A cornered Iran threatens war to force the US back to the negotiating table

As Washington abandons talks with Iran in favor of an aggressive economic pressure campaign, the increasingly cornered regime is now threatening military escalation and wider war to force negotiators back to the table. US President Donald Trump has rejected the diplomatic track with the Islamic Republic, saying the June ceasefire agreement 'is not worth the paper it's written on. ' Instead, his administration has ramped up pressure on Iran through a global sanctions campaign, military strikes, and a naval blockade preventing goods from entering or leaving the country. The multi-pronged campaign has put Iran under unprecedented pressure, forcing its exhausted population to endure even more hardship. Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Jamenei, remains conspicuously absent. Tuesday marks six months since he went into hiding to avoid the fate of his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Jamenei, who died in an airstrike at the beginning of the US-Israel war against Iran in late February. Iranian military officials are increasingly pushing for new tactics in response to the pressure, threatening to attack countries participating in the blockade and warning they could expand the conflict. 'We have reached the conclusion that new strategies must be adopted in the war, negotiations, and facing the blockade,' Mohsen Rezaei, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in an interview with Iranian media on Sunday. He also suggested Iran could expand its own blockade beyond the strait by creating a new 'exclusion zone' in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. For the past few weeks, Iran and Oman have slowly been negotiating the management of the Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said a 'temporary safe route' through the strait would likely be registered with the International Maritime Organization in the 'coming days. ' It's unclear whether the US would recognize the agreement being negotiated between Iran and Oman. For now, mediators have identified two major obstacles to resolving the conflict, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari told CNN's Becky Anderson: political will and technical solutions. 'The political will is based on the narrative, which means we have to find the correct narrative so that the parties in the conflict can actually get out of this crisis. And it's like juggling four or five balls at the same time while we try to find all the solutions needed,' he said. Despite the diplomatic stalemate, senior Iranian officials, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, have repeatedly expressed a desire to return to the June agreement, which observers widely view as favorable for Tehran. However, within the country, hardline conservatives continue to slam any agreement with the US and accuse the Iranian president and his negotiators of compromising the gains made by Iran during the war. 'Tehran is trying to reconcile two pressures: a war-weary population that needs economic relief and an ideological base that does not want to capitulate,' Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst at International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, told CNN. 'That's why the preferred outcome is diplomacy, but a diplomacy that can be presented inside the country as a result of Iranian strength and not a retreat. ' Cornered, Iran now faces a dilemma. Without compromising its demands over control of the Strait of Hormuz, its nuclear program, or sanctions relief, Washington's pressure is unlikely to ease, while any compromise with Washington would force senior Iranian officials to answer to the regime's ideology-driven hardline factions. 'The Iranian nation does not accept threats or coercion, nor negotiations whose result is the weakening of the country's rights,' Hossein Taeb, the head of the hardline volunteer paramilitary Basij group said on Monday. 'Negotiations are for ensuring the nation's rights, not giving them up.