'We Are Focused on Ending the War,' Says Iranian Foreign Ministry After Trump Threatens More Suffering

A spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday said the Iranian leadership is reviewing the response issued by the US government over the weekend following a 14-point plan offered by Tehran to bring the unpopular war started by President Donald Trump—now in its third month—to an end.

“The Americans have given their answer to Iran’s 14-point plan to the Pakistani side, and we are currently reviewing it,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in an interview with Iranian television.

Baghaei said that the framework offered is strictly focused on bringing the immediate hostilities to an end and that the plan contains "absolutely no details regarding the country’s nuclear issues," which he suggested could be discussed at a later time.

“We are not currently engaged in any negotiations over the nuclear issue, and decisions about the future will be made in due course,” he said, even though Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have continued to claim the preventing the Iranians from having a nuclear weapons program—which Tehran denies having and US intelligence assessments have shown does not exist in the manner that US officials describe it—is central to their war aims.

“I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us," Trump said in a social media post on Saturday, "but can’t imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years."

Despite some reporting examining what's purportedly in the Iranian proposal, the exact details of the 14-point plan remain murky or contentious depending on who you ask. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, gave his assessment of the current situation on Sunday by saying:

Overall, the Iranians appear to be pursuing a grand bargain—without labeling it as such. This is not merely a proposal aimed at securing a ceasefire, or even a formal end to the current conflict, but rather an attempt to resolve the broader US-Iran antagonism that has persisted for the past 47 years. Implicit in this approach is an expectation that both sides would also restrain their respective regional partners and proxies (Israel, Hezbollah, etc.). In many respects, framing the proposal in this way may align more effectively with Trump’s instincts and psychology.

Meanwhile, poll out Friday showed that 61% of Americans believe Trump's launching of the war was a mistake, and an even higher number (66%) disapprove of how he's handling the conflict. The same ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll also showed that Trump is now facing the lowest approval ratings than at any time in both of his terms as president.

Speaking with Al-Jazeera over the weekend, Parsi explained that Trump's maximalist demands, including the blockade that it has tried to impose on Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, have made negotiations much more difficult:

Over the weekend, archival footage from the 1990s shared online by journalist Séamus Malekafzali showed former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Hossein Salami, who was killed by US-Israeli forces last year, talking to the IRGC's staff college about the country's strategy of "asymmetric warfare" if and when it ever faced an opponent that was perceived to have military superiority over it.

"The chance of conflict with American forces is very possible," Salami says in the video, according to the English subtitles provided, but the "possibility of victory really exists" if Iranians are able to move the conflict toward "the area of our capabilities into the area of America's weaknesses."

That strategy, as Malekafzali paraphrases it, is "to drag out a war with the US by driving up economic costs and political turmoil," thereby draining the US and sapping its power by inflicting economic pain and political pressure.

As many foreign policy observers have pointed out since Trump launched the war, the strategy of Iran to inflict pain on US allies in the region and economic pain at a global level—such as has been achieved by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz—is very much what Salami describes.

As geopolitical analyst Misbah Qasemi explained, Salami's point was basically this: "Don't match their strength (air power, technology). Attack their weaknesses (economic endurance, political will, domestic opinion). Drag them into your terrain—maritime, cyber, proxy networks—where their advantages neutralize themselves."

This point was made explicitly by Harrison Mann, a fellow with the advocacy group Win Without War, during a Sunday appearance on CNN in which he explained how this plays out in practical terms.

"Iran can actually inflict pain back on the US," said Mann. "In this case via economic warfare, which is not sustainable for Trump in the long run."