Expert Explains Iran-US ceasefire: What each side was fighting for, and what they have won or lost

Iran’s 10 points require the US to commit to non-aggression, recognise Iran’s control of Hormuz, accept Tehran’s sovereign enrichment rights, lift all primary and secondary sanctions and terminate punitive UN and IAEA resolutions, withdraw US forces and compensate Iran, and end Israel’s war on Lebanon. What is the logic behind either side’s position?

What this war meant for Washington

Across 38 days, US war aims have shifted inconsistently, including (at varying points in time) regime change, an end to Iran’s ballistic missile programme, destruction of Iran’s Navy and Air Force, ending Iran’s relationship with regional non-state armed actors, among other objectives.

However, amid these, a core truth about US strategy has remained — every round of escalation that the US pursued, including bombing Iranian universities, energy sites, and infrastructure, has been focused not on Iranian capitulation at any scale but rather to force Iran back to the table. This is consistent with Trump’s continued reluctance to mount any largescale war like that in Iraq in 2003, which would require large force concentration and ground troops staged in US-allied states in the Gulf.

That Iran was at the table as of February 27, 2026, and was willing to offer more favourable terms to Trump than the Obama-era nuclear deal the JCPOA, was overshadowed by the reality of the US President already having walked into a commitment trap (since he was using incrementally escalating military threats to force maximalist diplomatic ends).

This war, despite its needless destruction and high cost, ultimately became a manifestation of those threats for the same diplomatic ends. This was categorically evident in the 15-points which Washington offered to Iran on March 24, most of which were largely similar to US demands from Iran in May 2025, before the 12-Day war in June.

That the US President remains eager for a deal (stamped with his seal rather than Obama’s, and after a self-proclaimed “victory” through weeks of massive bombardment) was evident in his Truth Social post immediately after announcing the ceasefire, which claimed that – “…this could be a Golden Age of the Middle East”, “…Iran wants it too!”, “…Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process.”

What this war meant for Iran

Iran has long understood Trump’s preferences and weaknesses. In the first half of 2025, Iranian officials took care to praise Trump’s “pro-peace” image, invited American businesses to Iran, and chastised the Joe Biden administration’s failings. Most importantly, Tehran took care to blame Trump’s failings on his advisors, rather than the President himself.

Even as Iran was attacked twice while negotiations were on, Tehran kept up its focus of blaming Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as inexperienced, pro-Israel, “real estate” agents who misled Trump (although, alongside a barrage of memes and AI-led videos mocking Trump). However, given that Trump’s military threats had moved from potential to kinetic, and included the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Tehran identified a carte blanche to pursue a multi-pronged strategy to prove:

its ability and tolerance to absorb costs (no matter the tonnage of US/Israeli bombs, assassinations, or special forces action),

its ability to impose costs through widespread horizontal escalation that was reciprocal and proportionate to US/Israeli choice of targets in Iran (except for educational institutes, which Iran did not reciprocally strike), and

Iran’s character as a conventionally powerful civilisational state which needed to be engaged on equitable terms, thus also dispelling any illusion of a Venezuela-like outcome for any US campaign.

By April 8, after US/Israeli strikes on Iranian railway infrastructure, bridges, as well as the South Pars gas field, Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Kuwaiti and Saudi petrochemical plants proved all three abilities for the 99th time in the war. This is the official number of retaliatory “waves” of drones and missiles that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched, announcing each wave as they struck (each with varying effectiveness).

Combined with Iran’s decisive chokehold of the Strait of Hormuz, except to US/Israel linked shipping, the growing international costs of the war eventually breached Washington’s tolerance threshold (compounded by pressures from key allies).

To fully drive home the imperative of the US treating Iran as a respectable negotiating partner (and with the assumption that Tehran was always theoretically open to discussing the USA’s 15-points), Iran had to convey its own set of demands; to give steadier legs to a historically wobbly negotiating table. These demands necessarily included both old and new asks, including the possibility of Iran and Oman jointly charging a fee for passage through Hormuz (a maximalist aim but designed to be deemed acceptable in lieu of reparations/war damage compensation).

The Outcome

Until this table was steadied, there was arguably little room for any mediator to make headway — whether Oman (the traditional mediator between Washington and Tehran), Turkey, Pakistan, China, Russia, or Qatar. Until the Trump Administration reconciled itself with the reality of Tehran’s resilience and the high improbability of state collapse or Iranian surrender to Washington’s terms, these actors remained only as “mediators-in-being”.

More importantly, on one hand the US President at several points attempted to force Iran into quick negotiations by claiming that Tehran was already talking (which Iran denied), and on the other, Iran itself was categorical in its efforts to refuse Trump any off-ramp. The latter was important to prevent Washington from relapsing into the old view that the US could attack Iran at will; “Bridges can be built but the opportunity to discipline America will not come again” as Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi wrote on April 3.

Across the five days since, as US (and Arab) limits became clear, more space opened up for key states such as Pakistan/China to act as passive messengers between Washington and Tehran, but not as traditional proactive mediators (such as Oman). As Trump issued a threat to end Iranian “civilisation” if Tehran did not make a deal, it became largely evident that the US President was preparing ground to claim victory (since Iran’s acceptance of the ceasefire could be highlighted as a concession).

Should this cessation of hostilities hold, it is only now that Iran under Mojtaba Khamenei and Washington under Donald Trump will hold sincere negotiations arguably for the first time.

Even as Israel remains an unpredictable variable, Tel Aviv arguably also has little to lose/gain by immediately breaching the Trump-induced ceasefire. Its 38 days of bombing, including assassination of key Iranian leaders, simply followed its historic logic of striking “the head of the Octopus”, most prolifically by former PM Naftali Bennett.

Israel might strike again when a window presents itself (its likelihood is uncertain). Already, Tel Aviv has removed itself from the US-Iran ceasefire by rejecting Iran’s demand that Israel halt its ongoing fifth invasion of South Lebanon and its fight against Hezbollah. It is the intensity of these Israeli operations which are a key test for Iran’s adherence to the ceasefire. Indeed, Iran has said it will withdraw from the ceasefire agreement if Israel continues to attack Lebanon.

It is undeniably true, however, that the conduct of US-Iran negotiations will now determine the broader future of the Middle East, which is already a changed landscape after Iran’s categorical military dominance over the Gulf. This lattermost fact is Tehran’s strategic victory.