Report: Trump Gives Iran Days to End Power Struggle and Return to Peace Talks

SadaNews Translation - Three US officials told Axios that President Trump is giving the warring Iranian factions a short opportunity to unify behind a coherent counteroffer, otherwise, the ceasefire he extended on Tuesday will end.

An American source familiar with the matter stated according to SadaNews translation: "Trump is prepared to give the Iranians an additional three to five days of ceasefire to allow them to sort out their affairs. The ceasefire will not be open-ended."

Trump's negotiators believe that reaching an agreement to end the war and address what remains of Iran's nuclear program is still possible. However, they also fear they may not have anyone in Tehran authorized to agree.

The Supreme Leader, Majtaba Khamenei, is essentially not communicating with anyone. The leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who now control the country, and the Iranian civilian negotiators are publicly divided over strategy.

An American official noted: "We have seen a complete division within Iran between the negotiators and the military - neither side can reach the Supreme Leader, who is unresponsive."

The US officials began to notice the rifts after the first round of Islamabad talks, when it became clear that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander General Ahmad Vahidi and his deputies rejected much of what the Iranian negotiators themselves discussed.

The division burst into the open last Friday. When Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the Revolutionary Guard rejected this implementation and began publicly attacking him.

In the days following, Iran did not provide any substantive response to the latest American proposal and refused to commit to a second round of talks in Pakistan.

This division is partly a result of Israel's assassination in March of Ali Larijani, the former secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Larijani had the authority and political weight necessary to maintain unity in the Iranian decision-making process.

An American official said his successor, Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf - whose job is to coordinate between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the civil leadership and the Supreme Leader - is ineffective.

The past 48 hours have been extremely frustrating for the White House - especially for Vice President Vance, who had packed his bags to travel to Islamabad to lead a second round of peace talks.

Instead, he found himself waiting for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard generals who now control Iran to allow Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf and Araghchi to travel to Pakistan to meet with him.

On Monday evening, it seemed that the Iranians had given the Pakistani mediators the green light for talks. By Tuesday morning, that signal had disappeared, replaced by a demand for the United States to lift the maritime blockade.

The second air force plane remained sitting on the runway of Andrews Joint Base for hours, ready for takeoff - until it became clear that the flight would not happen.

The White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who were scheduled to fly from Miami to Islamabad, boarded a government plane heading to Washington instead.

On Tuesday afternoon, Trump met with his national security team: Vance, Witkoff, Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Keen, and other senior officials.

Before starting the operation, even some of Trump's advisors themselves did not know which direction he would lean: would it be a massive strike against Iran's energy infrastructure, or granting more time for diplomacy. In the end, he chose the latter option.

An American official said: "The degree of disagreement became clear in the past few days, and the question was: Does it make sense to go to Islamabad in this situation?" He added: "So the decision was to give diplomatic efforts more time."

Many American officials and those close to Trump reached the same conclusion: the president believes that the United States has achieved all it can militarily and wants to exit this war, which is becoming less popular. He will not resume it until all other options are exhausted.
An American source close to Trump said: "It certainly seems that Trump does not want to use military force anymore and has made the decision to end the war."

However, if the Pakistani mediators cannot secure Iranian participation within Trump's window, the military option will return to the table.

American officials and the Pakistani mediators are waiting for Khamenei to break his silence in the next day or two and to give his negotiators clear direction to return to the negotiating table, according to a regional source familiar with the mediation efforts and an Israeli source familiar with the discussions.
The extension of the ceasefire has cost Trump some leverage. He believes that the maritime blockade he has kept in place will compensate for that and more, claiming that the Iranians "are suffering from severe financial distress" and cannot even pay their military and police salaries.

In a post on the "Truth Social" platform on Tuesday evening, Trump clarified that the blockade is his main means of pressure. He wrote: "Iran does not want to close the Strait of Hormuz, but wants to open it to earn $500 million a day. They are saying they want to close it only because I am imposing a complete blockade (closed!), so they just want to save face."

Trump added: "Some people contacted me four days ago saying: Sir, Iran wants to open the strait immediately. But if we do that, there will never be an agreement with Iran, unless we destroy the rest of their country, including their leaders!"