Despite President Trump signaling that he will not order any major new military operations against Iran in the near future, the U.S. and Tehran continue to exchange missile strikes in and around the Strait of Hormuz, in which around a quarter of the world’s oil and other goods pass through. Meanwhile, the White House is continuing to pursue negotiations with the Islamist regime even as Tehran demands an immediate lift of America’s naval blockade and ceasing all military operations in the Middle East.

On Monday, Trump met with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the White House to discuss avenues toward ending the Iran war. Al Thani, who is acting as a middleman in discussions with Iran, described the meeting as “positive.” Following the meeting, Trump told reporters that he believes the war “militarily is effectively over. We’re just keeping it the status quo.” 

But reports indicate that that “status quo” continues to be quite dramatic. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the two sides are continuing to exchange missile strikes, with the U.S. carrying out a series of strikes on Qeshm Island, the regime’s largest island in the Strait of Hormuz which serves as a primary location from which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launches missiles and drones at vessels attempting to traverse the waterway. At the same time, Iran struck the Omani island of Didamar, an uninhabited rocky outcrop that contains navigational equipment and serves as a key navigation point for ships entering the Persian Gulf.

The WSJ reports that the U.S. military “is running near-daily operations from warships and land bases to help commercial vessels move into and out of the Persian Gulf, helping oil exports from the region reach levels near where they were at the start of the war.” U.S. officials say that the latest strikes are not meant to be a precursor for a larger attack, but are merely meant to defend vessels that are attempting to traverse the waterway.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei stated that the regime had offered a two-day plan to reopen the strait in return for the U.S. lifting its blockade and ceasing all military operations in the Middle East, including Israel’s military operation in southern Lebanon.

“[I]t’s not a particularly generous offer, given the fact that Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz,” observed Blaise Misztal, vice president for Policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Monday. “And in fact, it has effectively been opened not by Iran, but by the United States Navy. We’ve seen over the last 60 days or so that oil exports through the strait have returned to close to pre-war levels. On some days, there’s actually more oil getting out through the strait than there was before the war, thanks to the efforts of the U.S. Navy to remove the mines that Iran put in the strait and protect the ships going through. So this idea that Iran controls the strait and it’s up to them to reopen it is laughable, and I think really shows that Iran has nothing to offer, has no leverage … in these negotiations.”

Misztal further contended that any lift in the blockade by the U.S. or other diplomatic agreement would only be taken advantage of by Tehran based on their track record.

“I think we only need to think back to the history of the last five or six years to see that diplomacy is a delaying tactic for the Iranians, not a good faith effort,” he argued. “Just think back to the Biden administration, in which President Biden spent four years desperately trying to get Iran to agree to a deal — going so far as to lift sanctions, unfreeze Iranian assets, giving them all sorts of goodies, if only they would agree to a deal. And each time, the Iranians would just string him along and add more demands. … President Trump tried negotiating [and] gave them a 60-day window [to] reach a deal … and they kept refusing him, which is how we ended up with Operation Midnight Hammer last summer. … So I think we’re well past the point of thinking that we’re ever going to get a good faith offer from the Iranians.”

Misztal went on to emphasize that mediators like the Qataris cannot be trusted to act in good faith either.

“[T]he word mediator suggests some sort of neutrality, but these are far from neutral parties,” he stressed. “Qatar in particular has a history of playing both sides. They served as a mediator between the United States and the Taliban while hosting the Taliban, letting them live rent-free in luxury hotels in Doha. Qatar said it was a mediator between the United States and Israel and Hamas, while it was funding Hamas to the tune of $30 million a year. And in the same way, it claims to be a mediator between us and Iran, when we know that they have long-standing business interests with the Iranians. … They’re not in this for the sake of trying to get a good agreement, they’re in this for the sake of their own interests, and the same goes with the Pakistanis. … [D]iplomacy is worth giving a shot. … But these are not parties who are interested in peace for peace’s sake.”

As for a path forward to ending the war, Misztal insisted that President Trump must accept nothing short of a full reversal of Iran’s nuclear program. “If Iran agrees to remove its enriched uranium, if it agrees to the destruction and shutdown of all its nuclear facilities, that is a good first step on which we can then negotiate everything further. But without that, there can be no deal. They have not suggested any desire to compromise on any part of their nuclear program, which has to be the prerequisite for moving forward here.”