JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Let's move now to the war with Iran. The war appears to be stalling. So do the on-and-off efforts to end it. President Trump said earlier this week he was low-keying efforts to come to a deal. Iran said it wouldn't even talk to him until midterm elections in November. In related news, the president's recently announced peace deal for Gaza, which called for Hamas disarmament and Israel's withdrawal, was rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Let's discuss all of this with NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, who's here in Washington, and NPR international correspondent Hadeel Al-Shalchi, who is in Istanbul. Hi to both of you.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Hello.
SUMMERS: Hadeel, I'll start with you. Iranians are in talks to open the Strait of Hormuz, just not with the U.S. Those talks are with Oman, which controls the southern shore of the waterway. What are the Iranians saying about these talks?
AL-SHALCHI: Well, first, Trump has said that the U.S. is involved in talks with Iran, but Iran has denied that. But both things could in fact be true because the talks are being carried out through intermediaries like Pakistan and Qatar. A Pakistani delegation was in Tehran today, and the Qatari foreign ministry said that the talks between Iran and its neighbor, Oman, like you just said, that lies across the Strait of Hormuz, have reached what it called an advanced stage and said they were at, quote, "a critical juncture."
Last week, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that until the U.S. makes amends for its attacks, there's no way they're going to go back to negotiations with Washington. But he said that talks with Oman were in their final stages and that Iran's demands were communicated to the U.S. via intermediaries. Now, the Iranians know they need to strike a deal eventually with the U.S., but they feel like they've been able to survive whatever the U.S. has thrown at them so far and making sure - and so now they're making sure that their demands are as maximalist as possible, and that will force negotiations to drag on for as long as possible.
SUMMERS: Franco, two of President Trump's Middle East deals are unraveling. So what does that tell us about his credibility on the global stage?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah, I think there are some common themes with both of those conflicts or at least Trump's approach to them. I mean, he touts this major breakthrough that is supposed to bring historic peace, and yet peace doesn't actually happen. I mean, with Gaza, Trump declared a monumental step, you know, toward lasting peace, brokering an agreement where Israel would withdraw from Gaza and Hamas would give up their weapons. But like is so often in these cases, it comes down to the details, and the problem was that neither Hamas nor Israel wanted to go first.
You know, similarly, Trump was touting last week that he would soon have an agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz, something he said many times. Yet, again, the deal falls apart, and now Iran is saying they're going to stop negotiating. You know, in both of these cases, the president is presenting these things as, you know, buttoned-up deals, the problem is resolved when it's clearly not. And it really just makes it all so much harder to take Trump at his word, and that goes for world leaders, that goes for allies, adversaries. It also goes for financial markets and voters back home.
SUMMERS: I have to say, Franco, this sort of reminds me of George W. Bush speaking on an aircraft carrier with a mission accomplished banner just weeks after the invasion of Iraq. Fair comparison?
ORDOÑEZ: You know, I think you're not the only one who's making that comparison. I mean, Trump has actually been claiming victory for months. I mean, here he is back in March at a rally in Kentucky.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the bet. In the first hour it was over.
ORDOÑEZ: You know, and this week, even Trump's claiming that the U.S. and not Iran is in charge of the Strait of Hormuz.
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TRUMP: The only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy. We have a blockade that's been infallible. It's a steel wall. And we let people in that we want to let in, and those people come in, and they've been coming in and they're going out.
ORDOÑEZ: Juana it's all just so far from reality. I mean, of course, this kind of diplomacy is never clean. It's often evolving. But declaring premature victory and doing it so repeatedly, it is taking a toll on the U.S. reputation. I mean, a poll from just a few weeks ago by the Pew Research Center found that people across 20 countries view China more positively than the U.S.
SUMMERS: Hadeel, earlier you mentioned some of Iran's maximalist demands. What are they asking for?
AL-SHALCHI: I mean, the list is long. First, Iran said it would only reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. lifted its naval blockade, as well as sanctions. The U.S. military must withdraw from around Iran, pay reparations for war damages, release frozen Iranian assets and end its attacks. And now in the deal, that - Iran wants to ban any U.S. or Israeli ships from moving through the strait and says that it will charge a fee on ships going through. Last week, Iranian foreign minister Araghchi said that the U.S. did this all to themselves by breaking that memorandum of understanding they reached in June.
SUMMERS: Franco, Trump returned to office championing himself as the ultimate deal-maker. It was such a big part of his foreign policy identity that he could do what other presidents could not, but have we seen evidence of that?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. I mean, he repeatedly would say that he knew just the right words, he knew just the right ways to strike deals on the world's biggest challenges, whether that was Iran, whether that was Gaza or even Ukraine. I mean, we're now almost six months, though, into fighting with Iran, and there is no end in sight. A peace agreement was actually signed in Gaza nine months ago, yet the fighting continues. Now, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since then, the U.N. says.
So much of Trump's style is to build around strength and the threat of unbelievable consequences. But now Iran is basically puffing out its chest and pressing Trump politically, and with the midterms ahead, trying to push them into more uncomfortable positions. I mean, it's really leading to another comparison to another president, President Jimmy Carter, and the Iran hostage crisis that helped lead to his political downfall. And that's not a comparison that Trump's going to like, especially Trump - since Trump has often mocked Carter's legacy.
SUMMERS: Hadeel, last thing. Do we have any insight into what Iran's strategy is in all of this?
AL-SHALCHI: I mean, Franco mentioned the midterms. Iran is very aware of Trump's vulnerability going into the midterms. Iranian media, for example, is really keeping track of how Trump is polling. They know that they may not be able to beat the U.S. militarily, but they can drag this out, like I said. And they want to show that they are resilient and want to play a stronger hand than they normally would in the Hormuz negotiations. Iran has also said it may want to push nuclear talks further into the future, maybe up to four months from now, according to officials there. And those demands I just listed aren't really great for the U.S. So Iran wants to combine all of this, to possibly force Trump to go into the midterms with no Iranian deal, a weak economy and an angry base that is very much against the war.
SUMMERS: NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi and NPR's Franco Ordoñez. Thanks to both of you.
ORDOÑEZ: Thank you, Juana.
AL-SHALCHI: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STONE OVER WATER")
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