No Freedom, no Fury – what options are left for the US in Iran? | DW News

0:00 Maybe you won't see a white flag, but essentially that's already what they are.

0:05 They need they should wave the white the flag the white flag of surrender.

0:11 The operation is over.

0:12 Uh epic fury is president notified Congress.

0:14 We're done with that stage of it.

0:16 Okay, we're now on to this project of freedom.

0:18 American forces won't need to enter Iranian waters or airspace.

0:22 It's not necessary.

0:23 We're not looking for a fight.

0:25 So we are saying uh the Iranians do not have control of the strait.

0:29 We have absolute control of the straight.

0:31 That a week ago Friday the president announced

0:34 that Iran had agreed to give up their nuclear program

0:37 to give up their ballistic missile program to stop

0:39 support for terrorist groups to reopen the straight of Hormuz.

0:42 The only problem with that is literally none of that was true.

0:46 So what is true?

0:47 President Trump says the US is pausing Project Freedom,

0:51 but that the American blockade of Iran's ports will continue.

0:55 Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, says the offensive stage of the Iran war

1:00 is over because the US has achieved its objectives.

1:04 Meanwhile, Iranian state media is hailing all of this as a victory for Tehran.

1:09 They're calling it a retreat and say the US president

1:12 is trying to cover up the failure of his operation.

1:16 In the last two months, we've seen a string of dizzying turnabouts

1:19 in the president's positions on the war.

1:22 So where does this leave the US now

1:25 and what options does the US have left in Iran?

1:30 Sush Ranba Da is going to help me answer that question and several more.

1:35 He's a senior lecturer in modern uh

1:37 Middle Eastern history at the University of St.

1:39 Andrews in Scotland.

1:41 Thanks so much for talking uh to me about this uh sever.

1:45 So, we've got President Trump halting Project Freedom after less than 48 hours.

1:51 Tell us why.

1:52 Is he claiming that his objectives have been achieved?

1:57 Uh, good morning.

1:57 Yes.

1:58 Well, Trump is uh is is full of bluster as usual

2:01 and and engages in his usual uh sort of rather triumphant rhetoric.

2:08 Um he did interrupt this u activity quite early on.

2:14 One reason might be that in the last few

2:16 minutes uh the website access so far in an completely

2:20 unverified of course uh manner has um revealed that both

2:25 sides are apparently close to a memorandum of understanding

2:27 which brings the war to an end and starts negotiations

2:31 and some of these conditions involve end of the US

2:34 blockade and the end of the Iranian chokeold over

2:37 the straight of hormon negotiations over the nuclear matters.

2:42 So even though he hasn't said it directly that the deal is so close,

2:45 but he did mention that negotiations are ongoing.

2:48 So it could very well be that behind the scenes uh things have moved

2:52 on on the diplomatic front and both sides are in a position to scale back.

2:57 Um and Trump wanted to send a signal

3:00 that things are going in that direction and therefore he

3:02 abruptly interrupted an operation which had formally started as you

3:07 say on Monday and hadn't really taken hold yet.

3:10 we didn't see it enter into a fully operational uh stage

3:15 with only a couple of ships making it through under American assistance.

3:19 It seems we should say that this Axius report hasn't been confirmed.

3:23 We're just getting this news about this uh

3:26 memor memorandum of understanding from one source.

3:29 Um, so would you say then that the US administration was hoping

3:34 that this was going to help bring Iran back to the negotiating table?

3:39 Sort of hoping for a genuine diplomatic opening.

3:44 I think what has really appeared to have an effect is the blockade.

3:48 The blockade has been going on for a while.

3:50 It has been far of course more effective than the American

3:53 claims and intentions to reopen the straight of Hormos for shipping.

3:58 And this has led to um worsening considerable has has at least

4:03 contributed to a considerable worsening of the economic situation in Iran.

4:07 We've seen a repeated crash of the value of the Iranian

4:11 currency the real apparently there's a liquidity crisis within Iranian banks.

4:16 the price of uh basic food stuffs have sky has skyrocketed

4:20 and some of it is connected to the blockade because it's not

4:23 just a question of Iranian oil not making it out

4:27 for the export route which is primarily chi China but it's also essential

4:31 goods and and ingredients for industrial output from China of course not

4:35 making it to Iran because or not making it through the shipping

4:39 route and and making it in far lower quantities through other

4:42 routes land routes maybe um so that probably has had an effect.

4:47 I think that is when also uh the war planning that Iran

4:51 had and the efficiency with which the 40 days of war were administered

4:55 by the government starts to uh falter as a consequence of the duration

5:00 of this conflict and the uh lack of access to this shipping route.

