Iran Stalls Talks, Keeps Hormuz Leverage Ahead of Midterms

Iran is deliberately dragging out negotiations with Washington to hurt Donald Trump politically before the November 3 midterm elections, three senior Iranian officials and an Iranian insider told Reuters. They spoke anonymously. One put it bluntly: “Iran is preparing for renewed Israeli and US attacks, not for a deal with America to end the war.” Another said the “clerical establishment is determined not to give Trump a political victory.”

That’s the strategic reality behind the diplomatic choreography. The war has entered its eighth month, and Tehran has concluded that keeping the situation somewhere between war and peace serves its interests through the elections.

The Strait as a Weapon

Iran is protecting its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. The vital global energy shipping route has been effectively closed since the conflict began, as Iranian attacks, both threatened and actual, reduced ship traffic to a trickle. The war began in February, when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Tehran’s offer, relayed through Qatari mediators, would reopen the strait within seven days, but under Iranian control. In exchange, Washington would lift its maritime blockade, ease limits on Iranian oil exports, release frozen assets and end hostilities on all fronts.

Tehran hasn’t offered to give up its leverage over the waterway. It also says its “seven-day plan” conditions must be met before any nuclear talks begin. Under pressure from Israel, Washington wants Iran’s decades-long nuclear program on the table from the outset. Iran insists the program is purely peaceful; Western powers allege it has military dimensions.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran hasn’t entered nuclear negotiations with Washington at all, calling the latest U.S. message “insufficient and incomplete.” He rejected speculation that Iran had softened its nuclear position.

Warnings of Retaliation

Baghaei warned that Iran would hit back against any U.S. strike, dismissing the notion of an attack without a response as an “illusion.” “If our response is not stronger, it will certainly be equal,” he said. His comments came amid reports of a possible U.S. attack on Pickaxe Mountain (Kuh-e Kolang). Trump has said the United States won’t bomb Iran again before November 3, but Iranian officials still expect bombing to resume sooner or later.

Baghaei said Iran isn’t experiencing peace and lives with the prospect of another Israeli attack “day and night.” He added that Iranian forces had learned from the past two years and stood ready to repel any assault. On the Strait itself, he blamed “U.S. interventionist and aggressive actions” for the insecurity and urged the United Nations to step in, though Tehran gave no sign it would loosen its own grip on the waterway.

A Regime Under Strain

The pressure on Tehran is real. Annual inflation hit 73.6% in September, according to the Statistical Centre of Iran, while the rial has fallen nearly 35% against the dollar since Washington reapplied its naval blockade in July. Iran’s seaborne crude exports fell to zero in the second week of September, down from a 14-day average of 230,000 barrels per day at the month’s start, and remained there as of October 5, according to energy intelligence platform Vortexa. Public patience is wearing thin. Security forces killed thousands at the turn of the year as they crushed escalating anti-government protests.

Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the clerical establishment clearly wants to hurt Trump politically. But the deeper issue, he said, is Tehran’s belief that Trump wants regime change, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of seeking to bring down Iran’s ruling establishment. Three Israeli officials said U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed Iran with Netanyahu during an unannounced Israel visit on Monday, a week before a parliamentary election in which Netanyahu’s position was at risk.

Iranian officials cite history to explain their distrust. An Israeli attack in June 2025 wrecked plans for a sixth round of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks in Oman, and the current war started just after another round ended, while technical discussions remained scheduled. Baghaei cited the 2018 U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement. Analyst Saeed Leylaz went further: “Reaching a sustainable deal with the US, even after the Trump administration, is no longer possible because of the deepened distrust. Nothing will go back to the pre-war status quo.”

Regional Fallout

Baghaei’s regional remarks added to the picture. He said Iran had formally opposed an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation resolution, adopted at a Baghdad foreign ministers’ meeting, expressing solidarity with Saudi Arabia against attacks by Yemen’s Houthis. He said Tehran blocked two Yemen paragraphs from the final declaration. “The issue of Yemen cannot be resolved through force,” he said. He also accused Israel’s policies and territorial expansion of fueling regional instability, and said Tehran would keep deepening ties with Russia and China whatever Washington says.

Why This Matters: Iran’s calculation, as its own officials describe it, is to run out the clock on Washington while holding the world’s key energy chokepoint hostage. The nuclear question remains unresolved, with Tehran refusing to discuss it until its demands on the blockade, sanctions relief and frozen assets are met. For Israel, a stalemate that preserves Iran’s leverage and its program is a strategic risk, explaining the pressure on Washington to put the nuclear issue first. For the region, Iran’s defense of its proxies’ interests, as shown by its objection to the OIC’s Houthi resolution, and its opposition to any deal that might help Trump politically suggest the conflict won’t end with the midterms.