There are wars that fit neatly into textbooks.
Then there is this one.
A conflict where aircraft carriers escort oil tankers while economists track insurance premiums like battlefield indicators. Where ceasefires collapse over weekends and diplomacy resumes by Monday afternoon. Where the world’s most advanced military alliance chases speedboats through Hormuz while television scholars continue calling it “strategic signalling.”
At times, this conflict resembles a game of chicken. Then hide and seek. Then cat and mouse. Then all three together, drifting between oil terminals, Telegram channels and satellite imagery.
For years, Iran experts like Vali Nasr have reminded us that the Islamic Republic is fundamentally a rational actor pursuing a coherent grand strategy. Yet this same state enriches uranium beyond agreed limits while insisting Khamenei’s fatwa prohibits nuclear weapons. It attacks Gulf infrastructure while denying involvement. Apparently, this too is part of the grand strategy.
The reality is simpler. The Iranian system shows extraordinary resilience. It survives sanctions, assassinations, protests, economic collapse and isolation. But surviving another day is not always the same thing as possessing a rational long-term strategy. Especially if your strategy involves threatening the same Gulf geography through which your own economy breathes.
As the old Urdu line goes:
Sanam hum to doobey hain, tumhein bhi le doobain ge.
(Beloved, I may drown — but I will drag you down with me.)
That, in many ways, becomes the unofficial Hormuz doctrine of the IRGC. If America or Israel attacks Iran, Tehran’s answer is to threaten neighbouring Gulf states and hold global trade hostage through Hormuz.
The irony is that the principal sufferers are not even the Americans. It is the Gulf producers. It is Europe. It is China, Japan and South Korea. Trump, meanwhile, keeps telling his MAGA base that ships continue docking safely at American ports while everybody else panics over tanker insurance premiums.
Modern nuclear diplomacy increasingly resembles customer service routed through Islamabad
Then comes the diplomacy. Or rather, the endless diplomacy.
First 15 American points. Then 10 Iranian points. Then 14 American points again. Reviews. Clarifications. Updated drafts. One-page memorandum. And now this latest Iranian response effectively collapses every expectation that a deal is finally taking shape.
Over a month ago, when things finally narrowed after the ceasefire, the famous Islamabad talks took place. JD Vance flies in from Washington. PAF escorts the Iranian delegation. The talks last 21 hours.
Pakistani hospitality, we must admit, takes many forms. Pakistanis possess an unusual civilisational ability to simultaneously host rivals, reassure allies, calm nervous Gulf states and publicly remain neutral in one of the world’s most complicated backchannel diplomatic exercises.
By early morning, however, poor Vance concludes that the Iranian delegation simply lacks the authority to settle the core nuclear issue and needs to return for “further consultations,” which inside the Islamic Republic can mean anything between two hours and two geological eras.
That fact appears to frustrate Trump the most.
Post-Islamabad, while extending the ceasefire upon Pakistan’s request, Trump points to Iran’s “fractured” power structure as the principal obstacle to a deal. Tehran instantly responds: “We are more united than ever.”
A second round is quietly prepared. Islamabad completes security details once again. The Americans stand ready. But the Iranians still dilly-dally. Trump finally says that he cannot keep sending delegations across long distances if Tehran itself has not settled matters internally. Once the Mullahs reach clarity, Pakistan, he suggests, can reconnect the sides by phone.
Modern nuclear diplomacy increasingly resembles customer service routed through Islamabad.
This latest Iranian response was again conveyed through Pakistan on Sunday. The core demands remain unchanged: ease sanctions, loosen the naval squeeze, restore unrestricted oil exports and postpone meaningful nuclear commitments. On this central issue, the old tactic quietly returns: delay, delay, delay.
Trump’s reaction is immediate: “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Suddenly, the process is back to square one.
And almost instantly, the familiar spoilers re-emerge. Netanyahu becomes active again. Lindsey Graham returns to regime-change rhetoric. The hardliners on both sides appear most energised precisely when diplomacy begins collapsing.
More Iranians became victims of their own regime’s repression in a matter of days than of six weeks of foreign aggression
Sometimes, Netanyahu looks like that Gollum character from The Lord of the Rings—restless, scheming and unable to live without the precious logic of perpetual conflict. Yet even he struggles to match the cunning Mullahs, whose instinct for spoiler politics seems to outmanoeuvre everybody else.
Dime describes America’s strategy in this conflict: Diplomacy. Information. Military. Economic. All are operating simultaneously.
