The deal that might not be one
On May 26, 2026, Reuters reported that American and Iranian negotiators had reached a "framework understanding" in Muscat, Oman, that could lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. Within hours, Iran's state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, aired a segment claiming the agreement included immediate sanctions relief, the unfreezing of $120 billion in Iranian assets, and a US commitment to reduce its naval presence in the Persian Gulf. The White House responded by calling the IRIB report "selective and misleading." President Trump posted on Truth Social that he was "not satisfied with the terms" and that "no deal is final until I say so." By the evening of May 27, the situation was exactly where it has been for weeks: a possible agreement, no consensus on what it contains, and a strait that remains closed.
I have been speaking with diplomats in three capitals over the past ten days, and the one thing everyone agrees on is that something happened in Muscat. The Omani foreign ministry hosted four rounds of indirect talks between American and Iranian delegations between May 18 and May 25. The Americans were led by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. The Iranians by Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The two sides did not meet face to face. Omani officials shuttled between rooms, a format that both sides have used before and that both sides find exhausting. But by the end of the fourth round, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions, there was a written document that both delegations initialled. Not signed. Initialled. That distinction matters.
The sequencing problem
Every negotiation between the United States and Iran since 1979 has come down to the same problem: who goes first. In 2015, during the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiations, the two sides solved this with simultaneous implementation. Iran began rolling back its nuclear program on the same day that sanctions were suspended. It was messy but it worked, at least until the Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018.
The current negotiation faces the same problem with higher stakes. Iran wants all sanctions lifted, including the IRGC's designation as a foreign terrorist organization, before it reopens Hormuz. The United States wants the strait open and verified as free for navigation before any sanctions are touched. Each side has a legitimate fear. Iran fears that if it opens the strait first, the US will keep the sanctions in place and simply enjoy resumed oil flows without giving anything in return. The US fears that if it lifts sanctions first, Iran will pocket the concession and maintain some form of control over the strait, or extract additional demands.
The Omani proposal, as described to me by a European diplomat briefed on the talks, involves what they call a "conditional simultaneous sequence." Under this model, Iran would announce the reopening of the strait and the United States would simultaneously announce targeted sanctions relief, including the unfreezing of some Iranian assets and the issuance of specific licenses for oil transactions. But the implementation of each step would be contingent on the other side following through. If Iran reopened the strait and then the US delayed its sanctions relief, Iran could close it again. If the US lifted sanctions and then Iran reimposed transit restrictions, the US could snap the sanctions back.
This sounds reasonable in theory. In practice, it requires a level of trust that does not exist. A senior State Department official, speaking on background, told me that the administration's concern is not that Iran will cheat on day one. The concern is that Iran will comply for six months, build goodwill, get broader sanctions relief, and then gradually reimpose control over the strait through informal means: "navigational advisories" that reroute ships, "safety inspections" that delay them, "administrative fees" that price them out. The IRGC has a long history of operating in gray zones. The framework document, as I understand it, does not adequately address this scenario.
What the IRIB leak revealed, and what it did not
IRIB's broadcast on May 27 was unusual. Iranian state media does not typically leak details of ongoing negotiations, especially ones that the Supreme Leader's office has not yet approved. The fact that IRIB aired the segment at all suggests a domestic political calculation. President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has staked his political credibility on getting sanctions relief, needs to show results. The IRGC, which controls the strait and derives power from the current situation, wants to either claim credit for the deal or sabotage it. The IRIB segment did both. It claimed that Iran had achieved all of its demands while simultaneously presenting the deal as so favorable to Iran that no American president could possibly accept it. This is a deliberate two-track strategy: tell the domestic audience that victory is near, while making the deal politically toxic in Washington.
The specific claims in the IRIB report, namely the $120 billion in asset unfreezing, full sanctions relief, and a US naval withdrawal from the Gulf, are almost certainly exaggerated or fabricated. I spoke with two people who have seen the actual framework document. Both said it contains no dollar figures, no commitment to a naval withdrawal, and no blanket sanctions relief. What it does contain, according to these sources, is a list of specific sanctions to be suspended in exchange for specific Iranian actions, including the cessation of the transit fee, the removal of IRGC checkpoints, and the resumption of normal transit passage under UNCLOS. The document is roughly 12 pages long and contains more brackets than resolved text.
The White House denial was swift but imprecise. National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt told reporters that "the Iranian state media characterization of the discussions is inaccurate in several material respects." He declined to specify which respects. That refusal to be specific is itself a problem. When you deny everything and explain nothing, you leave a vacuum. And in that vacuum, the IRIB narrative fills the space. People in the region hear the Iranian version. They hear a vague American denial. They conclude that the truth is somewhere in the middle, which in this case it is not. The IRIB version is substantially false. But the White House has not done the work of explaining why.
Trump's dissatisfaction
President Trump's Truth Social post on May 28 was the single most damaging thing to happen to the negotiation since it began. By saying he was "not satisfied with the terms," he effectively undermined his own negotiating team. Landau and his colleagues spent a week in Muscat getting to a document that both sides could initial, and the president publicly distanced himself from it within 48 hours of it becoming public.
This is not unusual for Trump. He did the same thing with the JCPOA in 2018, and with the Taliban deal in 2020, and with the North Korea talks in 2019. His negotiating style relies on keeping maximum flexibility and never being tied to a position before he is ready. But the context here matters. Iran is watching. The IRGC is watching. Every time the American president publicly questions a deal that his own team negotiated, it signals to Tehran that the US side cannot deliver on its commitments. Why would Iran make concessions to a negotiating partner whose boss might repudiate the agreement the next day?
A former NSC official I spoke with, who worked on Iran policy during the Biden administration, put it this way: "The problem with Trump's approach is that it works great in real estate and terribly in diplomacy. In real estate, you can walk away from a deal and find another building. In diplomacy, the other side has agency. They can walk away too. And once they do, getting them back to the table costs more." The framework in Muscat is fragile. It was always fragile. It needed careful handling. What it got was a truth bomb on social media.
What happens if this collapses
If the Muscat framework falls apart, the consequences are straightforward and grim. The strait stays closed. The IRGC continues to collect transit fees. Oil prices stay elevated. Asian economies that depend on Gulf crude continue to scramble for alternative supplies. The humanitarian crisis among the 22,500 sailors trapped in the Gulf deepens. And the military calculus shifts. The US currently has the USS Eisenhower carrier strike group in the Arabian Sea, along with two guided missile destroyers and a cruiser. The UK has HMS Defender on station. France has the frigate FS Bretagne. These forces could attempt to force open the strait, but the risks of escalation are enormous.
Iran has deployed Chinese-made C-802 antiship cruise missiles on Qeshm Island and the Abu Musa islands, which overlook the strait. It has Shahed-136 drones capable of swarming naval vessels. It has Boghammar speedboats with heavy machine guns and RPGs. A military confrontation would not be a quick operation. It would be messy, expensive, and likely involve casualties on both sides, including civilian casualties among the crews of the ships trapped in the area.
The diplomatic window is still open, barely. The Omani mediators have not given up. Landau is still in the region. Araghchi is still in the region. The framework document, for all its brackets and unresolved text, represents more progress than anyone expected a week ago. But progress in diplomacy is not the same as progress in reality. The strait is still closed. Ships are still waiting. The fee is still being collected. And the gap between what Iran is telling its people and what the United States is telling its people grows wider every day. That gap is where deals go to die.