PARIS, France (AFP) — Iran’s leadership is betting it can outlast an under-pressure Donald Trump in its peace negotiations with Washington, but its defiance risks renewed military confrontation and further stoking domestic tensions, analysts say.

With a shaky ceasefire holding almost two-and-a-half months after the US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic began, the US president has angrily dismissed Iran’s responses to a US proposal for a settlement, warning the truce is on its last legs.

But analysts say that even after the killing of longtime supreme leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war on February 28, Iran’s leadership remains fiercely ideological and dedicated to the preservation of the Islamic Republic set up in the 1979 revolution that ousted the shah.

“They do think they can outlast Trump. The war is existential for them,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Chatham House think tank in London, told AFP.

Iran understands that by blocking the Strait of Hormuz — the first time it has restricted shipping traffic in the key bottleneck for trade and energy supplies after years of threats — it has a major strategic lever.

Trump, meanwhile, is under pressure to find an off-ramp to the conflict, which has proven unpopular at home and driven up prices at the pump, with midterm elections right around the corner.

Iran “is committed to negotiations but what they don’t want is surrender. They want to extract concessions because of their improved hand,” Vakil said. “They are prepared for another round of conflict and they are ready to gamble on that, which........

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