Some news from us to start: Journalist, author and broadcaster Roya Hakakian joins us this week, adding her distinctive voice and perspective to MBN’s expanding report. Roya will contribute writing and commentary and build out our coverage of the region through the prism of culture, history and faith.
Today on the Agenda, Vice President J.D. Vance comes home without a deal. President Donald Trump announces a naval blockade. And the only diplomatic channel still operating opens this morning, at the State Department, between two countries – Lebanon and Israel – that technically remain at war.
Also in this edition: How the blockade is supposed to work, and why Tehran’s counter is not at Hormuz. Jordan faces a reckoning as Israeli settlement expansion accelerates in the West Bank. And an MBN exclusive on the ambush that nearly killed a freed American journalist in Baghdad.
Leila Bazzi and Mustafa Saadoon contributed to the Agenda this week.
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Washington Signals
Final Offer
U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference after meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Iran in Islamabad, accompanied by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Photo: Reuters
U.S. and Iranian negotiators met in Islamabad for 21 hours, the most senior direct engagement between the two sides since the 1979 Revolution. No deal.
Vice President J.D. Vance left Pakistan Sunday with a phrase that carries specific diplomatic weight: “final and best offer.” A senior White House official told MBN it was not frustration but a signal: The American position will not move, and it is now Iran’s turn to decide. The sticking point was the nuclear file. The U.S., in a significant shift from its prior position, offered Iran a 20-year freeze on enrichment — with all enriched material removed from Iranian soil — rather than demanding permanent dismantlement. Iran still refused. Tehran also raised Hormuz sovereignty, war reparations, sanctions removal, and an end to attacks on Hezbollah. Pakistan vowed to keep mediating. Neither side said they were done.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf posted Sunday night: “The United States failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation. Due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side.” The phrase ‘two previous wars’ is deliberate, but the distrust it signals runs deeper than any single conflict. Iran’s grievances with Washington stretch back decades, to U.S. support for the last Shah and the 1953 coup that restored him. “It is a statement of structural distrust that no ceasefire mechanism has been designed to address,” a former Kuwaiti diplomat told MBN.
MBN Iran Briefing Podcast
Expert conversations unpacking the latest developments in Iran and how they are reshaping security, energy markets, and geopolitics across the Middle East.
Then, President Donald Trump announced a blockade on Truth Social. CENTCOM’s order, issued hours later, was narrower, exempting vessels heading to non-Iranian ports. A senior State Department official told MBN the blockade “turns the tables,” preventing Iran from profiting from the Strait and stripping Tehran of the leverage it has been using against U.S. partners in the region. A White House official added: “The Iranian regime has been banking on Trump blinking. Today, he made it clear he’s not the one who’s going to fold.”
Twenty-three minutes later, Trump posted again, warning that any vessel approaching the blockade would be “immediately eliminated.” Before noon, he told reporters Iran had “called this morning” and that they “would like to work a deal.”
Brent crude was up $102, closing at $97 per barrel, up from $70 before the war. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain would not join the blockade. French President Emmanuel Macron announced a separate 40-nation mission to reopen the Strait.
Iran’s counter is not at Hormuz. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened Monday to close Bab el-Mandeb, the Red Sea chokepoint connecting Europe to Asian markets. “A Bab el-Mandeb closure is a greater systemic threat to global trade than Hormuz,” a senior European intelligence officer told me. “Hormuz is an Asian energy problem. Bab el-Mandeb is a European one. If that goes, our supply chains don’t slow down. They stop.”
Macron moved the same morning the IRGC spoke.
The blockade went live Monday morning. Iran called before noon. The next move is Washington’s.
Diplomatic Signals
Same Room, Different Wars
For the first time since 1983, Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Mouawad and Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter are scheduled to meet at the State Department under U.S. mediation.As they prepare to meet, Israel is seizing the south Lebanon village of Bint Jbeil.
The meeting is deadlocked before it starts. Lebanon comes to stop a war. Israel comes to finish one.
As former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told MBN: “The Lebanese state did not control its territory in the 1970s and early 1980s. It does not control its territory now.” That is the essential dilemma Mouawad carries with her into the room.
Lebanon arrives with one instruction: reach a ceasefire. Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh, speaking in an interview with Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed on Sunday, said seeking a ceasefire was the only substantive issue that Mouawad had been authorized to discuss. A former Lebanese diplomat told MBN that Mouawad walks into the most sensitive diplomatic meeting in decades as a first-time ambassador with a narrow mandate and no career background in negotiations of this kind.
Israel’s position is already on record. After a preliminary video conference call between U.S., Lebanese, and Israeli officials on Friday to set the parameters for today’s meeting, Leiter said Israel had “agreed to begin formal peace negotiations,” not ceasefire discussions. Netanyahu’s spokesperson, Shosh Bedrosian, reinforced that in a briefing to reporters: “We will not discuss a ceasefire with Hezbollah, which continues to carry out indiscriminate attacks against Israel and our civilians.”
