(WASHINGTON) — Top Trump administration officials have touted diplomatic efforts to end the war in Iran as the president signals it could end without pursuing the challenging military operation of opening the Strait of Hormuz with naval escorts.

In an interview with “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not cite the reopening of the strait, the vital chokepoint of which 20% of the world’s oil flows through, which has been largely closed to shipping traffic, as a U.S. objective. President Donald Trump in the early days of the war said the U.S. Navy would take measures to ensure ships could sail there.

Rubio listed the “destruction” of Iran’s air force, navy, missile-launch capacity and military industry as the four objectives of what he termed a U.S. “operation.”

“All of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon,” Rubio said. “That was our objective from the beginning; that remains our objective now.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Tuesday also omitted freedom of movement in the Strait of Hormuz as one of the Pentagon’s priorities, instead calling on other nations with energy interests there to be involved in reopening it.

The president shifted responsibility over the strait — whose access has been largely blocked by Iran as a response to the U.S. and Israel attacks on the country — to those allies and partners.

“They can police it themselves,” Trump told ABC’s Jonathan Karl on Tuesday. “Why should I do it for them?”

The apparent recalibration — just days after Trump threatened intensified military action if Iran did not move to open the strait — signals the US could be plotting an exit in which it declares it’s accomplished the outlined military objectives without seeking to repair the war’s most devastating economic consequence, a former senior U.S. diplomat said.

“I think Rubio may have signaled one option the president has,” said the former diplomat who engaged in negotiations with Iran. “It’s not a very good one, but … of the bad and worse options, it’s probably the better bad option.”

The former U.S. official said a hasty exit from the conflict without addressing two of its thorniest issues — the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear stockpile — suggests there is a diplomatic deal to be achieved that would end the fighting.

“I think Rubio, at least, sounds like he just wants to bring this [conflict] to closure along the parameters that he outlined, and then hope that world pressure opens the Strait of Hormuz,” the former official said.

Objectives articulated by the administration earlier in the conflict — like regime change and denuclearization — would remain unmet by such a deal, the former diplomat said.

Tehran’s diplomatic view
Whether or not the U.S. is pursuing a diplomatic exit, it will be complicated for a battered Iran to deal with a country that initiated a war with it a month ago, analysts of Tehran’s government told ABC News.

Iran may be open to diplomacy, the analysts said, but it would seek durable assurances that it will not be attacked by the U.S. — or Israel — in the future.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday that his country was not negotiating with the U.S. but that messages were being passed.

Pakistan, who along with Turkey and Egypt has positioned itself as an intermediary between the U.S. and Iran, have been delivering those messages between the warring nations, establishing an important “venue” for talks, said Syed Mohammad Ali, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and analyst of Pakistani politics.

“I think the most important thing here is to have created a channel of mediation,” Ali said. “And in conflict situations that is of vital importance.”

Ali, who is familiar with the early negotiations, said early diplomatic exchanges have been “maximalist” as the two sides remain far apart.

He cautioned that Pakistan, which has offered to host direct talks, would by itself “not be in a position to really help hammer this out … they can continue playing this role, but the terms are going to be set elsewhere.”

The introduction of China to diplomatic discussions, he said, could bring the kind of “big power pressure” and “strategic leverage” that the US and Iran, whose economies are intertwined with Beijing’s, might respond to.

The Chinese and Pakistani governments released a five-point plan, which called for an immediate ceasefire and “normal passage” through the Strait of Hormuz, after a meeting of their foreign ministers in Beijing on Tuesday. Trump is set to visit China in May.

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, an expert on Iranian politics and economics and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins, said any durable diplomatic breakthrough would likely follow a set of “high-level principles” that enables a ceasefire.

Leaders of the Iranian regime won’t readily come to the negotiating table, Batmanghelidj said, unless the conflict is perceived as a “stalemate” with the U.S. and talks are not framed as capitulation to Trump. Hardliners in Tehran, including leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps which would be allergic to negotiating with Washington, are still believed to wield considerable influence.

But “the elements” for a deal “are there,” Batmanghelidj said.

“Ultimately, this war has gone well enough for the Iranians that they can also point to a victory, but it has also been painful enough that even those that are very hardline in the Iranian system will understand that they don’t want to run a country that has been turned into some sort of basket case.”

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