Operation Epic Fury is in its fourth week. The war has not ended, but the conversations around ending it have become loud enough that both sides are now managing them publicly. What those conversations reveal is a significant distance between Washington’s idea of how this concludes and Tehran’s.
On March 20, Trump posted on Truth Social that the US was “getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.” On the same day, the US Treasury issued a 30-day sanctions waiver allowing buyers to purchase Iranian oil already loaded on vessels at sea. And Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated, across multiple interviews over several days, that Tehran is not seeking a ceasefire — it wants a permanent end to the war, with reparations.
Three developments landed within hours of each other on March 20. None of them point in the same direction, and together they suggest a conflict whose political and economic costs are now harder to manage than the military campaign that generated them.
Key Takeaways
Trump said on March 20 the US is “considering winding down” its Iran military effort, while simultaneously ordering an additional 4,000 troops deployed to the region. Iran’s Foreign Minister rejected any ceasefire and demanded reparations as a condition for ending the war. The US Treasury issued a 30-day sanctions waiver on 140 million barrels of Iranian oil already at sea — the third emergency energy intervention in two weeks. Brent crude settled above $112 on March 20. Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is open, but only to countries not involved in or allied with the attacks.
Trump Signals Wind-Down — While Sending More Marines
Trump’s public messaging has been consistent for over a week: the war is nearly finished, objectives are largely met, and he can end it at will. On March 11, he told Axios there was “practically nothing left to target” in Iran and that “any time I want it to end, it will end.” On March 20, a Truth Social post confirmed the administration was “considering winding down” operations. Later that day, on the South Lawn: “I think we’ve won. From a military standpoint, they’re finished.”
The gap between that rhetoric and the operational picture is notable. Trump reportedly ordered an additional 4,000 troops deployed to the region. More warships are en route, and Pentagon officials have made detailed preparations for potential ground force deployments into Iran, CBS News reported. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said separately that Israeli operations would continue “without any time limit”.
Axios, citing people with direct access to Trump, described a president “divided over the war” — frustrated by Hormuz’s effect on oil prices, satisfied with military results, and looking for an exit his team has not yet designed. “We’re hot! We’re winning!” he reportedly told a confidant opposed to the conflict.
Declaring victory and actually ending a war are different operations, and the Strait of Hormuz has made the second considerably harder than the first.
Iran’s Position: Not Ceasefire. Permanent End. With Reparations.
Araghchi has given multiple interviews — to CBS, NBC, Al Jazeera, and Iranian state press — over the past ten days. The position has not varied. Tehran is not seeking a ceasefire, primarily because it has no confidence one would hold.
“We never asked for a ceasefire, and we have never asked even for negotiation,” he told CBS’s Face the Nation on March 15. “We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes.” He pointed to the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which he said Israel subsequently violated, as the reason Tehran will not accept a repeat of that model.
In an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Araghchi made the reparations demand explicit. “We will end this war when we are certain it will not be repeated, and this requires a decisive and final end to the war,” he said. “Reparations will be paid.” He added that Iran was anticipating a possible US ground incursion and that the IRGC was prepared.
At a weekly press conference on March 16, Araghchi dismissed Trump’s claims that Iran was seeking talks as “delusional.” He stated that the US and Israel had killed at least 1,400 people in Iran — striking airports, schools, and residential areas — and confirmed the death of senior security official Ali Larijani in the initial strikes.
Iran is not asking for a pause. It is asking for a settlement — one that includes financial accountability and a structural guarantee against future attack. That is not what Washington is currently offering.
The Sanctions Reversal Nobody Expected
On the evening of March 20, the US Treasury issued a general licence authorising the purchase and delivery of Iranian crude oil and petroleum products already loaded on vessels as of that date. The waiver runs until April 19. It covers approximately 140 million barrels.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed it as a weapon against Iran rather than a concession to it. “In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against Tehran to keep the price down as we continue Operation Epic Fury,” he wrote. The logic: that oil was already being sold to China at a discount under sanctions; the waiver redirects it to broader markets at a higher price, increasing supply while preventing Iran from benefiting from the premium China had been paying.
The internal logic is coherent as a supply management tool; the strategic optics are more difficult to defend. This is the same administration that maintained maximum pressure on Iranian oil exports across two terms and then launched a military campaign against the country producing them. Three weeks into that campaign, it issued a general licence to purchase Iranian crude. Several former Republican allies characterised the move as “unfathomable.” Sanctions analysts described it as Washington conceding in wartime something it had refused during years of maximum pressure. According to CNN, Trump administration officials privately estimate the price effects could persist for months regardless of the strait’s status.
