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Former US envoys who dealt with Iran<\/a> have said that the US-Israeli attack on Iran and Tehran\u2019s subsequent closure of the strait of Hormuz have given Iran new tools and resolve to resist pressure to shutter its nuclear programme.<\/p>\n Two senior negotiators for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama-era agreement to limit Iran\u2019s nuclear uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief, said the Trump administration\u2019s war had handed Iran a coveted weapon by demonstrating its ability to cut off the strait of Hormuz, an economic chokehold that one negotiator said would help Iran \u201cbalance the asymmetry of power\u201d with the US.<\/p>\n \u201cThis administration, to say it more politely, cannot unsoil the bed,\u201d said Alan Eyre, a former diplomat who helped negotiate the JCPOA. \u201cThere\u2019s no way to get back to the status quo ante before this war started.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2018, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA, which barred Tehran from enriching its uranium to weapons-grade. Trump called the deal, which lifted some sanctions on Iran, \u201cone of the worst and most one-sided transactions\u201d the US had ever entered into.<\/p>\n But after a strategy of high pressure \u2013 first through returning sanctions and then, after Trump\u2019s return to power in 2025, a war that was meant to destroy Iran\u2019s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities \u2013 the current US administration has found itself in more complex negotiations than before its campaign<\/a> of economic and military strikes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe strait of Hormuz is such a good strategic deterrent [and] to an extent it makes the nuclear programme less crucial,\u201d said Eyre. \u201cIt would have taken a lot of time and a lot of risk for them to weaponise [nuclear arms] \u2026 But they\u2019ve got a really cool threat now, which is incredibly easy to turn on and off.\u201d<\/p>\n Diplomatic sources have indicated that the Iranian delegation believes this is an unprecedented set of circumstances to negotiate on favourable terms, as the Trump administration appears keen to exit the conflict quickly.<\/p>\n A US delegation led by JD Vance will meet Iranian negotiators in Islamabad, Pakistan this weekend. The vice-president has been a less vocal booster of the war than other members of the administration such as the secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n But while the US could withdraw its air power from the conflict, it has not presented a clear plan for reopening the strait of Hormuz \u2013 either through force or a negotiated settlement.<\/p>\n Robert Malley, a Yale lecturer who was former special envoy to Iran under Joe Biden and a lead negotiator on the JCPOA, said: \u201cThe strait of Hormuz wasn\u2019t an issue before the US decided to strike. You have all the issues inherited from the past, but you just added a few, because the US has handed Iran a tool that it always had, but it never thought of using, or never felt it could.\u201d<\/p>\n The chances for a comprehensive agreement addressing all of the US and Iran\u2019s grievances appear slim. While the Obama administration sought to negotiate exclusively on Iran\u2019s nuclear programme in the lead-up to the 2015 agreement, the Trump administration has sought a broader deal limiting Iran\u2019s ballistic missiles programme and its support for regional proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.<\/p>\n