The best hope for the ceasefire talks in Pakistan is that both the United States and Iran have strong reasons to call a halt to the war. The biggest obstacle to their success is a total absence of trust, no discernible common ground and the fact that Israel, America's full partner in the war, has hugely escalated its onslaught on Lebanon.
US President Donald Trump is already speaking about the war in the past tense. He has declared victory and needs an exit. Not only does he have a state visit from King Charles in the diary for later this month, followed by a summit with China's President Xi Jinping in May, there are midterm elections in November. With America's summer holiday season looming, Trump also needs petrol prices to fall back to where they were before he went to war. Royal visits, summits and elections do not mix well with wars.
Iran's regime has its own reasons to end the war. It is as defiant as ever, still able to launch missiles and drones, with its social media warriors pouring out AI videos lampooning Donald Trump. But Iran has suffered massive damage. Cities have come to an economic standstill and the regime needs time to regroup and will try to use the talks in Pakistan to strengthen its position.
The Pakistani intermediaries who will be shuttling between the two delegations have a tough job on their hands. The declared positions of the two sides are as far apart as it is possible to be.
Trump has a 15-point plan that has not been published but leaked versions make it sound more like a surrender document than a basis for negotiation. Iran's 10-point plan contains a list of demands that America has consistently rejected in the past.
Creating a more durable ceasefire will require some kind of agreement to at least keep talking about the two sides' contradictory lists of intractable issues.
In wartime, without any kind of mutual trust, even a form of words that keeps the ceasefire going irrespective of there being no agreement on wider issues will look positive. No agreement at all points towards the road back to war.
The newest, and most urgent problem they face concerns reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow exit from the Gulf. Keeping it closed gives Iran a chokehold on the world economy.
Reopening the waterway that was used by hundreds of ships a day until the US and Israel attacked Iran has become the central issue in the negotiation. The millions of civilians in the Middle East who have been caught up in this conflict hope this negotiation will be the war's endgame.
Trump was expecting a quick victory, an Iranian version of the US military's stunning kidnap of the Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife in January. Both are on trial in New York on narco-terrorism charges, and the US has installed his former deputy in the presidential palace.
Hopes – expectations – that killing Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, in the war's first wave of airstrikes would lead to the collapse of the regime were wildly misplaced. His son Mojtaba has not been seen since he was appointed as his successor. There is speculation that he was badly hurt in the attack that killed his parents, as well as reportedly his sister, his wife and one of his sons. With or without the active participation of the new supreme leader, Iran's regime has demonstrated depths of resilience that took Trump by surprise.
Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu also had a reputation for caution, despite years of aggressive rhetoric – until the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. Now he has embraced a doctrine of war. He has repeatedly promised Israelis he is using their undoubted power and ingenuity to reshape the Middle East in a way that will strengthen their country. Netanyahu's aggressive pursuit of his aims has turned Israel into the country that its neighbours see as the single most disruptive force in the region.
