The Washington Post reported on Monday night that a new US intelligence assessment says that Iran’s government is unlikely to feel a significant impact or change its negotiating position as a result of the US airstrikes that have been hitting Iran.
The report, which cited current and former US officials, said that US intelligence agencies have also “concluded that Tehran and Washington are, for now, stuck in an indefinite limbo between peace and war,” though there’s been little peace lately as the US has bombed Iran for 10 consecutive nights.
President Trump on Tuesday claimed that Iran “desperately” wants to hold talks for a deal, but there’s no sign that Tehran is backing down on its core demands, and the idea of negotiating with the US has become even more politically fraught for Iran’s leadership following the collapse of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the renewed US bombing campaign.
There have been reports of Pakistan and other mediating countries attempting to salvage negotiations between the two sides, something Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed on Monday, but there has been no sign of progress. Iranian officials have also shown no sign of backing down on their core demands, which include Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Since the collapse of the MoU, US strikes in Iran have killed more than 50 Iranians, including many civilians, according to Iranian government officials, and at least four US soldiers have been killed, including three who were killed in Jordan by an Iranian missile attack and one who died during the detonation of an unexploded drone in Iraq.
