Iran's Fragile Truce: Can a Deal Be Done?

One bridge is already gone. A missile strike last week brought down the main highway linking Tabriz to Tehran, forcing travelers onto winding rural detours — a 12-hour drive through a country suspended between war and something that might, if it holds, become peace.

BBC Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet made that drive this week, reporting from Iran under strict conditions: none of her material may be used on the BBC's Persian Service, a restriction applied to all international media operating in the country. What she found was a nation taking things, as one Iranian put it, "one day at a time."

Five Weeks of War, Two Weeks of Quiet

The ceasefire that paused five weeks of devastating conflict between Iran and the US-Israeli coalition is now entering its final week. Airports remain closed. The bridges that still stand catch the spring sunlight. And at a Turkish border crossing dusted with late-season snow, Iranians are trickling home.

A grey-haired banker who had sheltered with his son in Turkey offered a careful accounting: strikes in his northern city had hit "mainly military targets, not homes and civilian infrastructure." An elderly woman in a headscarf spoke of young Iranians caught between American airstrikes and the Basij paramilitary forces that patrol their streets. "It's all in God's hands," she said.

A younger woman in a red puffer jacket was blunter: "Of course the ceasefire won't hold. Iran will never give up its control of the Strait of Hormuz."

The targeting of civilian infrastructure — including the collapsed bridge — has drawn mounting criticism from international legal scholars who warn of potential violations of humanitarian law and possible war crimes. The US and Israel maintain they are striking only military targets.

Trump has not softened his rhetoric. On Wednesday he told Fox Business News: "We could take out every one of their bridges in one hour" — along with every power plant. "But we don't want to do that," he added. On April 7th, he had warned that "a whole civilisation will die tonight," a statement that drew widespread condemnation.

Twenty-One Hours in Islamabad

While bombs paused, diplomats moved. Last Sunday, Vice President JD Vance boarded a plane at dawn and flew to Islamabad, describing what he carried as America's "final and best offer." What followed was 21 hours of direct US-Iran talks, the most substantive face-to-face engagement in years.

Iran's delegation was led by Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — a hardliner with deep ties to the now-dominant Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), but one who some analysts read as a pragmatist capable of cutting deals. He is not, sources note, the only or even the primary decision-maker.

The gaps remain wide. Washington's reported red lines: zero nuclear enrichment, dismantlement of enrichment facilities, removal of Iran's 440kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium, opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and an end to funding for regional proxies including Hamas and Hezbollah.

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Tehran's position, articulated Wednesday by Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei: "full end to war, lifting of sanctions, and retribution for damages from US-Israeli attacks." Iran has rejected a US demand for a 20-year moratorium on enrichment, countering with the 5-year pause it had proposed before hostilities began. On its 440kg of 60%-enriched uranium — dangerously close to weapons grade — Tehran is offering dilution rather than removal.

Neither side has walked away. The White House confirmed a second round of talks is being planned, again in Islamabad, with Pakistan mediating. Reports are circulating of a ceasefire extension.

The Strait, the Threat, and the Stakes

The Strait of Hormuz is not simply a bargaining chip. Roughly 20% of global oil trade passes through it daily. When Iran's top operational commander Ali Abdollahi threatened Wednesday to halt "any exports or imports" across the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea, energy markets took notice.

Trump's naval blockade of Iranian oil tankers has so far failed to produce the capitulation he appears to expect. Iran shows no sign of buckling — though the economic pressure is real and cumulative. The question is whether Tehran calculates that holding out serves its interests better than a deal that requires dismantling the nuclear infrastructure it has spent decades building.

On Wednesday, Pakistan's Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, landed in Tehran to accelerate mediation efforts. It is a measure of how diplomatically isolated both Washington and Tehran have become that a military officer from a third country is now the most active bridge between them.

A Country Reshaped by War — and Before

The Iran that Doucet drove through is not the Iran of five years ago. New banners span the highways bearing portraits of three supreme leaders: Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the 1979 revolution; Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, assassinated in the war's opening strikes on February 28th; and his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei, reported to have been seriously wounded in that same attack and not seen publicly since.

Mojtaba is said to be working behind the scenes to forge a new political and security doctrine — a remarkable situation for a country whose supreme leadership has been violently disrupted mid-conflict.

On the streets, women walk without headscarves alongside women who wear them. It is a legacy of the 2022-23 Woman Life Freedom protests, which were crushed with lethal force but permanently shifted social behavior. The laws haven't changed. The enforcement has frayed.

"It has left many wondering," Doucet writes, "if a deal, if it's ever done, will finally lift crippling sanctions and bring the change they want to see."

What the Diplomacy Actually Requires

For a deal to happen, both sides need to move from positions that are, at their core, about survival and identity — not just strategy.

For Iran's leadership, nuclear enrichment is not merely a technical capability. It is the proof of technological sovereignty, the deterrent that Gaddafi's Libya and Hussein's Iraq lacked when regime change came for them. Surrendering it entirely, under military pressure, sets a precedent the IRGC-dominated establishment finds existential.

For the Trump administration, accepting anything less than full dismantlement risks looking weak — and risks leaving Iran with a nuclear breakout capability that could reshape the region's balance of power within months.

From Washington come assessments that the worst of the shooting war may be over for now. But "for now" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The ceasefire expires in a week. The second round of talks has no confirmed date. And the man who threatened to destroy "a whole civilisation" is also the man now saying he doesn't want to.