The Bint Jbeil offensive, Israel’s push into a historic Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon, began April 9, the day after the U.S.-Iran ceasefire took effect. In other words, Israel accelerated its actions rather than pausing after the guns fell quiet in the Persian Gulf, despite President Trump invocation to Netanyahu to lighten up on attacks on the south of Lebanon. “Nobody walks into that room expecting a breakthrough in one session,” a senior State Department official said to MBN, referring to the agreement to even hold direct talks between Israel and Lebanon. “This was a first step. We hope there will be more.”
Quote of the Day
“Trump wants a quick fix. The reality is, this mission is difficult to execute alone and likely unsustainable over the medium to long-term.”
—Dana Stroul, former Senior Pentagon Official, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, April 13, 2026
Iraq Watch
SCOOP: Freed and Ambushed
American journalist Shelly Kittleson was kidnapped in Baghdad on March 31 by Kataib Hezbollah. She was held for a week in Jurf al-Nasr, a security zone the militia controls south of Baghdad, and released April 7 following negotiations involving Iraq’s National Intelligence Service. Getting her out of the country triggered a second confrontation.
On the morning of April 8, a U.S. diplomatic convoy, including FBI personnel and an Iraqi security escort, moved Kittleson from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone toward the airport. As the convoy approached Victoria Base, which lay along its route, three drones struck the base. Shrapnel scattered. The convoy halted.
An Iraqi intelligence source told MBN that Kittleson was not the target. “The factions intended to injure or kill American soldiers or diplomats,” the source said. The ground route was abandoned. Kittleson was returned to the embassy while a safer option was found. Hours later, she was evacuated by helicopter. The same Iraqi intelligence source told MBN that an American general delivered a direct threat to the Iraqi government: U.S. forces would respond if the helicopters came under attack during takeoff.
The Americans were furious for a specific reason. “Information about the delegation’s departure had been leaked,” the source said. “This means there was a security breach involving the disclosure of movement details.”
On April 9, the State Department summoned the Iraqi ambassador to Washington and condemned what it called an “ambush,” while acknowledging Iraqi security forces had tried to respond. It added that “some entities linked to the Iraqi government continue to provide political, financial, and operational cover for militias.”
The Iraqi government has issued no comment. Neither has the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Read the exclusive story here
Gulf Watch
Nine Days
The two-week ceasefire expires on April 22. The Gulf has nine days to find out what comes next.
Before the war, more than 100 cargo ships transited the Strait of Hormuz daily. During the ceasefire’s first days, that number collapsed to fewer than ten. As of April 9, more than 400 tankers, 34 LNG carriers (vessels transporting liquefied natural gas), and 19 additional vessels were waiting in the vicinity. Iran is also charging approximately one dollar per barrel for selective passage, according to a senior Iranian official who told Reuters there would be “no change in the status of the Strait” until Washington consents to a fair agreement. The Hormuz question is no longer military. It is a toll booth, and Tehran is collecting the toll.
Gulf states tried the diplomatic track before the blockade. Bahrain sponsored a UN Security Council resolution authorizing defensive operations to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan all co-sponsored it. Russia and China vetoed it.
A Bahraini official told MBN the verdict was plain. “We asked for the world to act. The world refused. Now Iran is charging a dollar a barrel, the strait is at 10 percent of normal traffic, and we are expected to absorb the economic hit while hosting American bases that made us targets.”
The UAE formally submitted three non-negotiable demands: an immediate and verifiable cessation of all hostilities against Gulf states, complete and unconditional reopening of Hormuz without preconditions, and full accountability and reparations. According to UAE government figures, the country intercepted 2,819 projectiles over 40 days of conflict. UAE diplomatic adviser Anwar Gargash told Euronews: “We do not desire a ceasefire that neglects the core issues. We have no trust in the Tehran regime.”
A former Kuwaiti diplomat told MBN the pressure is now turning inward. “You cannot rebuild your missile defense, compensate for lost oil revenue, and continue investing at the same pace,” he said. “Something has to give.”
April 22 is nine days away. If neither the diplomatic nor the military track produces a framework before then, the Gulf will not be watching from the sidelines. It will be absorbing the next round.
Featured Conversation
Nothing Ends Here
Ryan Crocker, chairman of the board of MBN, served as U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. MBN’s Editor-in-Chief Leila Bazzi spoke with him about the collapse of the Islamabad talks, the blockade, and what comes next.
On the Islamabad collapse: “The agendas of the two sides were diametrically opposed. There was no common ground. All of us who follow the area could see that these talks were not likely to produce anything. And they didn’t.”
On Lebanon: “The Lebanese state did not control its territory in the 1970s and early 1980s. It does not control its territory now. Only through effective state control over all Lebanese territory is the situation ever going to be resolved. It won’t happen quickly. And it won’t happen under Israeli guns.”
On where this ends: “It’s axiomatic that it’s a lot easier to start a war in the Middle East than it is to end one. The best we can hope for is an informal return to the status quo of February 27th. And all that does is return us to where we were. It solves nothing.”
Read the full conversation with Ambassador Crocker here
Joe Kawly
Joe Kawly is Washington Bureau Chief for MBN and a global affairs journalist with more than twenty years covering U.S. foreign policy and Middle East politics.
A CNN Journalism Fellow and Georgetown University graduate, he reports from Washington at the intersection of power and diplomacy, explaining how decisions made in the U.S. capital shape events across the Arab world.
