The harder Trump pushes, the more Iran hardens: Hormuz is pushed to the center of the negotiation table!

The U.S. and Israel’s assassination campaign against Iran has not only failed to soften Iran—instead, it has spawned a tougher adversary: control of the Strait of Hormuz, which has now been pushed to the very center of the negotiating table.

According to a report by The Washington Post on April 3, a series of assassination operations carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran’s top leadership, including the killing of multiple key figures, among them Supreme Leader Khamenei, did not deliver the kind of leadership outcome that Trump had expected. Multiple regional officials and Western officials said that the current Iranian regime is actually even more hardline, pushing the U.S. and Iran further away from an agreement.

The ceasefire terms publicly proposed by Iran include: war reparations, as well as formal control of the Strait of Hormuz—and a demand for the right to collect tolls from ships passing through it in the past.

A European official involved in diplomatic mediation said bluntly: “They’ve already shown the Gulf states how fragile those countries are, and how fragile the global economy is. So the price has gone up. The Strait of Hormuz has never appeared in any negotiation before; now it’s like it’s sitting right in the center.”

According to CCTV News on March 31, Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee has passed a bill to impose tolls on ships that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The bill specifies that the charges would be collected in Iran’s national currency, the rial. The precise financial arrangements and details of the toll collection system are yet to be determined.

Trump: No agreement in two or three weeks, just move on to the power plants

Facing the stalemate, Xinhua News Agency reported that on April 2 Trump, in his latest nationwide televised address, claimed that the Iran war had achieved “overwhelming victory,” while also saying that in the next two to three weeks, extremely harsh strikes would be carried out.

“If an agreement isn’t reached during this period, we’ve got our sights on key targets,” Trump said, “If there is no agreement, we will hit every one of their power plants very aggressively—and it’s very likely we’ll do it at the same time.” He also threatened to strike Iran’s oil infrastructure.

However, multiple regional officials said that even if Israel continues carrying out assassination operations against Iran’s top leadership, the hope of a negotiating breakthrough in the coming weeks remains slim.

The logic of the Trump administration is that continued assassinations can force Iran to compromise. A former Trump administration official, who had served during the early stage of the conflict, told The Washington Post: “If Iran isn’t flexible enough, they can keep killing—until they find someone who is willing to negotiate.” “When you apply more pressure, Iranians seem more likely to respond.”

This former official acknowledged that assassinations ultimately produce people who are willing to engage with Trump—only with “a slim chance.” But he believed that this strategy can at least sow suspicion and internal strife within Iran’s top leadership, thereby weakening the regime. “This is essentially a one-stone, two-bird strategy—either you find someone willing to negotiate, or you create more turmoil, causing them to split internally and further weaken the regime.”

Iran strongly rejects this. An Iranian diplomat said that such an approach exposes a profound misunderstanding of Iranian culture and history—in Iran, martyrdom is revered.

Iran gets more hardline the more it fights

Suzanne Maloney, vice president of the Brookings Institution and a former senior U.S. State Department official on Iran issues, pointed out that “(Iran) is a system with a very, very deep reserve of talent. It’s not a personal authoritarian system that relies on a small number of core advisors. Over 47 years, this country has worked to ensure that it will not be toppled by external adversaries or by its own people.”

Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and an Iran analyst, also noted that currently, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who is negotiating with Trump, the newly appointed commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Ahmad Vahidi, and the supreme leader’s military adviser Mohsen Rezaei all came of age during the Iran–Iraq war in the 1980s.

“They all climbed up together from the ground floor when they were young,” Vatanka said. “After spending decades in this system, I don’t think these people want to negotiate any deal with Trump. They will dig in even harder, believing in their own set of slogans. They are all part of the system. There may be differences, but at this moment, survival is a shared interest.”

It’s worth noting that Iran has not fallen into paralysis despite attacks on its top ranks. Reports say Iran has recently continued launching retaliatory attacks, including hitting high-value targets such as key energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, industrial and energy facilities in Israel, and U.S. military installations—among them a direct strike on an advanced U.S. reconnaissance aircraft.

According to CCTV News, an F-15E fighter jet was shot down inside Iran, and another A-10 attack aircraft crashed near the Strait of Hormuz. This is the first time, known to have occurred since the U.S. and Israel launched military action against Iran on February 28, that a U.S. aircraft has been lost within Iran.

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