The plan was to stop the war, but at the negotiating table,
the United States and Iran appear to have instead opened even larger ledgers of
demands against each other. After five months of war, a narrow waterway is now
at the center of the talks: the Strait of Hormuz. Whether this route will
reopen is now tied to compensation, blockades, sanctions, military withdrawals
and even responsibility for much older conflicts. The United States wants Iran
to pay compensation for various deaths and...