very senior people who was involved in this said, no, no, no, no. The Iranians understood from the beginning that the open straight meant. [06:06] it was entirely open. The Iranian explanation is, no, there's nothing in that language that says we had to fully open it. It just said we had to make our best effort to make sure there was safe passage. And the safest way to take your cargo in and out [06:21] is right along the Iranian coast. This is why contract attorneys hammer out every single word of a contract so that there is not wording that is open to such ambiguity that can be exploited. It's also why very experienced diplomats, especially diplomats who have dealt with Iran in the past, make sure that the wording of international agreements is as bulletproof as a contract would be. But in this case, we don't have people who have negotiated with Iran

[06:51] involved in the talks. The president quite deliberately put this in the hands of his vice president, J.D. Vance, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, his chief envoy, Steve Wyckoff. They've negotiated deals, particularly Mr. Kushner and Mr. Wyckoff, in the past, real estate deals largely, but they weren't involved in the Obama-era negotiations that the Trump administration has so [07:21] I think they probably would have been warned that this wording left huge loopholes. Not that it necessarily matters, David, but from your perspective, is one side's interpretation of this paragraph five language clearly correct or incorrect? Look, I think if you came to this completely as a blank slate and you read the words that were in front of you, you would immediately think the entire straight was open. Right. [07:48] but [07:49] The Iranians are known for reinterpreting this kind of thing. They do it with nuclear inspections and where the inspectors can go. We've seen them do this in a range of other areas. So it really was no surprise when you saw wording like best efforts and no definition of what it meant to open the strait that there was probably going to be trouble. [08:19] Thank you. [08:20] perhaps in the perspective of the United States operating in bad faith.

[08:24] Let me put it this way. When the document was first published in mid-June, I ran the wording by people who have negotiated nuclear accords and other accords with Iran in the past. And it was the first thing they flagged to me as potential trouble. And it seems like they were right, right? It seems like trouble has quite clearly borne out. [08:47] Oh, yeah, they were 100 percent right. But, you know, what really strikes me, Rachel, in this is thinking about the way the Trump administration was discussing this agreement with Iran today. [09:02] just three weeks ago. [09:04] At the time, J.D. Vance, on his way to Switzerland to sign this agreement, said something pretty interesting. He said, the coolest thing about the progress we've made over the last few weeks is that you see people within the Iranian system, senior leadership, say, you know what? We may have some animosity, we may have some mistrust, but we recognize the way that we've done business with the United States for 47 years is a mistake. Let's try something else. [09:34] was that in these negotiations, they had not only won out in the wording, they had actually converted the Iranian leadership over to believing that we're in new territory here. [09:48] And we're going to put all of the disputes of the past aside and strike a deal that will be profitable for Iran and will, of course, bring down prices for Americans.

[10:05] And... [10:06] You know, that didn't take that long for that to fall apart. In fact, it was only last week as the shooting was starting again in the strait that President Trump called those same leaders scum. Right. And said they're sick people. They're led by sick people and they're vicious, violent people. And as far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. And I believe he also said at the time that as far as he was concerned, the ceasefire was off. [10:34] He did. He said it's over, but that negotiations could keep going on. [10:39] Yeah. [10:40] I don't know how you do those two parts because the ceasefire was essentially one of the legs of the stool. [10:48] that kept everything together while they did this bigger negotiation. And today, that leg's been kicked out. And if anything, Rachel, [10:59] We are now as far apart as we were before. [11:03] before the Memorandum of Understanding was signed. Because we're back to a blockade of all traffic going in and out of Iranian ports. In other words, an effort to try to starve out the Iranians by cutting off their oil revenue. We're back to a position where the U.S. Navy is stuck in the strait and there's active fire. [11:33] in March and the beginning of April, we are back to a period of on and off hostility, neither war nor peace, but certainly a situation that the president will find very difficult to extricate himself from.

