There is a familiar illusion that grips policymakers in moments of escalation: that with just a little more pressure, a little more leverage, the other side will finally yield. In the standoff between the United States and Iran, that illusion is not just misguided—it is dangerous.

Both sides are demanding outcomes that strike at the core of the other’s security doctrine. Washington wants Iran to scale back its regional reach and nuclear capacity. Tehran wants ironclad guarantees that it will not be attacked, isolated, or regime-changed. These are not bargaining chips; they are red lines. And red lines do not bend simply because the temperature rises.

This is what a real deadlock looks like.

Yet the mistake—one repeated from the Iraq War to countless lesser-known confrontations—is to assume that if a perfect agreement is out of reach, then no agreement is possible. That binary thinking keeps conflicts burning long after their strategic logic has collapsed.

A ceasefire is not a peace treaty. It is something far more modest and far more achievable.

It does not require trust. It........

© The Friday Times