5:05 So that could have been one key

5:07 thing which I think exercised Iranian minds towards

5:10 the sort of concessions that one might see

5:13 in this as you say unconfirmed a report.

5:16 But of course Iran is um saying that you

5:20 know the ending of project freedom is a victory.

5:23 They're framing it as a victory aren't they?

5:25 So you you're saying that they needed to come

5:29 to the table and they needed to take this next step.

5:34 Yes.

5:34 Well, I mean, of course, Iran is still on a war rhetoric.

5:37 It's still on a on a boisterous war rhetoric.

5:40 And again, if the bar was set as surviving and and not being um

5:46 set with a immediate challenge to the rule of Islamic Republic, they are there,

5:50 of course, because at the moment also the streets are clear and there is

5:54 so far little appetite for return to street protests as we saw in January.

5:58 And there haven't been, of course,

6:00 boots on the ground to uh in sort of a land invasion.

6:04 uh and of course uh bombing has stopped for the past four weeks.

6:09 So Iran will keep engaging in this war rhetoric

6:11 and will not frame any concession as a as a weakness.

6:15 They will again find a narrative that will emphasize their victory.

6:18 However, it does seem that all

6:21 this operation and all this memorandum understanding relief

6:26 and crucially so far the details we've seen

6:28 do not involve the straight of almost going

6:31 through the sort of regime that for example

6:33 the Iranian parliament is saying a whole system where Iran would pick up war

6:37 reparations from uh from the transit of ships.

6:41 So far what we have seen points towards uh the return to the uh sort

6:46 of status that the straight of home was had before the start of the conflict.

6:50 So uh free passage um Iran's economic relief would come through sanctions relief

6:56 and those are of course connected to uh

6:58 nuclear concessions concessions on the nuclear side.

7:00 So in practical terms it is a bit different from what was framed

7:05 in terms of you still hear parliament

7:07 or hardliners in Iran claiming that the straight

7:10 of warmers now will have a different sort of regime for the for into the future

7:15 based on what Axio is putting out which again needs to be verified.

7:18 This would not appear to be the case.

7:20 Okay.

7:20 Yeah.

7:21 Just a quick question about how unified Iran is right now.

7:25 Tran obviously presenting a UNI united front but but there are competing

7:30 camps inside um the system particularly

7:33 within the IRGC and political leadership.

7:35 You know are there um competing camps over whether to engage or escalate?

7:41 How how strong is that that push and pull in Iran?

7:46 Well that push and pull was always there.

7:48 I mean there was no real unity on this issue for many decades

7:52 and it was always a question of one or one side or the other

7:55 getting the upper hand and at least in the short term engaging uh

7:58 leading the way in terms of its preferred vision of Iranian US relations.

8:02 That was what happened of course a decade ago when

8:05 President Roani managed to push through the JCPOA nuclear deal.

8:10 Uh but of course that was shortlived and and then the hardliners uh went back.

8:14 So this sort of u tension and this sort of confrontation was

8:18 usually in the past uh sort of resolved uh by the intervention

8:23 of the supreme leader Kmin senior who of course had the clout

8:26 and authority to take the final decision and have the final say.

8:31 That sort of setup is gone now for sure.

8:34 Um whatever one thinks about the state of health of his son.

8:39 Um the problem is that he simply doesn't have yet

8:42 the authority to make this these sort of final decisions.

8:45 There's a and the level of squabbbling and the level of infighting

8:49 uh will emerge more and more as as the war unity comes

8:53 in because of course while the country was under bombs and while

8:55 there was a serious uh need to engage in military military offense defense

9:01 and of course offense political divisions were clearly set to aside

9:06 but in the past four weeks we've

9:07 seen them increasing and they will increase more

9:09 because again if if Iran is to get uh war reparations and member

9:15 of the Iranian government has pinned that war damages at anything between 270

9:19 to300 billion dollars and that will have to come if obviously given

9:25 that the straight of almost toll

9:27 system was always impractical impractical to collect

9:29 that sort of money will have to come through concessions on nuclear issue

9:32 and sanctions lifting and the return of the sale of oil on the Iranian

9:37 Iranian oil on the on the international market in a in a more

9:40 or less normal manner like other oil exporters that cannot come without

9:44 substantial uh nuclear concessions which is of course cycling back to what

9:49 Trump was always demanding from the Iranians

9:52 particularly in terms of uranium enrichment.

