{"id":219777,"date":"2026-07-23T13:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/219777\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T13:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:20:09","slug":"the-international-community-should-take-over-iran-war-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/219777\/","title":{"rendered":"The international community should take over Iran war negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To the editor: President Trump and Iran each have one end of a rope with a knot in it; both need the knot removed, but know only how to tighten their grip and pull harder (\u201cNews Analysis: Trump, long a critic of \u2018forever wars,\u2019 may be stumbling into one with Iran,\u201d<\/a> July 20). Both desperately need this war to end, but can\u2019t win militarily and can\u2019t negotiate concessions.<\/p>\n

The only alternative is for the international community to take negotiation out of the parties\u2019 hands. Trump can take an ego-sparing offramp by framing the U.S. as having won the battle, and it\u2019s now time for others to step up and handle the diplomatic cleanup. A coalition of NATO and Middle Eastern states could devise an agreement among themselves.<\/p>\n

Terms are foreseeable: Military action by one party against the other voids the agreement. The Strait of Hormuz is recognized permanently as international waters. Iran secures financial compensation on some basis other than tolls on shipping. Resolutions to nuclear and ballistic missile issues can be kicked down the road, since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assured lawmakers that Iran\u2019s military has been set back \u201cnot just years,\u201d but likely \u201cdecades.\u201d<\/a> Israeli and Iranian regional proxies would be out of scope; the U.S. cannot commit to maintaining a war simply because those parties are dissatisfied.<\/p>\n

The clear lesson of this war is that American aims in Iran can\u2019t be achieved by war short of a full invasion and regime change, for which the people have no appetite based on the lessons of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. With the illusion of an easy war punctured, hopefully that creates a new respect for diplomacy going forward.<\/p>\n

Michael Maniccia, Alhambra<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

To the editor: The insightful article by Nabih Bulos does a good job of explaining why the war with Iran isn\u2019t going the way Trump, his advisors and allies hoped and expected it would, and why prospects for an end appear unlikely. It deserves a better headline: \u201cMay be stumbling\u201d should be replaced with the past tense \u201chas stumbled,\u201d because that is clearly the reality.<\/p>\n

Richard Schmittdiel, Glendale<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

To the editor: Two things stand out to me in Trump\u2019s war with Iran: The American people still have no idea why this war was started in the first place, and a situation exists in the Strait of Hormuz that didn\u2019t before he attacked. His so-called \u201cdeals\u201d have not remedied the latter at all.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Pentagon faces a massive shortfall<\/a>. A complete fiasco.<\/p>\n

Robert Langelier, Hemet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: President Trump and Iran each have one end of a rope with a knot in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[8646,63381,723,63382,102,6050,34,13763,8056,3422,396,722,1219,683,36],"class_list":["post-219777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-agreement","tag-clear-lesson","tag-editor","tag-financial-compensation","tag-hormuz","tag-international-community","tag-iran","tag-military-action","tag-other","tag-party","tag-people","tag-president-trump","tag-strait","tag-u-s","tag-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116969499917337180","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}