Trita Parsi has Omani sources, and their account of the near-deal is precise: a temporary corridor announced soon, permanent management deferred under Article Five of the Islamabad memorandum, the text going first to regional states and then to Washington.
Here's what nobody in that chain has touched. Iran does not reopen the strait for a package that leaves Lebanon out, because that trades away the only leverage it has for a memorandum minus its central demand.
The rest is sequencing theater.
Washington wants Iranian first moves with the blockade lifted afterward; Tehran won't hand over leverage on a promise.
Trita notes the same fight consumed the JCPOA talks and got solved, because Iran usually stepped first and reciprocity came fast.
His arithmetic on why the pressure isn't biting deserves wide circulation.
Five supertanker sailings a day restore roughly half of pre-war traffic, China voluntarily cut five million barrels of daily demand to prevent a global recession, and Gulf bypass pipelines cover much of the rest.
"sanctions tend to be a stepping stone towards war"
And the announcement carried no actual demands, which in Tehran reads as one word: regime change.
@tparsi
