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ITV News International Editor Emma Murphy reports from Tehran as Trump announced a two-week ceasefire
After 39 days of this war, a ceasefire is now in place. Here in Tehran, the dawn does not echo to the sound of explosions.
On paper, at least, or on social media, diplomacy’s modern-day equivalent, there is an agreed 14-day pause.
The deal came in the early hours, after maximalist threats, escalating rhetoric, ferocious attacks and frantic global diplomacy.
For it to last, the serious hard work of finding a sustainable and enduring solution must now begin. War is the easier part; peace will be the challenge.
Every player will claim their victory, but this war has exposed strengths and weaknesses of great hegemons and this pause will expose divisions which will be hard to bridge.
The president announced the ceasefire shortly before his deadline on escalating attacks was due to pass. Credit: AP
Nations’ sense of dominance, power and safety has been shaken along with the global economy. The cost will be enduring and felt near and far.
And what has really been achieved apart from chaos? The myriad of ever-changing war objectives laid out by the United States may have sought to obscure success and failure, but the reality on the ground puts the jeopardy of this war into clear focus.
None of the fundamental issues have been resolved.
This is certainly not the “unconditional surrender” US President Donald Trump so confidently predicted.
The Islamic Republic remains, many of its leaders, from the late Ayotollah down, have been killed, but it is still very much in power in this country.
Its missile stock is diminished, but not to the level that has been claimed for weeks. Its nuclear stockpile remains, including the highly enriched uranium over which two wars have now been fought.
And the surviving leaders of the Islamic Republic have proved a resilience that was miscalculated from the get-go.
Despite more than 13,000 strikes on their territory, they proved their power in the Strait of Hormuz could almost cripple the world economy.
That power was fundamentally miscalculated by those who launched this war, and it leaves in Iran’s hands a power which was not used before this war.
Government supporters chant slogans after the announcement of a two-week ceasefire with the United States and Israel in Tehran, Iran. Credit: AP
There will be some here who do not welcome this pause and will not trust it. Another of President Trump’s promises was to deliver help to protestors. That help has not delivered the results they had sought.
Every one of those points will be seen by the Iranian government as a humiliation to the West and a validation of their resilience under extreme pressure.
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To win this war, Iran needed to survive and survive it has.
Iran’s battle now will be to ease the sanctions in place for decades. That will be the only way to bring about the economic changes the society so badly needs.
As for Trump, his threat, in place for more than ten hours, that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” will not be forgotten by friend or foe.
It will be claimed as an artful way of bringing the tactics of the boardroom into geopolitics, but the threat to the lives of millions is an abuse of power not easily dismissed as bluster.
And what of his allies, those Gulf states, who thought the warm arm of American association offered them a protection?
How quickly the missiles and drones tore through that costly illusion.
For 20 years, Western leaders have sought to control the Islamic Republic through negotiation.
Twice now, Trump has sought to break them through war.
Over the next two weeks, a solution will need to be found to bridge the vast gaps between East and West, or this war will simply be the latest, not the last.
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