Washington's Iran policy, which was supposed to be short and sweet, seems more like a feeling than a policy after six months of a war. It's not finished yet and denuclearization talks will soon follow, Donald Trump was telling reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday. The next morning he was back on Truth Social denouncing Iran's regime as "unbelievably duplicitous", and claiming that the negotiations were making no headway toward an agreement “today or tomorrow” that his own Treasury Secretary had stated the previous day. That whiplash has been the hallmark of this negotiation and it's emerging as less bargaining and more White House that can't fully grasp the story it attempts to set.

The benefits of the diplomatic stage are just not about to be the only ones. The Strait of Hormuz transports about one fifth of the world's shipping trade in oil each day, and every rumour of a breakthrough or a breakdown has prompted a crash in one direction or the other in crude prices. In just a few days, oil prices have risen to high single digits thanks to nothing more than Trump's rhetoric, and that's an indicator of how little oil is behind the words. Iran has maintained a steady position in its foreign ministry, saying no direct talks are taking place and any contact is going through Oman. If the latter's the case, then Washington has been hawking a non-existent contract for the past week. If it isn't true, then Tehran is playing a game of "deniability" that a regime with virtually no domestic legitimacy is comfortable with. Both of these readings should be alarming to those who thought that, since they have the bigger stick, they must have the upper hand.

The issue of legitimacy is where things truly get bizarre. Iran technically has a new Supreme Leader since March, when the Assembly of Experts elected Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the assassinated Ali Khamenei, as the country's third top cleric since the revolution. Since then he has never been seen outside. He did not attend his father's funerals in Tehran. Iran's president has now openly admitted it has been "very difficult" to even make contact with him. Having a head of state who is more of a rumor than a presence isn't something that's a luxury in a country and a people caught in a conflict that will determine the fate of the country's nuclear program and its economy; it's a vacuum in leadership at a time when it's needed most. This could be due to wounds suffered in the February protests, a lack of confidence in his ability to make it through the challenges posed by competing power centres within the IRGC or simply too vulnerable a figure to be seen in public, but for now, no one is currently serious about negotiating with Iran, and it's hard to say for sure who's really making the decisions in Tehran. Any American hopes for a long-term agreement should be tempered by that uncertainty.

The Iran file is also a proxy battle in the Trump administration. Led by JD Vance, who is in Pakistan and Switzerland to lead the talks, which could shape his resume as he considers running for president. There's been no clearer sign of Trump's preference so far than when he called Vance the “most likely” successor to the movement. But Secretary of State Marco Rubio has maintained an active distance from the ownership of the deal, which he is said not to have led himself, and Republicans in the Senate are already making it a top consideration in this year's primary. It's not only a political loss for Trump if the Iran deal fails or is not completed. When it becomes a weapon one 2028 contender can wield against the other, an awkward question arises: how hard is either side going to push for an actual resolution now, as domestic positioning takes effect?

Regional shifts in alignment are taking place around this instability in teaching-informing ways. This week, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke to Narendra Modi about a "special strategic partnership" between the two nations that has been steadily strengthening since Modi's state visit to Israel in February, covering various fields including defense, technology, agriculture and cyber. When Israel calls in a crisis a democracy with a chain of command and a clear decision maker, it says something about the position of reliable partnerships on that map. Compare that to Pakistan where the control of Field Marshal Asim Munir seems to be slipping from his hands. While the army is the single most powerful institution in the country, it is also obviously caught up in an economic crisis that it was never meant to manage more than 130 billion dollars of external debt, the impact of IMF conditions, and growing public disillusionment with the military that owns extensive commercial properties, such as the Fauji Foundation, as ordinary Pakistanis struggle with relentless inflation. The economic desperation and internal squabbling of a general are no stabilizing regional force for Washington, especially when a round of the Iran discussions took place in Pakistan earlier this year.

The overall scene is not of American power bringing peace to a turbulent area. It's much closer to some power-vacuuming centers, such as an absent Iranian leader, an American Vice President with political ambitions, a Pakistani army chief keen to secure his own survival and an Israel-Indian alliance that seems much more robust. In the interim, oil markets will continue to respond to every tweet and leak, and the rest of the world will be continually seeing, deal by contrary deal, how the absence of clarity is the only thing missing in this entire negotiation.