Foreign Policy

Neither War nor Peace With Iran

The Trump administration is stuck in a standoff that is unstable and damaging to the entire world.

Matthew Petti | 4.22.2026 10:07 AM

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(Illustration: Somartin/Brett Critchley/Stangot/Dreamstime)

Vice President J.D. Vance told confidants last week that walking out of negotiations with Iran and announcing a blockade on Iranian ports "would probably force the Iranians to fold within a few days," according to the Financial Times. Instead, Vance found himself stood up by Iranian negotiators, who waited until the last minute on Tuesday afternoon to announce that they would not attend the second round of talks in Pakistan.

President Donald Trump, who had threatened "to be bombing" the minute that the U.S.-Iranian ceasefire expired on Wednesday, instead announced that he would "hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal," while continuing to enforce the blockade. Axios reports that privately, the Trump administration is willing to extend "another three to five days of ceasefire." In other words, the U.S. and Iran are now locked in a state of neither war nor peace.

As in the war itself, the Trump administration walked into the ceasefire negotiations confident that U.S. pressure could force Iran to surrender quickly and at a minimal cost. And instead, the administration has again discovered that Iran is able to hold out longer than expected and do damage in return. Although mercifully fewer people are being killed than during the full-on war, the standoff in the Persian Gulf is an unstable situation, and the........

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