Iranian ballistic missiles were fired at Kuwait and Bahrain early Friday morning. US attacked Iranian radar stations on Qeshm Island and at Goruk during the night of Sunday. Technically it is still a ceasefire since April 8, but it has been broken so many times that it's not even a ceasefire anymore. But on the very day these negotiations were unfolding around the Persian Gulf, two of Trump's closest White House envoys were having dinner in Tennessee with nuclear scientists, and quietly preparing for the possibility that a deal might actually happen.

Tension gunfire on one side, tech briefings on the other is no paradox. At this stage, it's the punctuating texture of the US-Iran standoff during the summer of 2026.

The night's story played out in a manner that was oddly organized. Iran fired four attack drones at the Strait of Hormuz. They were all brought down by US forces and a US strike on Iranian radar facilities at Goruk and on Qeshm Island was a defensive response, CENTCOM said. Several hours later, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) took credit for launching seven ballistic missiles at U.S. military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. The US military claimed that it blocked six, while the seventh, listed in the military's carefully worded statement, "did not reach its intended target," in the CENTCOM region. Iranian allegations that the US 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain were damaged were roundly rejected. There was no loss of life among U.S. personnel.

This occurred days following a separate Iranian drone attack, which killed one person, injured dozens and temporarily closed the main airport, which is civilian. The attacks against the Gulf neighbors are not collateral. They are calibrated pressure: Iran warning Washington that the economic consequences of ongoing war will spread and impact US allies and worldwide energy markets, which will have their own form of leverage.

The arithmetic behind all this is the Strait of Hormuz. Prior to the outbreak of fighting in late February 2026, about 20 billion barrels of oil flowed through the waterway each day, which is equivalent to about 27% of all oil traded by sea and 20% of world oil consumption. Approximately 80% of this was intended for the Asian economies. Brent Crude climbed above $120 per barrel, and QatarEnergy declared force majeure on all exports, when Iran interrupted the shipping through the Strait and the US responded with a naval blockade. In just one week, the combined oil production of Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE fell by a reported 6.7 million b/d. There was no abstract economic loss. It was immediate, global and it was felt most acutely in Asia.

The confrontation has now become one of economic stamina and survival, and neither Iran or the global economy looks like they can hold up for much longer after over six weeks of disruption. That, after all, is what finally led both sides to the ceasefire in April, and what is now leading them hobbling, perhaps toward something more permanent.

Trump, speaking to farmers in Wisconsin on Friday, barely seemed to bat an eyelash. Things with Iran are going pretty well," he said. He also pledged that the price of fertilisers, which is closely tied with the gas and petrochemicals supply chains that pass through the Gulf, would come down after a resolution was reached. It's going to be very strong one way or the other, whether it's a piece of paper or the very tough way, we're going to come out of Iran very quickly," he said. The Framing of a deal or not a deal, it's a Trump pattern, but it's also a real pattern of where we are.

It's not an academic question as to what force Iran still has left. On Friday, Trump declared to NBC's Meet the Press that Tehran still has about 21 to 22 percent of what it had back before the 40-day war with Israel. “Most of the drone factories have been knocked out, most of the launching pads have been knocked out and most of the missile manufacturing areas have been knocked out,” he said, adding the caveat that “most is still a lot of missiles.” That one-fifth estimate is at odds with a recent Israeli intelligence estimate that it is closer to two-thirds of Iran's missile launchers that are still operational, a difference that might either be a true reflection of the intelligence community's disagreement, or the White House's effort to convey a sense of certainty regarding the war's outcome. That's a crucial difference because it dictates the urgency that, or lack of urgency that, Washington feels to reach a deal.

It is on the nuclear dimension that the stakes are highest. So far, the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran has about 440.9 kilograms approximately 972 pounds of uranium enriched to 60%. That is significantly higher than the enrichment of 3-5% employed for civilian power generation and higher than the enrichment of 20% which is used for some research applications, but lower than the enrichment of about 90% which is generally regarded as being suitable for weapons. The only civilian use for 60%-enriched uranium is fuel for nuclear power plants. It is the main obstacle to any nuclear deal, and its future will likely determine whether the agreement that is signed will be a credible one to the international community or cosmetic.

Trump's representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Thursday in Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tenn., with a group of technical specialists that may be involved in nuclear talks with Iran. America's top experts on centrifuge systems and uranium processing are at the specialized installations in eastern Tennessee Y-12 National Security Complex and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In the past, it was a centre for processing foreign atomic material, including material handed over by Libya and Kazakhstan. The symbolism is clear. Libya has discontinued its weapons programme since 2003. That material went through Oak Ridge. Now, at least initially, Washington is considering whether Iran's uranium may follow suit.

Administrative officials said a team of some 100 experts has been recently assembled to work out the details for an eventual armistice, and the envoys met with some of the task force members to discuss implementation. One US official said “This meeting in Oak Ridge does not mean that a deal is going to happen, but it is a sign that the negotiations are in a very serious phase and that there is a good chance to get a deal done and we want to be prepared.”

