Zarif and the "Declaration of Victory": When Defeat is Reformulated as a Deal

Mohammad Javad Zarif returns in the mantle of the "peacemaker," suggesting that Tehran should use its "superiority not to continue the fight, but to declare victory and seek a deal that ends the conflict." It is an attractive phrase on the surface, but in essence, it is a recycling of the same formula that resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with all its promises that failed at the first test. The man who failed to describe what is happening or explain its causes presents himself today as the "savior." What he proposes is not new: it is the same formula marketed before the war through indirect channels with President Donald Trump’s team—enrichment below 3.67% in exchange for promises to lift sanctions. It is worth noting that the Strait of Hormuz was open to all ships before the war and before the United States assassinated the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei. The difference is that this formula is being offered now after a devastating war, as if it were a "declaration of victory" rather than a settlement from a position of attrition.

The "Field" as a Scapegoat for Failure His famous quote returns to haunt him: "I sacrificed diplomacy for the military field." Today, he reintroduces the same idea indirectly: politics knew the way, but the "field" is what caused it to fail. In this way, the most complex moments of conflict are reduced to a binary that blames the military for the stumbling of a path that facts never proved was viable to begin with—especially under an American approach that uses negotiation as a tool of pressure rather than a path to a solution. Iranian history offers harsh examples of when the "field" was absent and the country lost under the leadership of politicians: The entire Caucasus region. Afghanistan (specifically Herat). Iran's historical spheres of influence in Central Asia. Bahrain. In the field that Zarif led diplomatically, the result was pouring concrete into Iranian nuclear reactors in exchange for nothing but more sanctions and two consecutive wars against Iran.

Characterizing Targeting: From "Deliberate" to "Random" Zarif skims over the killing of civilians, describing it as "random." This linguistic characterization seems minor, but politically it is highly significant: it transforms deliberate targeting into a side effect of chaos. This language is not a mere detail; it is a psychological preparation for the idea of "moving toward a deal."

The "Incompetent Delegation" Alibi Zarif links the failure of the negotiation path to the incompetence of American envoys. However, he ignores the more important question: what if the problem was not the competence of individuals, but the nature of the American strategy itself? What if negotiation was part of managing the conflict, not ending it? Furthermore, Zarif overlooks the U.S. attempt to assassinate Kamal Kharrazi—for whom Zarif was once an employee—who, according to some reports, was communicating with Islamabad as it proposed itself as a mediator in the current war.

The Strait of Hormuz… Redefining the Problem Zarif redefines the crisis as a "closed strait" for Iran. In reality, the problem was not geography as much as it was the sanctions that choked exports and transfers. Thus, the issue of the balance of power is transformed into a narrative about a waterway.

Intersection with the Trump Narrative His thesis intersects with Trump’s narrative about "new, more rational leadership." What Zarif offers appears, in the eyes of many, to be practical proof of this: offering the same formula that was demanded before the war, but after a much higher price has been paid.

Reproducing the Same Experience 🫶The core of the article is an explicit call to reproduce the same path: nuclear restrictions, promises of lifting sanctions, and relying on a change in American behavior. The same tools, the same assumptions, but in a much harsher context.