Nournews: In recent days, a notable analysis has emerged across several major U.S. media outlets concerning the Iran-U.S. war. At the heart of this analysis is a new narrative about shifting priorities in Washington. The Wall Street Journal and other U.S. media outlets, citing statements and assessments by officials and analysts, have portrayed the Donald Trump administration as explicitly or implicitly reassessing its objectives toward Iran. If containing Iran’s nuclear program and securing a comprehensive nuclear agreement were previously at the center of Washington’s calculations, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and resolving a crisis with direct consequences for global energy markets and the world economy now appear to have become a more immediate U.S. priority.
Mainstream media outlets that have advanced this analysis do not necessarily interpret it as meaning that Washington has abandoned the Iranian nuclear issue or given up its demands regarding the future of Iran’s nuclear program. What has changed, according to this narrative, is less the ultimate objective than the order of priorities and the definition of the most urgent problem. The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump may be prepared to end the war even without a comprehensive nuclear agreement, provided there are guarantees that the Strait of Hormuz will be fully reopened, is significant precisely in this context.
If this narrative is accurate, Washington has moved from a phase in which it sought to resolve all outstanding issues at once to one in which it wants, at the very least, to address the most pressing immediate crisis. Why? Because for the United States, the nuclear issue is a strategic, long-term challenge, whereas Hormuz represents an immediate and costly crisis. The closure of the waterway is not merely a security challenge; it directly affects oil markets, shipping costs and energy prices—and ultimately the economies of the United States and its allies. Even in recent days, oil markets have reacted to signs of slowing progress in the Hormuz talks.
From this perspective, the Hormuz issue is not merely a geopolitical problem for Trump; it is also a domestic political issue in the United States. Every additional day of the crisis generates greater economic and political costs, particularly at a time when the U.S. administration cannot offer a clear prospect of a quick and low-cost victory. That is why reopening Hormuz could represent more than a military objective for Trump: it could provide a political exit from the war—a tangible achievement that the U.S. president could present as the result of his pressure campaign, even if all outstanding differences between Tehran and Washington remain unresolved.
This shift in perspective can also be seen in reports about Iran-U.S.-Oman negotiations. Media reports have pointed to the two sides moving closer to an agreement on reopening Hormuz and resuming commercial shipping—an arrangement that could subsequently keep the door open for talks on the nuclear issue. Washington may, in effect, have concluded that it does not need to resolve every dispute today; it only needs to untie the first knot. The nuclear issue can remain on the table for a later stage, but the indefinite closure of Hormuz is something the United States cannot afford to tolerate.
Iran Is Not Going to Give Away the Hormuz Card Cheaply
The more important point, however, is Tehran’s response to this shift in the U.S. calculation. Iran, too, appears to have recognized that the importance of Hormuz has increased in Washington’s calculations. It is therefore natural for Tehran to resist relinquishing its most important leverage without receiving reciprocal guarantees.
Iran’s logic is straightforward: if the Strait is reopened first and Washington then negotiates over sanctions relief, the release of frozen assets, an end to the maritime blockade and other commitments, Tehran will have already surrendered its most important bargaining tool. That is why the conditions reportedly put forward by Iran for reopening Hormuz go far beyond the issue of ships simply being allowed to pass. They are tied to more fundamental questions concerning the war and the postwar period.
At this point, the central issue is no longer simply the agreement itself; it is the sequence in which the agreement is implemented. Washington wants Hormuz reopened to create the conditions necessary for ending the war and moving on to subsequent negotiations. Tehran wants U.S. commitments on ending the war, lifting the blockade, sanctions relief and access to frozen assets to be established first, with the reopening of Hormuz forming part of a reciprocal deal.
Both sides also share a common experience: neither wants to surrender its most important leverage before receiving guarantees from the other side. This is precisely where Hormuz is transformed from a strategic waterway into the central axis of political bargaining.
At the same time, according to U.S. media analyses, there is an important risk for Iran: confusing having leverage with having the upper hand across the entire equation. The fact that Washington is willing to pay a price to reopen Hormuz does not necessarily mean it will accept all of Tehran’s demands. U.S. reports have warned from precisely this perspective that maximalist demands could narrow Trump’s options and even push him toward increased pressure.
The power of Hormuz, therefore, becomes a political achievement only if Iran can convert it into a balanced, phased and enforceable deal—not simply rely on the importance of the leverage itself.
Washington, meanwhile, has also confronted an important reality: the war may have demonstrated U.S. military capabilities, but military power alone does not necessarily produce the desired political outcome. If the United States can strike Iranian infrastructure but cannot restore energy flows and shipping to normal, the crisis will continue. If it can threaten Iran over its nuclear program but cannot contain the economic and political costs of a closed Strait of Hormuz, the problem will remain unresolved.
For that reason, perhaps the most important development at this stage is not taking place on the battlefield but in the way Washington defines victory. If, at the beginning of the war, the central question for the United States was how to force Iran to back down, the narrative emerging from parts of the U.S. media now suggests that the more immediate question has become: How do we get out of the war and reopen Hormuz?
Even if this shift does not yet represent a final or formal change in U.S. policy, it is significant in its own right. In wars, the turning point is not always the moment one side launches an attack. Sometimes it comes when that side’s definition of success changes. In this context, the nuclear issue may remain Washington’s long-term objective, while Hormuz has become the immediate problem. And that shift alone changes the bargaining equation.
For Iran, the implications are equally clear: if Hormuz has now become America’s “way out” of the war, Tehran should neither treat it as a free concession nor assume that simply holding this card makes every demand enforceable. The art of diplomacy at such a moment lies not in revealing one’s cards, but in turning them into a durable bargain.
The central question now is no longer who has the upper hand on the battlefield. The decisive question is who can turn that advantage into terms for peace. And perhaps the answer will be written nowhere more clearly than in the Strait of Hormuz—a place that appears to have evolved from a geographic flashpoint in the Iran-U.S. war into the center of gravity for the policy of ending the war.
Nournews