Diplomacy means Trump publicly insisting every week that he still wants peace while quietly moving more assets into the region.
Information means talking simultaneously to markets, MAGA voters, Gulf rulers, Tehran and Beijing. During weekdays, Trump calms markets. Over the weekends, he rediscovers brinkmanship.
The Iranians do the reverse. Escalatory rhetoric throughout the week. Moderation before Friday prayers. Then another mysterious explosion near Hormuz before Monday trading opens.
Military pressure means carriers, escorts and enough hardware floating in Gulf waters to recreate half the Cold War. Economic pressure remains Trump’s favourite part. He genuinely believes that eventually all human beings become negotiable under sufficient sanctions.
That strategy works better in Venezuela. Iran is Iran. You are dealing with a regime whose ideological cadres genuinely appear convinced martyrdom is not tragedy but career advancement.
Then comes the Persian Mosaic.
Mosaic warfare, we are told, is Iran’s decentralised strategic doctrine: diffused authority, multiple centres, layered responses.
Translated into ordinary language: nobody knows who exactly attacks whom, who authorises it, who denies it, or who secretly negotiates while someone else mines Hormuz.
One faction attacks Gulf infrastructure. Another denies it. The President speaks about diplomacy. The IRGC posts martyrdom graphics. State media blames Mossad. Then another explosion occurs near a shipping lane.
Just last week, and even on Sunday, attacks on Gulf states again became theatre. The strikes were real. The damage was real. The satellite imagery was very real. Yet the denials continued. Plausible deniability only works if satellites are not orbiting above your head.
The funniest part of the war, however, remains the famous fleet of mosquitoes.
Tiny IRGC speedboats darting around American destroyers like angry jet skis confronting shopping malls. A civilisation thousands of years old, confronting the Seventh Fleet using Yamaha engines.
Trump has practically turned the mosquito fleet into reality television. One day, he warned the boats would be “blown out of the water.” Another day, he joked the IRGC spent “more time circling than fishing.”
Over time, Trump has indeed turned the IRGC’s Hormuz strategy upside down. Iran attempted to hold global shipping hostage. Washington responded with naval pressure and Mission Freedom escorts.
But Iran’s latest response leaves Trump with fewer options except tightening the squeeze once again. If diplomacy continues stalling, Mission Freedom may return in expanded form. The nightmare scenario Pakistan spends months trying to prevent now appears increasingly plausible: deeper naval confrontation in Hormuz, wider IRGC retaliation against Gulf states, and eventually the danger of Saudi Arabia itself being targeted again.
And if Saudi Arabia comes under sustained attack, the regional equation fundamentally changes. Pakistan’s role would no longer remain confined to diplomacy alone. That is precisely the threshold Islamabad, Riyadh, and much of the Gulf desperately try to prevent from being crossed.
Today, Israel and Iran increasingly resemble two sides of the same coin. One survives politically through permanent insecurity. The other survives ideologically through permanent confrontation. Both need enemies. Both fear normalisation. Both ultimately thrive when the Middle East remains unstable.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, therefore, is correct in arguing that MBS wisely refuses to fall into either the Israeli escalation trap or Iranian provocation against the Gulf. Had Saudi Arabia reacted impulsively, the region might already be engulfed in devastation.
And through it all, ordinary Iranians suffer the most. Not the television generals. Not the online revolutionaries. Not the scholars defending yesterday’s theories on X.
The people.
Some die under bombardment. Others under repression. In fact, more Iranians became victims of their own regime’s repression in a matter of days than of six weeks of foreign aggression.
Perhaps that is why this conflict feels simultaneously tragic and absurd. An American Dime is trying to force a deal through pressure, persuasion and markets. A Persian Mosaic where factions, clerics and generals speak in different voices while insisting they are perfectly united. And somewhere in between, a fleet of mosquitoes buzzes around Hormuz while the global economy holds its breath.
For negotiators, mediators and analysts alike, the exhaustion now comes from the endless oscillation between diplomacy and catastrophe. Pakistan invests enormous effort trying to keep the process alive. Trump still appears determined to secure a deal. The Gulf desperately wants stability. Yet ideological rigidity in Tehran and escalation instincts among Israeli hardliners continue shrinking the space for peace while steadily expanding the logic of war.
Everyone now lives trapped inside this exhausting high-octane thriller between negotiation and catastrophe, never entirely certain whether the next morning brings diplomacy, missiles or another “totally unacceptable” response.