Perhaps we should be used to be this by now. Yet again, there have been a flurry of promises to rapidly achieve peace in Iran. Yet again, the American administration has threatened to destroy the nation’s infrastructure. J.D. Vance is again flying to Pakistan for more talks. And yet the conflict shows no sign of ending. We don’t know whether the Iranians will actually turn up. A foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday that Iran will not be joining the talks. The speaker of the parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has also made clear that the regime won’t negotiate under threat of civilizational destruction.

Why would they resist peace talks? There is both a diplomatic and domestic answer. On the diplomatic front, Tehran’s promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz last week was a masterstroke. The logic was clear: Iran could appear compliant, willing to engage and seemingly flexible ahead of negotiations. The US, meanwhile, would likely continue their own blockade.

That calculation proved correct. Indeed, the US has since reinforced its own blockade, fired on a tanker, and even sent Marines to board a ship. This helped further Iran’s claims – to the world as much as to the US and the negotiators – that they are the injured party, battling an unpredictable and inflexible United States. Non-western nations took........

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