The Memo: Iran strikes defiant note, blocking Trump’s off-ramp for now

Iran’s leaders are striking a note of defiance about ending the war waged against them by the United States and Israel, complicating President Trump’s apparent search for an off-ramp.

The message being sent from Tehran over the past 24 hours has been unyielding. 

An unnamed Iranian government official told state-owned Press TV that “Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met,” according to the Associated Press. Separately, the Fars news agency in Iran reported another unnamed official stating simply “Iran does not accept a ceasefire.”

Iran met a reported 15-point U.S. peace proposal with its own counter-offer. The Iranian plan ran to only five points. It included demands that Trump seems guaranteed to refuse, such as a request for reparations for the damage inflicted during the conflict, which began on Feb. 28.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi also appeared on government-run television to underscore the indignant message, insisting that the U.S. had failed to accomplish its objectives. 

Notably, Aragchi denied that there were negotiations taking place at all, acknowledging only that U.S. proposals had been passed along by third parties.

Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have all been reported to be involved in the quest to de-escalate the conflict but much remains hazy. Aragchi, for his part, insists that Iran has no intention of entering into direct talks with the United States.

On social media, meanwhile, the Iranians have adopted a tone that at times taunts Trump. The Iranian embassy in South Africa, for example, has retweeted satirical messages mocking the president while amplifying another user’s post asserting “regime change is needed in America, not Iran.”

To be sure, the defiance could yet come crashing down. 

Iran has taken enormous punishment during the war to date. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at Wednesday’s briefing that U.S. forces had hit “more than 9,000 enemy targets” since the war began. Estimates of the death toll in Iran now exceed 1,500 people.

However, hopes in Washington — and among anti-regime dissenters in the Iranian diaspora — that the U.S.-Israeli assault would cause the Islamic Republic itself to be toppled have not been borne out so far.

Mojtaba Khamenei replaced his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Iran’s Supreme Leader after the older man was killed in an Israeli air-strike on the first day of the war.  The new Supreme Leader has not been seen in public, however, amid reports that he may be injured.

There is little evidence yet of the kind of mass protests that, earlier this year, appeared to endanger the survival of Iran’s theocratic leadership, which has ruled the country since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

More to the point from Trump’s perspective, Iran has been able to greatly restrict shipping through the vital Strait of Hormuz. Under normal circumstances, around one-fifth of the world’s oil transits through the narrow channel off the Iranian coast. 

The de facto Iranian chokehold has caused oil prices to soar by roughly 40 percent over the........

© The Hill