This was the third emergency energy intervention in two weeks. The US had already eased sanctions on Russian oil at sea and authorised the release of 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Brent crude settled at $112 on March 20 — roughly 60 percent above pre-war levels. Goldman Sachs assessed that elevated prices could persist through 2027 even if the strait reopens.
When a government lifts sanctions on the country it is bombing to contain its own gas prices, it has confirmed that the war’s economic costs are now shaping its military and diplomatic decisions.
The Strait Is “Open” — Just Not to You
Iran’s public position on the Strait of Hormuz requires a precise reading. Araghchi has repeatedly said the strait is not closed. “We have not closed the strait. It is open,” he told Kyodo News. What Iran has done is restrict access to vessels belonging to the US, Israel, and their allies — which is to say, most of the international commercial shipping fleet.
In practice, even non-allied vessels have largely stopped transiting. Insurance premiums reached six-year highs before the war began, and the attacks on tankers have made commercial operators unwilling to risk the passage regardless of their flag. The IEA estimates the Hormuz disruption has removed roughly 8 million barrels per day of crude and another 2 million barrels of condensates and LNG from global supply. The Dallas Fed described the situation as a “near-total halt of traffic”.
Iran is still exporting its own oil through the strait. According to CNN, Iranian tankers were loading 2.7 million barrels at Kharg Island as recently as March 15, with most transponders disabled. Tehran has also negotiated selective access for neutral parties — allowing Indian LPG carriers to transit after India released seized Iranian tankers, and signalling openness to Japanese vessels after Tokyo committed to energy market stabilisation. The strait is open to countries Iran classifies as non-hostile. For most of the international commercial fleet, it is not.
Iran is not blocking the world’s oil. It is selectively leveraging who gets through — and that is a more durable form of pressure than a complete closure.
The Gap Between What Both Sides Are Saying
Trump on March 20: “I think we’ve won.”
Araghchi, same day: Iran will end the war only when it is “certain it will not be repeated” and when reparations are secured.
Those statements reflect two different frameworks for what ending this war would mean. Washington is describing a military wind-down: capability degradation, declared objectives, withdrawal. Tehran is describing a political settlement: binding guarantees against recurrence, compensation for documented harm, and revised terms governing the Strait. These are not positions that naturally converge, and there is currently no publicly acknowledged mediator, framework, or back channel capable of bridging them.
What exists instead is a 30-day deadline. The sanctions waiver expires April 19. If the strait remains effectively closed at that point, the administration confronts the same price crisis with the SPR partially depleted and fewer emergency instruments available. Goldman Sachs estimates that elevated prices could persist into 2027 even if the strait reopens. The window between now and mid-April is as much an economic deadline as a diplomatic one.
The April 19 deadline is not only a sanctions expiry. It is the point at which Washington’s remaining economic levers run out — and Tehran knows it.
Editorial View · Santhosh Vishwamitra
The War Is Being Won Militarily and Lost Economically at the Same Time
The internal tension in Washington’s position is now visible in the sequence of its own decisions. Trump launched this war on a maximum pressure doctrine, then issued a sanctions waiver on the country he is fighting to arrest a domestic price rise. He declared victory while ordering an additional 4,000 troops toward the theatre. He rejected a ceasefire while searching, according to Axios, for an off-ramp his own team has not designed. Taken together, these suggest not a president who has won a war but one managing a conflict whose costs are outpacing its stated objectives.
Iran’s posture, for all its defiant framing, contains a negotiating signal. Araghchi has specified what Tehran wants: a permanent end rather than a pause, guarantees against future attack, and reparations. That is a maximalist opening position — but it is a position. Washington has not publicly indicated willingness to engage with any of those terms, and Trump’s public statements oscillate between demanding unconditional surrender and signalling wind-down. Neither constitutes a viable basis for negotiation.
The sanctions waiver is the clearest indicator of where real pressure is concentrated — and it is not in Tehran. A government absorbing strikes that have killed at least 1,400 people and destroyed significant portions of its military and nuclear infrastructure has demonstrated capacity to continue. The pressure is in American fuel prices, which rose by nearly a dollar a gallon in a month. That economic constraint is now the primary variable shaping Washington’s decisions, ahead of military necessity or diplomatic design.
The Bottom Line
Trump wants to end a war. Iran wants to resolve one. The distinction matters: one side is looking for an exit, the other for a settlement that forecloses another entry. With the SPR depleting, the sanctions waiver expiring in April, and no mediator publicly engaged, the gap between those two positions is being financed by global oil consumers — and it is not narrowing.
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Sources & Further Reading
Santhosh Vishwamitra
Founder, SVM Labs
Journalist and founder of
Inside Stories — Where Global Politics Meets Perspective. Covers geopolitics, global power dynamics, and international affairs. For web development and writing content, visit
santhoshvishwamitrablog.wordpress.com.
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