9:54 So clearly this is a very divisive issue in Iran,

9:57 one which will probably uh expose uh fault lines even more despite the fact

10:02 that an from an outward point of view of course

10:04 all these different factors and one thing in common

10:07 and that is preserving the Islamic Republic

10:09 because uh the perspective of letting in elements

10:12 of the opposition is a is a red

10:13 line for all of them whether moderate or hardline.

10:16 I am hearing now that an unnamed uh Pakistani source has confirmed

10:20 that the US and Iran are closing in on a memorandum of understanding.

10:25 So this does sound like a concrete next step,

10:28 but it seems like President Trump has been searching for a kind

10:32 of silver bullet uh to help him deliver victory over Iran these last months.

10:38 Do you feel like he has any real understanding

10:41 of the uh Islamic Republic and of its negotiation style?

10:47 Maybe it doesn't, but um we don't really know really

10:50 to what extent the Americans have really engaged deeply with Iran.

10:53 And of course, any former negotiator will tell you

10:57 that negotiating with Iran is a very painstaking and uh process.

11:01 And at times they even compare it

11:03 to weaving a complex Iranian carpet in its complexity.

11:07 Um but the point remains that Trump really is insisting on, you know,

11:14 some some major Iranian concession on uranium enrichment.

11:17 Again, if you look at the Axis details,

11:19 it says that Iran would effectively engage in a 15-year

11:23 moratorum on the enrichment of uranium at all percentages.

11:27 Uh and even after that, it would be at 3.67%.

11:31 Now um the extent to which Iran really is

11:34 agreeing on this also underlies the extent to which

11:37 reimment really was not really a technical aspect

11:41 of the Iranian nuclear program but a political one.

11:43 It was all about ambitions.

11:45 It was all about projection of power and and it was of course

11:48 a very costly one because it led Iran to the sort of uh

11:51 economic situation and isolation and war that we saw in the post JCPOA

11:55 years particularly of course after Trump came out of the JCPOA in 2018.

12:00 Um so uh of course there are a lot of details here.

12:04 For example, what happens to the um plus kilos of uranium Iranian rich

12:11 at over 60% which appears to have been buried in the June 2025 strikes.

12:16 Again there's discussion there of extraction.

12:19 Trump has been very uh clear on that that nuclear dust

12:22 as he puts it needs to be extracted in taken out of Iran.

12:25 We have to see whether Iran agrees to that.

12:28 Um but again I think a lot depends

12:31 on the economic aspects because the economic crisis in Iran

12:34 is serious to my extent it's it's under

12:37 reportported people are putting too much emphasis on strategic

12:40 matters when they look at uh what the Islamic

12:43 Republic is engaging in this conflict and this sort

12:46 of economic relief might just be the trigger

12:49 that uh Iran willingly unwillingly irrespect of the rhetoric

12:53 you will hear will have to engage with again

12:56 if you're faced with a bill that approaches

12:58 $300 billion in a in an economy where uh

13:03 repatriating oil revenues are very difficult and the first

13:07 step that would occur in such a situation

13:10 remember is the unfreezing of billions of Iranian billions

13:15 of dollars in Iranian frozen oil revenue which are

13:18 stored all over the world um be it South Korea,

13:21 Qatar, Europe and so on and so forth.

13:24 Um so uh economic necessity might drive these uh these matters.

13:28 Uh and of course when you get to this point it is debatable

13:35 uh that whether you really need a very deep knowledge of the uh

13:39 the mindset of Iranian negotiators at least

13:41 to achieve an initial framework within which

13:44 more detailed negotiations can occur uh

13:48 at conditions which are uh which are workable.

13:50 And of course if if Trump eventually does manage

13:52 to get the Iran uranium out on a 10 plus year

13:56 moratorum again all need to all needs to be verified

14:00 that that that is his his offramp if you want.

14:04 One question s about um Chinese influence China's uh foreign minister Wangji met

14:11 his Iranian counterpart um Abbas Arachi for talks in Beijing on uh Wednesday.

14:18 Is China positioning itself as a kind

14:21 of alternative power broker as part of this situation?

14:26 Well, China clearly has every interest in in solving this.

14:28 Uh first of all, it has very extensive business with the United States.

14:32 We have this upcoming important summit between Trump and Zjinping in Beijing.

14:37 Um for many years it has acted as u

14:41 Iran's economic uh uh sort of savior if you want

14:45 engaging in in imports of Iranian oil mostly for political

14:50 reasons without having actual necessity to to do so.

14:53 It could it could probably have uh you know obtained the same amount

14:57 of oil from elsewhere but it chose to do this because of clear

15:00 strategic concerns and one could argue

15:02 smart strategic concerns because it has given

15:05 China considerable leverage within the Iranian system

15:08 but of course that has its problems.

