By Pierre Lellouche
The central issue is now the restoration of freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
As is so often the case, it all began with a double miscalculation—one by US President Donald Trump and the other by his ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The first mistake was to overestimate the weakness of the Islamic Republic. In the aftermath of 7 October, Tehran had watched Israel destroy Hamas in Gaza and inflict severe damage on Hezbollah, the principal instrument in Iran’s existential struggle against Israel. Decapitated following the assassination of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in September 2024, Hezbollah saw hundreds of its senior members killed or wounded the following month by explosive-laden pagers planted by Mossad.
These humiliating setbacks were compounded by the fall of Iran’s ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
Two full-scale missile and drone wars between Israel and Iran followed, in October 2024 and June 2025. Once again, they demonstrated Israel’s impressive superiority, both offensively and defensively, particularly through its Iron Dome system.
Many experts—including prominent ones such as Gilles Kepel, with whom I debated in Le Figaro Magazine in October 2024—believed that Iran would experience the same decline as the former Soviet Union after its defeat in Kabul.
I did not share that view. I pointed instead to the resilience of the Iranian people, their two-thousand-year history and the country’s arsenal of 3,000 missiles.
It was against this backdrop that the remarkable uprising of the Iranian people against the regime erupted in January 2026, followed by a brutal crackdown that left 40,000 people dead.
These developments ultimately convinced the Trump administration that the rule of the mullahs was nearing its end and that a targeted operation might finally bring about the regime’s collapse and liberate a people held hostage for forty-seven years—just as the spectacular capture of Nicolás Maduro in Caracas the previous January had appeared to demonstrate.
The hubris surrounding the use of military force had reached its peak.
The 17 June Agreement Recognises Iran’s De Facto Annexation of Hormuz
The second mistake followed directly from the first, despite being a well-known lesson of history: air strikes alone cannot secure a surrender, still less bring about regime change.
Despite the elimination of its principal leaders on 28 February, and despite 13,000 strikes against its military and nuclear sites and other strategic installations, the Islamic Republic held firm. More importantly, it struck back.
Iran targeted Israel and US bases throughout the region, but above all it destroyed oil and gas facilities in neighbouring Arab states. Its masterstroke was the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, imposed only six days after the war began.
The strait is nothing less than the jugular vein of the global economy. Its closure deprives humanity of 25 per cent of the energy it requires every day.
Without realising it, Trump had handed Iran a second atomic bomb: the ability to hold the entire planet hostage at any moment and thereby deter any future attempt to attack it.
As an added bonus, Hormuz would also become a source of immense revenue for the regime. Every ship passing through the strait would be expected to pay—much as in The Godfather—to ensure its safe passage.
Worse still, the US-Iranian agreement signed by Trump amid the splendour of Versailles on 17 June explicitly recognises Iran’s privatisation of the strait. It therefore acknowledges the de facto—and now effectively legal—annexation of the territorial waters of the Arab monarchies neighbouring Iran.
What does Article 5 of the celebrated Versailles Agreement actually say?
“Upon the signing of the present agreement, the Islamic Republic shall make every effort to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels, free of charge, for a period of only sixty days. […] Iran shall enter into dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman in order to define the future management and maritime services of the Strait of Hormuz, in consultation with the other Gulf states and in accordance with international law.”
This disastrous wording, accepted by the Americans, will only reinforce the conviction of the Revolutionary Guards—who now govern the country—that Iran has already won its war against the United States and Israel.
Without delay, the Iranians therefore decided to implement Article 5 of the Versailles Agreement in their own way. They demanded that all ships entering or leaving the strait must now sail close to the northern, Iranian coast rather than use the southern corridor along the coast of Oman, where vessels periodically receive protection from the US Navy.
This week, three oil tankers belonging to Saudi Arabia and Qatar made the mistake of opting for American protection. They were immediately struck by “unidentified” missiles—in other words, Iranian missiles.
The incident led to a resumption and intensification of US bombing operations against Iran. Tehran responded with missile strikes on Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, even as the week-long funeral ceremonies for the former leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were taking place.
To summarise:
– Plan A, which sought regime change, has failed;
– Plan B, which sought the “capitulation” of the Islamic Republic, to use Trump’s own word, has also failed;
– Plan C, which aimed to eliminate Iran’s nuclear programme, or at least place it under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is no longer even being discussed. It has been postponed to some distant future and relegated to “technical” negotiations;
– Plan D has now become the principal objective of the strange mixture of negotiations and bombing currently under way. It concerns not only the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but above all its legal and political status, with the aim of restoring freedom of navigation—the situation that prevailed before 28 February.
The question is: how can this be achieved?
Trump has certainly dangled a substantial financial carrot. He has promised not only to lift sanctions, but also to release $23 billion in Iranian assets frozen in Western banks. He has even added a staggering $300 billion reconstruction package for Iran, to be paid by the Arab monarchies—the very states that have themselves been targeted by Tehran’s attacks.
None of it has worked.
The Iranians understand the US electoral calendar perfectly well, particularly the midterm elections in November. They also read the opinion polls: two-thirds of Americans do not want this war.
Reopening the strait would require a large-scale and highly risky ground operation. Trump would find it extremely difficult to justify such an intervention, having been elected—along with his vice-president—on a promise to bring an end to the “forever wars” represented by Iraq and Afghanistan.
Moreover, such an operation would require the deployment of large quantities of sophisticated weapons that the United States needs for its strategic competition with China.
The Strange Truce May Become a Prolonged War of Attrition
The ideal outcome would, of course, be for the so-called moderates—Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Abbas Araghchi and Masoud Pezeshkian—to obtain permission from the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, to reach some form of agreement, even if only a temporary one.
Such an arrangement could at least provide relief to millions of unemployed Iranians and to an economy that has been bled dry.
The problem is that these negotiators are being publicly accused of treason. They are insulted daily and have even been pelted with stones.
The strange truce is therefore likely to endure in the form of a war of attrition, alternating between indirect negotiations—conducted through Qatar or Pakistan—and exchanges of missile fire, while all sides attempt to avoid triggering another panic in energy supplies and financial markets.
Despite being directly affected, the Europeans have taken refuge in a deafening silence.
Emmanuel Macron, normally far more outspoken, limited himself to a very brief post announcing that France’s only aircraft carrier was being sent back to Toulon. The Americans and Iranians, he said, had reached an agreement that “represents an important step towards regional stability.”
Only a few days earlier, Iran had warned that the presence of France and other European states in the region was “complicating” the situation.
Photo: Source
* Editorial note: This article was first published in Le Journal du Dimanche on 11 July 2026. It was translated from French for the readers of The Levant Files. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect or align with the editorial position of *The Levant Files*.