The preparation is genuine. Whether the deal is, remains open.

The issue that Iran has decided to highlight in public is money. In a television interview Friday, IRGC veteran Mohsen Rezaei, adviser to Iran's supreme leader, characterized the entire negotiation process as a demand for the release of Iran's frozen funds. That $24 billion is a trust test that Iran wants to have with Trump," Rezaei said if he wants to reach agreement with Iran. This is America's money, not American money; this is a test that America must pass and the way will be opened.

The amount has been given publicly at $24 billion, but it is actually much more. Although no official number has been given on the total value of the Iranian assets frozen, figures ranging from $100 billion to $123 billion have been reported in the media. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been subjected to blanket asset freezes. Iranian capital has been locked in South Korean banks and clearing systems for decades and is held in banks and clearing systems throughout the European Union, Qatar, Iraq, etc. Iran has set aside the money as a "red line" in peace negotiations, demanding some concessions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. One source told Fars news agency that "no deal is possible until the agreed upon funds are transferred.

As for Washington, it has carefully sought to address this demand. The Trump administration can't be viewed at home as cutting a multibillion-dollar check to a regime that fired ballistic missiles at US bases during the spring. Yet it cannot turn a blind eye to a deal that would reopen one of the world's key energy choke chokepoints, bring down commodity prices that are linked to inflation, and give Trump a foreign policy victory.

The uncertainty and possibility of the closing of the strait have pushed oil and gas prices all over the world to the sky. Countries in Asia, some of which have small oil reserves, have been hit particularly hard, some 80% of the oil that passed through the Strait was destined for Asia before the war. From India to South Korea to Japan, Asian economies have been caught between their alliance obligations, their energy dependencies and their economic survival. Part of the reason is why countries such as Pakistan have been active mediators, because the pressure on supply is so high in the region.

There's another piece, the Lebanese side. Iran has, at the same time, set preconditions for peace that include concessions by the Israelis in Lebanon where they are still battling related to Hezbollah. Lebanon's president this week accused Iran of turning his country into "bargaining chip" in its negotiations with Washington, a rare, public assertion from a nation otherwise wary of Tehran. The fact that Lebanon's head of state was willing to say this publicly, indicates that the footing under Iran's regional policy is moving more quickly than its diplomatic stance.

The situation is equally complicated within Iran. For almost 88 days there was a near-complete blackout of the internet which has only recently been lifted. The war, naval blockade and the absence of oil export revenues have compounded the hardships suffered by the domestic economy for years due to sanctions. The internet shutdown was an economic disaster for small businesses, service industries and the middle class who had taken the clerical system in stride for stability. Now, that deal is difficult to maintain.

Asr-e Iran writer Reza Ghobeishawi claimed in his paper that Trump has formed no chances for closing a deal with Tehran and is using talks on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to buy time. That hypothesis that they are not negotiating process but performance is supported by the fact that the military exchanges have continued, the signing of the MOU has not yet happened, and both sides have been using the term "final stretch" for weeks, but without a final stretch.

But the Oak Ridge visit doesn't seem so much like theatre. You don't send two of your top diplomats to a secret nuclear site in Tennessee to meet 100 experts in a trial run for a deal you're not planning on finalizing. The physical process of getting uranium out and how to verify uranium enrichment is actually quite complicated. It takes just the sort of preparation that Witkoff and Kushner seem to have been engaged in to get them right.

Trump's remark that Iran's uranium is "entombed" that the U.S. would be able to get it even without a deal if it needed to brings another layer to the discussion. It indicates that Washington holds that military incursions into the underground arsenal are still possible, so it provides a degree of leverage from one direction while the frozen assets provide leverage in another. Iran knows this. In this view, the regime's public fixation on the $24 billion number is not, as it claims, a realistic final total, but rather its push to get the largest possible economic concession before it backs down on the issue it has already, albeit behind the curtain, agreed to discuss: the nuclear issue.

Don't think that what is being negotiated is whether Iran surrenders its enriched uranium. That is a foregone conclusion. What is being negotiated is how much in dollars, in sanctions relief, in regional security guarantees, in face-saving language Tehran will have to pay for these to turn public. That's part of the price-discovery process in the military exchanges in the Gulf. Every drone that's been downed, every missile that's been intercepted, every radar site that's been hit is a fact a negotiation that's never been entirely abandoned, not just through words but through weapons.

The Vietnam analogy, which Trump tossed out unprompted on Friday, was telling in more ways than he may realized. I'm in my third month of Vietnam, which lasted 19 years," he said. It's a two-way street. Recognizes that these processes take longer than desired. It also suggests a readiness to remain in the uncomfortable middle ground neither all war, nor all peace longer than some opponents of the administration's policy may think.

That is, the Gulf is on fire. But Washington is prepared for the day after, too. The question of whether the two can coexist long enough to reach an agreement is on which energy markets and the credibility of the nuclear non-proliferation regime all hang, along with the security of the Gulf states and the fate of Asian economies.