Will Iran give up on ceasefire talks as strait of Hormuz blockade continues?

A girl walks past an anti-Israeli mural on a street in Tehran. Advocates of all-out war between Iran and Israel are in a minority. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA View image in fullscreen A girl walks past an anti-Israeli mural on a street in Tehran. Advocates of all-out war between Iran and Israel are in a minority. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA Analysis Will Iran give up on ceasefire talks as strait of Hormuz blockade continues? Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor Chokehold on shipping route draws Houthis in Yemen back into conflict as commenters see ‘no turning back’ Middle East crisis – live updates Iran’s reversion to large-scale military exchanges with Israel broadened the conflict that began in February not only by making the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah a direct casus belli for Iran for the first time, but also by drawing the Houthis in Yemen back into the conflict with as yet incalculable consequences. Some in Tehran, buoyed up by past perceived military success and emboldened by the chokehold of the strait of Hormuz, would like to turn this moment into the point of no return in the conflagration with Israel . A minority would welcome the abandonment of ceasefire talks with the US, an outcome for which they have been agitating for weeks. But even now there are other voices in Tehran that believe Iran can instead exploit the tensions between Israel and the US to accelerate a deal from a US president desperate to extricate himself from a war that is turning into an alarming show of American diplomatic and military impotence. Donald Trump’s social media post urging Iran and Israel to stop firing at each other did not reek of a man in control of events. Iran’s decision to announce it was ending its operations so long as there were no further Israeli attacks shows the advocates of all-out war are in the minority. There are many such as Hesamodin Ashna, an adviser to the former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, who argued in a speech this weekend that social cohesion and trust inside Iran were still fragile. This camp says the return of Iran’s frozen assets and the gradual lifting of US sanctions are imperative to rescue the Iranian economy from near-collapse, arguing that the economic situation was the incubator for the protests in January. View image in fullscreen Esmaeil Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, has stressed that dialogue continues with the US. Photograph: Foad Ashtari/Sopa Images/Shutterstock Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, was forced to ride both horses at his weekly press conference in Tehran. At one point he challenged the whole idea that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had mounted the attacks on Iran in defiance of Trump, but then suggested it was possible that Israel was trying to sabotage talks with the US since it feared the terms of the deal would weaken it. Baghaei was careful to insist that the dialogue with the US, conducted indirectly via Pakistan, was continui