Iran’s President Sets Terms to End War: Off-Ramp in Sight? | US-Israel war over Iran news

Iranian President Masoud Pezheshkian has set conditions for ending the war with the United States and Israel, in what analysts say is a sign of possible escalation from Tehran as the US-Israeli war over Iran entered its 13th day on Thursday.

In a Wednesday post on social site X, Pezheshkian said he had spoken with his counterparts in Russia and Pakistan and confirmed “Iran’s commitment to peace.”

“The only way to end this war – waged by the Zionist regime and the US – is to recognize Iran’s legitimate rights, the payment of reparations and firm international guarantees against future aggression,” Pezeshkian wrote.

It was a rare stance from Tehran, which has maintained a defiant stance and initially rejected any possibility of talks or a ceasefire when the war broke out nearly two weeks ago.

Pezheshkian’s statement comes as pressure mounts on the US to stop what has become an extremely expensive mission. Analysts say speculation from Washington that Iran would quickly submit after the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is wrong.

Tehran, not the U.S. or Israel, will decide the end of this war because of its ability to inflict widespread economic pain, he says.

Amid military strikes by the US and Israel, Iran has launched heavy retaliatory attacks on US assets and other critical infrastructure in Gulf countries, upsetting global supplies. It has adopted what analysts call “asymmetrical” tactics — such as disrupting the critical Strait of Hormuz and threatening US banking-linked entities — to inflict as much economic pain as possible on the region and the wider world.

We are aware of Pezheshkian’s stance and the pressures on both sides to end the conflict quickly.

How much has the war cost so far?

Economically, both sides have armed might. Israel first targeted Iran’s oil facilities in Tehran on March 8, prompting outrage from global health experts over the potential risk of air and water pollution.

Meanwhile, Iran has tightened its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the only open sea to oil producers in the Gulf – with its military promising on Wednesday that it is capable of waging a protracted war that could “destroy” the world economy.

Attacks on ships in the strait, through which about 20 percent of global oil and gas traffic normally passes, have effectively closed the route.

Oil prices rose to over $100 per barrel late last week, from around $65 before the war, as ordinary buyers felt the increase at the pumps in the US, Europe and parts of Africa.

On Wednesday, Iran warned the world to expect a price of $200 per barrel, saying it would not allow “one liter of oil” to pass through the strait.

“We don’t know how quickly it will come back,” Freya Beamish, chief economist at GlobalData TS Lombard, told Al Jazeera. “We think it will return to $80 in due course, but the ball is somewhat in Iran’s court,” he said, adding that the price rise is expected to be time-limited because Iran needs oil revenue.

The International Energy Agency agreed on Wednesday to release 400 million barrels from several member countries’ emergency reserves, but it is not yet clear what effect that would have or how quickly this amount of oil could be released.

Tehran has been accused of directly attacking oil facilities in neighboring countries this week. Iraq suspended all its oil port operations on Thursday after explosive-laden Iranian “drone” boats attacked two fuel tankers in Iraqi waters, burning them and killing one crew member.

A drone attack on Oman’s Salalah oil port was filmed on Wednesday, although Tehran was not involved.

What do Iranian officials say about ending the war?

There is a conflicting message from Iran’s leadership.

Iran’s elite military unit and parallel armed force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), continues to issue threats and carry out attacks on Israeli and US military assets and infrastructure in neighboring Gulf states.

However, analysts say the political leadership is leaning more towards diplomacy. On Wednesday, President Pezheshkian said an end to the war would require the U.S. and Israel to recognize Iran’s rights, pay Iran reparations — though it is unclear how much is being asked for — and provide strong guarantees that no future war will be waged.

In a video recording last week, he apologized to neighboring countries for the strikes and promised that Iran would stop striking its neighbors until they were not allowed to attack them from their territory.

“I personally apologize to the neighboring countries affected by Iran’s actions,” the president said, adding that Tehran was not seeking a confrontation with its neighbors.

However, it is not known how much control the political leadership has over the IRGC. Hours after the president’s apology last week, air defense sirens went off in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain as the Gulf advanced.

So, what is Iran’s real position?

“Iran wants to go to the end to make sure that the United States and Israel don’t attack Iran again … so this has to be the final war,” explained Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas.

Indeed, the IRGC sees it as an existential war, but the timing of Pezheshkian’s statement on ending the conflict shows that Tehran is under pressure economically, politically and militarily, Zeidan Alkinani of Qatar’s Georgetown University told Al Jazeera.

“These differences and divisions (between the IRGC and political leaders) have always existed before this war but we can see it more now because the IRGC believes it has the right to lead this regional war.

The IRGC reports directly to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and not to the country’s political leadership. That council is headed by Ali Larijani, a top politician and close aide to the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who analysts describe as a “hardliner”.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Larijani responded to threats from Trump about an attack on the Strait of Hormuz: “Iranian people don’t care about your hollow threats; more than you have failed to erase it … so be careful not to disappear.”

Analysts say newly elected Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was once in the IRGC and was put forward by the unit as the next ayatollah after his father was killed on the first day of the war. He therefore cannot be expected to follow the reformist, diplomatic ideals of President Pezheshkian and other political leaders, which he says his father managed to marry with IRGC military positions.

What do the US and Israel say about ending the war?

There have been conflicting messages from the Trump administration and Israel about when the military operation against Iran, codenamed Operation Epic Fury, is likely to end.

Trump told US publication Axios on Wednesday that the war on Iran will end “soon” because there is “practically nothing left to target”.

“When I want it to end, it will end,” he said. He said on Monday that “we are ahead of our schedule” and that the US had achieved its goals, raising speculation about a possible US ground operation.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz, on the other hand, said on Wednesday that the war would continue “without any time limit, as long as necessary, until we achieve all the objectives and win the operation decisively.”

Analysts say Trump’s stance quickly reflects mounting pressure on his administration ahead of midterm elections in November.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s advisers said privately this week that he wanted to find a quick end to the war and avoid a political backlash. Polls by Quinnipiac University and The Washington Post indicate that most Americans oppose war in Iran.

In his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised to lower prices, and inflation has held steady at 2.4 percent since the war, according to government data released Wednesday. Analysts predict the conflict will push it back.

Pentagon officials told lawmakers in a classified briefing on Tuesday that the US had spent more than $11.3bn in the first six days of the war, Reuters reported this week – about $2bn a day.

A Washington-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), estimated that the war cost the war $3.7bn in its first 100 hours, or about $900m a day, largely due to spending on expensive munitions.

Rebecca Christie, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, told Al Jazeera that “(Trump) has chosen a battle that worsens affordability.” Calculating costs.

“Every time the U.S. loses an item, an air defense or an aircraft or something like that, it represents an awful lot of money that could be used on some of these issues that affect the daily lives of people in the United States.”