Ceasefire without ceasing fire
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We continue to see more firing than ceasing in Iran:
The ambiguities in the language that U.S. negotiators agreed to in their interim cease-fire agreement with Iran appear to be coming back to haunt them, less than two weeks after the two sides signed the deal.
That much is clear from the surge in violence over the last 72 hours, which began on Thursday when Iranian forces struck a container ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for shipping oil and natural gas.
The memorandum that the two sides agreed to calls for Iran to “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days. Crucially, it leaves “arrangements” and “best efforts” undefined.
Iran appears to have interpreted that language to mean that it can determine which route ships must take. Hours before its attack on the container ship, Iran had warned ships that the only route through the strait was through its waters, trying to stop vessels from using an alternate, U.S.-backed route on the southern side of the strait that hugs the coastline of Oman.
The interim deal “leaned on deliberately flexible language because that was probably the only way to get it over the line,” said Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po in Paris. “But flexibility only holds while both sides attach similar meanings to the same vague provisions.”
The vagueness of the interim agreement has led both sides to try to define facts on the ground to their advantage, before any uncertainties are resolved in a final deal, she added.
And this is the issue — there has never really been a “deal,” just an agreement to make a deal at some point in the future. It seems unlikely that this will lead to any kind of real deal anytime soon.