President Trump was on a conference call late last month from the Situation Room with leaders from across the Middle East and South Asia to pitch a deal that he believed was within reach to end the conflict in Iran. Trump asked for their support in a roll call, going one by one through Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and Pakistan. All answered in the affirmative. Trump’s tone, according to officials briefed on the conversation, suggested that he believed each country should be in his debt for taking on Iran. And he wanted their individual sign-off so he could claim a joint initiative to rein in the regime.But then Trump reached for something bigger: He proposed linking the Iran negotiations to a major expansion of the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered agreements normalizing relations between Israel and some of its neighbors that Trump regards as a signature foreign-policy achievement. He suggested that those countries that hadn’t yet joined the Abraham Accords get on board—but received a less than lukewarm response.A U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic efforts, told us one leader piped up to say that it was an interesting suggestion; foreign officials described an awkward silence. Several times during the 90-minute call, Trump had to interject: “Hello? Hello? Anyone there?”The awkwardness of the conversation, the details of which have not been previously reported, encapsulates what has gone awry in the roughly eight weeks since the United States and Iran entered a tentative cease-fire designed to allow negotiations for a longer-term deal. That agreement has remained out of reach, despite repeated indications that it was all but done, through a combination of mutual skepticism, differing incentives, the variety of issues to resolve, and Trump’s determination to force a grand regional transformation.Critics of Trump’s decision to go to war contend that his impulse to go big masks the weakness of his negotiating position despite the U.S. military’s dominance. Washington and Tel Aviv leveled some 15,000 targets in the first two weeks in Iran and killed dozens of Iran’s top leaders. “Operation Epic Fury—some of you didn’t like it, some of you did—was highly successful in achieving its military objectives, which was dramatically reducing the defense-industrial base of Iran,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, offering yet another version of why the U.S. went to war.But Tehran has succeeded simply by surviving the onslaught and has gained leverage by taking control of the Strait of Hormuz. As a result, Trump has been unable to convert tactical success on the battlefield into any lasting diplomatic or political achievement. None of his original war goals has been met, and the pressure to get a deal done is arguably now greater for Trump than it is for Iran, given the war’s broad unpopularity in the United States and the approaching midterm elections. [Read: Six days of war, 10 rationales]Israel, meanwhile, has been reluctant to abandon its war in Lebanon—as Iran is demanding—because Tel Aviv sees an opportunity to deliver a blow to Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, much as Israeli forces have done to Hamas in Gaza. Israel’s actions also have made an expansion of the Abraham Accords unlikely. The same day that he talked with the group of leaders, Trump held a follow-up call with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to push his proposal. MBS, as he is known, emphasized that he was open to the idea of normalization with Israel down the line if the formation of a Palestinian state is on the table, U.S. officials told us.Every attempt to seal a deal has expanded the list of issues or created new wrinkles that prevent progress. What began as a narrow negotiation to end the conflict has become a grab bag of objectives: constrain Iran’s nuclear program and destroy its highly enriched uranium, reopen shipping through the strait, achieve a durable cease-fire in Lebanon, reassure Persian Gulf monarchies that they can count on U.S. protection, and, if possible, reshape the political map of the Middle East through new alliances with Israel.The likely result is not another “forever war” of the sort that Trump has repeatedly condemned, but a “forever limbo,” where all sides involved have sufficient incentive to stay at the table but not enough to make binding commitments. Even if a near-term pact is struck that gets some commercial shipping moving again, easing the global energy shortage, the list of unresolved issues kicked into the subsequent 60-day negotiating period appears so complex that the most relevant proposed clause may be the one that allows for the indefinite extension of talks, after their initial two-month period, in 60-day increments.Even trying to gauge where things stand has been difficult, given the tendency of both Washington and Iran to say one thing in public and another in private. Or to say contradictory things publicly.Late last week, reporters at the White House barely saw the president. His public schedule was filled with intelligence briefings, policy meetings, and the catchall category known as “Executive Time.” Behind the scenes, administration officials were signaling that a breakthrough was at hand. A tentative agreement was ready and all that remained, they suggested, was Trump’s sign-off. On Friday, Trump said on Truth Social that he was heading into the Situation Room to make a “final determination.” But there was no announcement, no decision, no deal. Then, more than 48 hours later, shortly after 1 a.m. Monday, Trump wrote, “Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us.” He then chided those urging him to move faster, move slower, go to war, or avoid war altogether.“Just sit back and relax,” he concluded. “It will all work out well in the end – It always does!”Administration officials began moving down what they hoped would be a short path to ending the conflict in mid-April. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who holds no formal role in the administration, traveled alongside Vice President Vance to Islamabad, where Pakistani officials facilitated indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran. The discussions stretched for nearly a day. But they produced little in the way of concrete results, with Vance describing to reporters the “bad news” when he finally emerged. U.S. officials involved in the talks characterized the meetings as productive. Privately, participants acknowledged that the hurdles were significant. But the two sides agreed to keep talking.A second round of talks was scheduled for later that month. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was expected to participate. Vance’s team had prepared for the trip. Reporters were already assembled at Joint Base Andrews awaiting departure. At the last minute, Trump pulled the plug, telling advisers that the administration was in no hurry, according to officials familiar with the decision. He also complained about traveling without any guarantees. “We’re not gonna be traveling 15, 16 hours to have a meeting with people that nobody ever heard of,” Trump told reporters. “Too much travel.”The cancellation stunned intermediaries in the region who believed negotiations had been gaining momentum. Trump cast his change of mind as a mark of victory. “When they want, they can call me,” he told reporters. “We have all the cards. We won everything.”Inside the White House, Trump oscillated between impatience and theatrical self-confidence. He told advisers repeatedly that he wanted a deal bigger than President Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement and broader than the initial round of Abraham Accords. He also made clear that he did not want to own the failure of negotiations. The longer the process dragged on, the more the competing impulses pulled him in different directions.He wanted the conflict over. But he had become irritated by comparisons between the emerging framework and the Obama-era agreement, which set restrictions and time limits on Iran’s nuclear-development program. Administration officials said Trump repeatedly complained that critics were calling his team’s draft agreement a weaker version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which he had spent years attacking and tore up in his first term.Trump wanted a way to argue that Iran had accepted terms from him that Obama never managed to extract, aides told us. One potential answer was removing Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. Trump rejected military options to seize or destroy the material as unnecessarily risky, according to officials familiar with the discussions. Instead, negotiators explored arrangements under which Iran would transfer the uranium to either the U.S. or an acceptable third country, the aides told us. But that idea stalled, too.At the same time, Trump grew wary of Iran’s calls for relief from international sanctions that could generate a financial windfall for Tehran. Trump has long complained about the “pallets of cash,” according to advisers, a reference to the $1.7 billion that flowed to Iran after the 2015 pact. Rubio told the Senate committee yesterday that Iran had to get rid of the enriched uranium and that the move would not lead to sanctions relief for Iran or any other financial incentives.But the bottom line, Rubio said, was the need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That, like everything else involved in the talks, is harder than it might sound. To restore sufficient security and trust for shipping to return to prewar levels—about 135 ships a day—would require a major effort by the U.S. Navy, perhaps along with other nations, to clear mines laid by Iran. Shippers also need to feel confident that Iranian drones, missiles, and fast boats won’t threaten them. Only if those things happen, and the U.S. Navy lifts its blockade, would insurance companies reduce their rates for transit.Trump’s assurances that everything would ultimately “work out” sounded familiar to some of Trump’s allies. The president used similar bromides in private calls to assuage allies, including Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, before launching the war in February, according to people familiar with the conversations. At the time, some of his supporters urged him not to proceed. Trump, buoyed by the relative ease of seizing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and convinced that Iran would quickly fold, predicted the conflict would be over in weeks. Instead, more than three months later, the conflict remains unresolved.That explains Trump’s impatience. He told CNBC this week that discussions with Iran have “started to get very boring.” (In March, he said of the war, “I don’t get bored. There’s nothing boring about this.”) Privately, Trump has grown eager to move on to other priorities, including bringing Cuba to heel, while recognizing that higher energy prices generated by the Iran conflict are creating political headaches at home, according to people familiar with his thinking. Yet Trump remains determined to secure a settlement he can portray as a legacy-making win.By late last month, administration officials believed they were close to a deal that would usher in the first 60-day negotiating period. Iran would relinquish its highly enriched uranium stockpile. Sanctions relief would arrive gradually. Commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz would reopen in phases.Meanwhile, the conflict has simmered. U.S. Central Command launched fresh attacks on Iranian missile sites and naval assets near the Gulf, citing the need for self-defense. Iranian officials publicly accused Washington of negotiating in bad faith and launched their own missiles at American forces in Kuwait; the missiles were intercepted. Last night, both sides conducted strikes anew.On Monday, Iran said it was walking away from the talks, citing Israel’s campaign in Lebanon. At first, Trump appeared nonchalant, telling a CNBC reporter that he didn’t care and it was probably better that the two sides were no longer talking. Later the same day, he said on Truth Social “talks are continuing, at a rapid pace.” Trump also talked with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had shown little inclination to pause in Lebanon. He has spent decades seeking a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign to combat threats from Tehran, including the regional proxy militias that the regime supports.On Truth Social, Trump said their conversation was “very productive,” and that Netanyahu agreed not to send Israeli troops to Beirut, the Lebanese capital, and to order any troops headed there to fall back. But the call was contentious, Axios reported, with Trump asserting to Netanyahu, “I’m saving your ass,” and calling him “fucking crazy.”Rubio told lawmakers yesterday that Iran was intentionally sabotaging talks to prevent Lebanon from striking a separate deal. “What Iran wants to do is mix everything together. There is a government in Lebanon, and that’s who we deal with. Hezbollah isn’t its equivalent,” he said. Iran and Hezbollah, Rubio argued, are trying to block a stand-alone deal with the Lebanese government that might weaken Tehran’s leverage there.As Trump heads into the summer, with events planned for America’s 250th birthday and the World Cup, it is hard to see him dedicating more time than he is now to extricating the United States from the war he started at the end of February. He may be content to simply wait rather than do a deal that invites unflattering comparisons to one that already existed—and which didn’t come at the cost of 13 U.S. service members and at least 1,700 Iranian civilians, tens of billions of dollars, the depletion of U.S. munitions stockpiles, and a global energy crisis.