[11:59] We'll be right back. [12:03] Thank you. [12:12] You might need MIDI if you ever hair sprayed your bangs into a waterfall or tried to go for a run with a CD player. [12:20] If this was you then, you might need MIDI now. Perimenopause can start 10 years before menopause. If you're experiencing symptoms like night sweats, weight gain, or anxiety, speak to the menopause experts at MIDI Health. Book a virtual appointment at joinmidi.com. Midlife needs MIDI. Results may vary. Medications prescribed only if clinically appropriate based on a consultation with a clinician. [12:41] I'm Jonathan Knight, and I'm the general manager of New York Times Games. If you play our games, you probably know there's something a bit different about them. Just like there are writers behind the articles you read in the Times, there are creators behind our daily puzzles. Tracy Bennett curates the day's Wordle solution to keep it lively and varied. Winilou creates each connections board, including all those categories that try to stump you. Sam Azersky combs through every last letter, word, and pangram in spelling [13:11] levels enjoy it. Our puzzles are human-made every day with the standards you'd expect from the New York Times. And this matters because when you choose to spend time with our games, it should be time well spent solving puzzles that are challenging, surprising, and joyful. Puzzles handcrafted for you. We think that's something worth investing in and something worth paying for.

[13:43] So, David, you just said that the United States is essentially stuck in kind of a quagmire right now. Where do both sides stand just in terms of negotiating? Like, are they even trying to negotiate any kind of agreement? Well, this has never really been a true negotiation where you sit down at the table and have a back and forth. And, you know, for all of the critiques of the Obama era deal. [14:06] At least at that time, the chief negotiator for the United States, Wendy Sherman, sat down opposite Kirk counterpart. [14:15] in the Iranian leadership. And the Secretary of State at the time, John Kerry, sat down opposite Javid Zarif, who was the Iranian foreign minister at the time, and they hashed things out. And sometimes when it got too heated, they took a walk around downtown Vienna to go sort it out. That's not what's going on here. What's going on here is messages being passed through the Qataris [14:45] haven't really gotten to even the first steps of writing a comprehensive nuclear agreement. And it's very hard for me to imagine, Rachel, right now with the two sides actively shooting at each other, the ceasefire declared off, a blockade back on the Iranian ports, that you could even start that process up again. [15:10] And to the extent that they are talking now, it's really just about free passage in the straight.

[15:18] And maybe even getting back to a ceasefire. [15:21] But [15:22] All of those basics, the sort of fundamentals you need in order to start a conversation, are [15:29] That's what's collapsed here. Basically, what you're saying is that they cannot even begin to negotiate on some of these really complicated, intractable problems until they get the straight open, which just to remind everybody was open before this war started. That's right. It was wide open. It was wide open during. [15:46] the 1979 revolution. It was wide open during the Iran-Iraq war. It was wide open during our nuclear crises. And now, of course... [15:58] It's sucking up all the oxygen in the negotiating room. [16:02] It feels, David, like the administration has sort of been treating the straight as if it's like the easiest problem to solve compared to all these other issues that you've described. But. [16:12] What it sounds like has been revealed to us is that [16:16] The straight [16:17] is kind of an issue that's just as intractable as the others. Do you think that's fair? [16:21] It is because the Iranians have discovered that it was a lot easier to close down the strait and the weapon was a lot more powerful than they had imagined. And so now they have no interest in giving it up. [16:35] Look, they only have two forms of leverage against the United States. One is the ability to build a nuclear weapon on fairly short notice, and the [16:47] That's not really available to them now. It hasn't been for a year since the U.S. attacked the three major nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan. The second piece of leverage they have is the ability to cause havoc in the world economy and world energy markets. Now, Rachel, that is not

