--- title: "Before the midterms, Tehran holds the strait and its memory of broken talks" description: "China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye hurry to head off another round of US strikes, but Iran wants guarantees before it opens Hormuz" author: "Jan Sokol" published: 2026-10-27T15:26:59Z modified: 2026-10-27T18:46:35Z url: https://rews.cc/a/before-the-midterms-tehran-holds-the-strait-and-its-memory-o-87e2a2 language: en tags: ["iran", "war", "energy", "politics", "mideast", "world"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Before the midterms, Tehran holds the strait and its memory of broken talks *China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye hurry to head off another round of US strikes, but Iran wants guarantees before it opens Hormuz* By Jan Sokol · October 27, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/before-the-midterms-tehran-holds-the-strait-and-its-memory-o-87e2a2 ## In brief - China said on October 27 it will soon send an envoy to the Middle East to help ease tensions, without naming who or when - Saudi, Pakistani and Turkish officials met Iranian leaders in Tehran on Monday and pledged further talks on peace and security - Iran seeks sanctions relief, an end to the US blockade and no-strike guarantees; the US wants concessions first, including nuclear - Trump weighs new strikes before November 3 midterms; a Reuters/Ipsos poll puts approval of his war handling at 34 percent - Brent crude topped $117 last week against about $72 before the war, with Hormuz traffic far below pre-war levels On Tuesday, at the daily briefing of China’s foreign ministry in Beijing, the spokesman Guo Jiakun said his government was highly concerned about the conflicts in the Middle East and the regions around it, and that it would soon send an envoy to the relevant countries. According to [Reuters, as republished by US News](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-10-27/china-to-send-envoy-to-middle-east-in-near-future-amid-conflict-spillover), the envoy’s task would be to “strengthen communication with relevant parties, promote contact and dialogue, help ease tensions and prevent the situation from deteriorating further”. He gave no name and no date. Guo also spoke of the war spreading toward the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea. The day before, in Tehran, senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye had sat down with high-ranking Iranians and promised more talks on “peace and security.” The three visiting states signed the Mecca defence pact in August. They came to Tehran while Yemen’s Houthis were [launching new attacks on Saudi Arabia](https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2026/10/china-send-envoy-middle-east-near-future-amid-conflict-spillover) and Egypt was approving defence support for the kingdom. So the capitals are busy. The war is in its eighth month. It began on February 28, when the United States and Israel attacked Iran while peace talks were going on in Oman. As [Usaid Siddiqui sets out for Al Jazeera](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/27/irans-calculations-as-us-escalation-looms-trust-midterms-hormuz), Tehran is giving little ground on its red lines. ## A ledger of interrupted talks The two sides’ positions are easily stated. Iran wants sanctions relief, an end to the American naval blockade of its Gulf ports and guarantees that it will not be attacked again. In return it would help bring traffic in the Strait of Hormuz back to normal. Washington wants more concessions first, including on the nuclear programme. What sits under those positions is a long record. The United States has struck Iran three times since June 2025 while negotiations were under way. Israel’s 12-day war in June of last year, which the US later joined, was the first. February’s attack during the Oman talks was another. In June of this year Pakistan and Qatar brokered a memorandum of understanding to reopen the strait and lift the blockade. It collapsed. Weeks of American strikes followed in July, and Iran answered by hitting US assets, Gulf energy infrastructure and targets in Jordan. Sina Toossi of the Center for International Policy says Tehran is therefore after “more tangible and durable guarantees.” Negar Mortazavi, host of *The Iran Podcast*, describes the aim as more than one more ceasefire: Iran wants to end the war for good and establish deterrence. A reflection, offered only as one: when a government has been bombed during negotiations more than once, it starts to treat the talks themselves as the moment of greatest danger. The diplomats arriving in Tehran find their hosts reading the calendar first. ## The calendar The calendar is crowded. On Sunday Donald Trump asked aloud: “do I make a deal with them or do I finish them off?” He had said earlier that no attacks would come before the November 3 midterms, and last week, Reuters reported, he said the US might strike Iran again. Rews has followed [Tehran’s threat to fire on American warships](https://rews.cc/a/iran-says-it-will-fire-on-us-warships-as-trump-weighs-anothe-53264c) as that question hung in Washington. The election puts all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats on the ballot. Republicans hold the Senate 53-47, the 47 including two independents, and the House 218-214. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 34 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the war, the lowest rating of either of his terms. Diesel prices have nearly doubled, hitting farmers and small businesses. Some reports suggest Iran may be slowing the talks so that the president gets no victory before the vote. Mortazavi says Tehran wants to show that “attacking Iran comes with a high price” and that its deterrence is “multilayered.” Israelis also go to the polls on Tuesday. If Benjamin Netanyahu, widely seen as the war’s main driver, loses, joint strikes could become harder to arrange. But the opposition leader, the former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, is also a hawk on Iran. Tehran has its own man of the hour. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, says Iran will meet new attacks with a new “offensive” strategy, which could include invading neighbours and striking bases the Americans use. The strait, he says, opens only after Washington suspends sanctions, unfreezes assets, lifts the blockade and promises not to strike. ## The narrow water Before the war about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed through Hormuz. Traffic is still far below that. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy counts October as the worst month yet for attacks on shipping around the strait. Brent crude went above $117 last week, against roughly $72 before the war. Earlier this month rews described how Iran’s [leverage depends on the strait staying shut](https://rews.cc/a/iran-s-leverage-over-hormuz-depends-on-the-strait-staying-sh-2a8e07), and the price of diesel in American farm country comes from the same arithmetic. Chris Beauchamp of IG Group says Iran knows it is “in an attritional race with the US to see who breaks first.” It is an odd kind of race. One runner has the larger fleet. The other has the waterway and a population already worn down by eight months of war. ## Mediators with their own wars The mediators are not neutral visitors. Under the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, Pakistan and Turkiye are bound to defend Riyadh, which has spent weeks under Houthi fire. Rami Khouri of the Arab Center Washington DC says the immediate goal is to calm things down and secure “a permanent ceasefire”, and he sees a possible move away from a regional security order run by the United States. Toossi expects it to be “difficult to stabilise Yemen while the wider US-Iran confrontation continues.” Beijing, for its part, connects the Gulf to the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Last week China’s foreign minister and Djibouti’s [agreed in Beijing](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-10-27/china-to-send-envoy-to-middle-east-in-near-future-amid-conflict-spillover) that calming the Middle East was the key to security on those coasts. That spillover has already shown up in [African fertiliser prices](https://rews.cc/a/far-from-hormuz-the-iran-war-reaches-africa-through-the-fert-a40519). Mortazavi says Iran has been flexible: it put forward a proposal to end the war. On the strait, though, she says it “will not surrender that leverage under military or economic pressure.” Seven days separate the Chinese announcement from the American vote, and the envoy still has no name.