Ceasefires absent of International Law (ever since 2022) are never worth anything, unless both sides agree that concluding the hot part when it comes to hostilities, is politically beneficial.
That was true also before 2022 for many states, but now it is a simple fact that both sides must exhaust what is gained through fighting (cost benefit) , before accepting any sort of deal, since there is less and less political damage from ignoring International Law.
Anyway, no way in hell will the US accept Iran’s conditions before trying out another desperate move (also likely to fail).
It was probably part of someones thinking in Washington and as such part of the “trigger reason” to foolishly join Israel, but I have to be boring and say that it was not part of the background for the conflict.
That remains A) The Iranian nuclear program.
B) the Iranian Ballistic Missile Program and that these are connected to C) (the real reason): Iran’s hostility towards the US, Israel, Gulf States and the West, as well as it’s it’s ambitions to be a hegemon; which makes accepting it as a nuclear state impossible without trying bloody hard to avoid it.
D) Revenge also plays a role. A lot of people underestimate how many high placed people in the US wants to get back at Iran for killing US troops in the MENA region.
I mean, if there was a way to destroy The Islamic Republic in a clean, legal and low-cost manner; all of the West + most of MENA would support it enthusiastically due to how awful Iran actually is. But there isn’t, but they did this stupid thing anyway.
IRGC is basically Pakistani’s ISI on steroids. Them having a nuke doesn’t bode well for the area at all.
And w.r.t to their navy capabilities, their navy has those small submarines which are well suited to the strait of Hormuz. Their frigates/destroyers might be taken out of the equation but their small submarines and their use of gunboats etc makes them still a viable force considering the geography of the straits.