[17:08] necessarily a lasting power for the Iranians. You're already seeing countries figure out how to get energy elsewhere. Over time, you're going to see more pipelines built to avoid having to send oil across the strait. The Saudis have already reactivated an unused pipeline they had to route around the strait. So the Iranians know that, [17:32] that this is not going to be a forever weapon. [17:36] But it's pretty good for right now. [17:38] If that power is, as you described, just kind of short term, what is the value in deploying it? Like, what is the endgame? [17:45] Well, I'm not sure that they've got a long-term endgame here, but... [17:50] The value of deploying it right now is they are showing that they can invoke as much pain on the United States as the U.S. can invoke today. [18:00] on Iran [18:01] by resuming military action. [18:04] And... [18:05] What we've learned over the past few months is that the Iranians have [18:12] a two-step play every time things get rough with the United States again. Step one is [18:19] Try to shut down the street. [18:21] And step two is direct missiles or drones at U.S. bases in the Arab world. [18:28] that they can strike because they're relatively nearby. What they're doing is sending a message that they can still target their Arab neighbors, that there's a price for hosting the United States. You know, as one former official put it to me, for years, the Iranians sort of

[18:44] kept a blind eye to the fact that the U.S. was keeping all these bases in the Arab world, and now they're outright attacking them. [18:53] It feels, David, like what you're saying is that Iran's main goal here is simply to demonstrate to the United States that, hey, watch it because we can actually really hurt you. [19:02] I think that's right, Rachel, but I think it goes deeper than that. [19:07] Coming off of the funeral services last week for Ayatollah Khamenei, who was killed in the first day of the war, I think that the message from the Iranians was we went up against the world's biggest superpower. [19:22] And we survived. And then they tried to go buy us off. [19:27] with some kind of agreement to give up our nuclear program and give up control over our own territory. And we're going to show them that we're not just motivated by money, although obviously the Iranians would love to be able to sell their oil on the open markets, but that this is about pride. It's about nationalism. It's about showing that a larger power, an imperial power in the minds of the Iranians, [19:57] around. And [19:59] I think you could argue. [20:00] that that was something the administration missed from the beginning. That they viewed this fundamentally as the equivalent of a real estate deal, that everybody's going to act in their rational manner. [20:13] economic interest. And in fact,

[20:17] The administration was up against a revolutionary government whose ideology has been hinged for 47 years on direct opposition to the United States. [20:31] It's really interesting, David, that the United States may have totally misunderstood or misinterpreted or sort of misjudged Iran's motivations here. And yet... [20:42] As we've talked about on the show before, Iran knows that time is on its side, right? Because they know that the longer they keep the street closed, the higher gas prices will be. That is painful for Trump. We're entering a midterm. So it almost feels like they kind of understand us, but perhaps we have not really understood them. That's right, Rachel. But I think they also understand one other thing. [21:04] President Trump, [21:06] has said publicly a few times, he's just let it slip. You know, I can't fight this war [21:12] the way I'd like to fight it, which was basically be putting ground troops on to take the nuclear material, grab Carg Island where they export oil from, do all the things you would do if you were at complete and total war with the country. And he can't do it because he knows the American people and the Congress would not stand for a ground war that results in significant casualties. [21:36] And so the result is he has been relying on the power of the U.S. military to bomb Iran into submission. [21:46] Then he got to the second phase of this, Rachel, where he believed that even if he couldn't make the government collapse, he could make them give up their nuclear program when he couldn't do that. And oil prices went so high. He called for a ceasefire.

[22:02] and then eventually turned to diplomacy. And it's that diplomacy that has now changed. [22:08] fallen apart, perhaps because it was rushed. [22:11] And now he's looking for plan C or D, depending on [22:16] where you think we are. And that's kind of what I'm curious about, David. What phase of the war do you think we are entering now? [22:24] I think we're in the phase of the war where we're trying again things that didn't work the first time. You know, when he did the blockade for the first time, he said this is going to cause the Iranian economy to collapse within days. They won't have any place to pump their oil, their tanks are full and so forth. [22:54] again. But the administration has not made an argument to us yet. [22:59] that this is going to be any more effective... [23:02] The second time, [23:03] than it was the first. [23:05] Do you think, though, David, even though we seem to be going back to square one, do you get any indication from your reporting that the Trump administration is in some way beginning to reckon with the idea that there is no quick way to end this conflict? [23:19] Rachel, it's the most fascinating question because [23:23] I think until... [23:25] A week or two ago, I would have said no. [23:29] But in recent days, [23:31] I've heard the doubts voice sort of,