15:09 It's a headache for China because only specific

15:12 refineries that are outside um the um trade

15:16 system with the United States can actually uh

15:19 pick up this oil otherwise they're subject to sanctions.

15:22 Um and and of course there's a complex financial uh

15:27 system underpinning this export of oil and Iran of course

15:30 does not get you know the sort of revenue they

15:32 would get from selling the oil on the normal market.

15:35 Um so China of course um wants I think to see

15:40 this settled before Trump arrives to Beijing in one way or the other

15:44 at least have them engaging in the further stages of this memorandum

15:48 understanding as as he comes because of course and but we shouldn't forget

15:52 that while much is made of the strategic ties between Iran

15:56 and China and the sort of choreography you see today with Arachi being

16:01 the volume of trade that China has with the United States is

16:03 simply uncomparable to the sort of economic interest that China has in Iran.

16:08 And I think that's what I always heard from Iranian is very interested.

16:15 We know that China is very connected to us.

16:18 The relationship you see publicly, but the end of the day,

16:21 their interests when it comes to America are more

16:23 and probably what China wants now is is some form

16:26 of end to this so it can really focus

16:28 more clearly on its own relationship with the United States.

16:31 So in summary, Sush given the situation as it is,

16:35 given that we are hearing about this um um um memorandum of understanding,

16:41 where is the US right now in terms of its um its negotiating power,

16:47 its leverage in the Middle East?

16:49 What's your assessment?

16:52 Well, I mean the goalposts have shifted a lot in the past few months.

16:56 So it really depends on on on what

16:58 the you know the parameter for comparison is this year.

17:02 I mean back in January February the whole idea was regime change was

17:07 Israel and the United States going in to bring down the Islamic Republic.

17:10 Then of course things shifted as as this idea

17:14 of doing it by aerial bombardment proved to be elusive.

17:18 the straight of hormone situation suddenly kicked in and nobody was thinking

17:22 about such a situation you know up to the end of February.

17:26 So now if I guess the objective is freeing up hormones

17:31 and more importantly the transit through

17:33 the state of hormones regaining the confidence

17:35 of shippers that they can transit through the state of hormones without

17:38 paying tolls or without following Iranian

17:40 instructions ultimately at least maybe not immediately.

17:44 uh and of course some arrangement at the uranium enrichment front

17:48 which at least gives some credits to uh to Trump's rather obsessive

17:55 as well I would say mantra that Iran should have no

17:59 nuclear weapons and this nuclear dust as he puts it must come

18:01 out and that sort of that sort of sort of rhetoric

18:04 and and pledges then maybe that that's where the United States will

18:09 will call it a day at this particular conflict but of course

18:13 none None of this as I see it really satisfies Israel.

18:16 The problem is that uh we have a very

18:21 important actor in all of this that's clearly not

18:23 taking part in these negotiations won't be involved if

18:26 people are sitting down and talking in Islamabad of course.

18:29 So where exactly does Israel stand in this?

18:31 Does this simply accept that its initial objectives were uh came up short?

18:36 It's it's systematic destruction of Iranian state infrastructure

18:40 of civilian infrastructure and more ultimately did not result

18:43 in in any sort of substantial tilting of uh

18:47 the political sort of aspects of this conflict towards itself.

18:51 Uh its lack of u penetration within within Iranian society at large.

18:58 The fact that we don't really see evidence of great popularity

19:01 for Israel after all it did in 2025 and 2026 within Iranian society.

19:06 Uh so where does this leave Israel?

19:08 This this remains a question which of course

19:10 this memorandum of understanding does not address at all.

19:13 Um we go by the idea that you know if the US engages uh seriously

19:19 with Iran and reaches some sort of agreement

19:21 then Israel will have to tow the line.

19:23 We'll have to see to what extent this will actually hold in the near future.

19:28 Sash Ranjbi from the University of St.

19:30 Andrews in Scotland.

19:31 Se thank you so much for talking to us today.

19:34 So, Donald Trump has paused Project Freedom and the US and Iran

19:39 are closing in on a one-page memo to end the war.

19:42 This is what a Pakistani source involved in the peace

19:45 efforts told the Reuters news agency confirming a report in Axius.

19:51 But it is still unclear whether this is going to be

19:54 a lasting resolution to the conflict or just a temporary lull.

19:58 How do you see the situation developing?

20:00 Do you think this is the beginning of the end of the war in Iran?

20:04 Let us know in the comments.

20:06 And remember, you can find more news on our website, that'sdw.com.

20:11 I'm Andrew Coopers McKinnon.

20:13 Thanks for being with us.