[23:35] in smaller voices, in unanswered questions. And I think they now recognize that a war that they initially told Americans would be over in four to six weeks, a war where the president said repeatedly, oh, I just need another week or so to clean this up and the forces will begin withdrawing. I think they now realize that. [23:59] that they are stuck there for some time. That if the Iranians are going to claim sovereignty over Iran, [24:07] The Strait of Hormuz, that there is no way to withdraw a significant American naval force if you are determined to keep that commerce open. [24:17] You may remember that when we were closing in on this 14 point plan, the president called me. I was in London. I think you and I talked the same night. Right. And what he said was. [24:28] I'm going to, [24:30] Try this agreement. But if it doesn't work, I'm going to... [24:35] patrol the entire Mideast, [24:37] basically ad infinitum, and charge... [24:41] Everyone in the region. [24:43] the Arab states, everybody who's protected by the U.S., a 20 percent fee, 20 percent of the value of the cargo they are delivering. And the U.S. will basically be the paid peacekeeper of the region. [24:57] It was kind of a shocking thing because his own secretary of state was telling us that the goal was to actually restore the strait to the pre-war period where there were no charges for anything, no tolls, no service fees. And here was his own boss, the president, saying, yeah, there'll be a 20 percent security charge.

[25:19] that goes to the taxpayers of the United States. Well, he dropped it after that phone call. [25:24] Until Monday. Well, we're thinking over the straight. They have nothing. They've got nothing. So when he went on Fox News and repeated that exact same concept, it will become the guardian of the straight. Maybe you'll call it the guardian angel of the straight. Well, inherent in that concept is sort of an admission. [25:42] that the U.S. could be there for months, for years, until... [25:48] there's an alternative way to get people [25:52] the region's oil to the markets of the world. And even if we are not at full-scale war, [25:58] even if we are just caught on the precipice between war and peace, more like a, [26:05] counterterrorism operation than a full-scale war. [26:11] That is the definition of the kind of forever war presence, even if we're not taking significant casualties. Unfortunately, so far we have not. But that is exactly what his MAGA supporters were worried about with Iran, that we would go in and get stuck. [26:35] David Sanger, thank you so much. Always great to be with you, Rachel. [26:40] We'll be right back.

[26:55] Here's what else you need to know today. A federal immigration agent shot and killed a person in a vehicle on Monday morning in Maine. The second fatal shooting in a week involving an ICE agent firing into a vehicle. Agents were looking for a person who was in the country illegally, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, and they stopped a vehicle belonging to what the agency described as a, quote, illegal alien. [27:20] The agency claimed that the driver then, quote, weaponized his vehicle toward law enforcement, prompting an officer to open fire. It was unclear whether the driver was the same person that agents were searching for. No video footage had emerged as of Monday night to confirm the government's version of events. [27:39] And Lindsay took care of his little sister and years long departed. [27:50] to finish his work for him now. Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina said that he would appoint Senator Lindsey Graham's sister, Darlene Graham Nordone, to finish his Senate term after Graham's death on Saturday. McMaster said that he asked Nordone to fill the seat after they spoke immediately after Graham's death, and that she had accepted, quote, through tears. Lindsey has always been there for me, and now I will be there for him.

[28:25] Today's episode was produced by Asta Chaturvedi, Chris Benderev, and Rochelle Bonja. It was edited by Chris Haxel and Devin Taylor, and contains music by Marian Lozano. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. [28:52] That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow. [29:02] - This week on The Wirecutter Show, testing shampoo to find the very best in every category isn't easy. - We had both men and women. We wanted it to be gender inclusive, all sorts of hair lengths from short to medium to long, color treated hair, chemically processed hair, natural hair, gray hair. - But at Wirecutter, we don't let that stop us. Tune in to hear about why shampoo is important and what you might be doing wrong in your hair care routine. Find The Wirecutter Show wherever you like to listen.