Patrick Wintour

and how they will react when the war ends, whether they will all see it as the kind of victory the IRGC will celebrate or whether they will revert to the kind of protests that we saw in January.

But I think many Iranians have learned a very harsh, brutal and bloody lesson from the uprising in January when more than

3,000 and maybe tens of thousands were killed.

Going onto the streets in Tehran to protest is a hugely dangerous decision to take.

It is significant they're now starting to seize ships because they need to ram home to the Americans that they feel they're winning this war or at least they're not losing this war.

We're in a very difficult position where neither side wants to back down, but neither side really wants to go for all-out war.

There is a real conflict going on in the Strait, and how that plays out is going to be critical to whether the talks recommend it.

Well, I mean, such as the confusion is that people couldn't actually agree at the point at which the ceasefire was supposed to expire.

People had different timelines for it.

I think it's a multiplicity of reasons why he's decided to do this.

And it's not the first time he's delayed some kind of deadline or other.

But I think it's a mixture of he actually doesn't really want to return to a full-scale conflict.

I mean, he was talking about bombing every bridge, every power station, and it was all back to the Stone Ages, part seven.

And actually, the reality is that I think he's realised that the price of full-scale aerial action

that he's undertaken in the past is too high and he wants to find a peace settlement.

So he's slightly switching mode and trying to think about different ways to put pressure on the Iranians.

And I think also there is more and more evidence about what's going to happen in the midterm elections.

I know this will seem a long way away, but it's starting to bake in a bit about how many seats they might lose in the Senate and how many they might lose in the Congress.

And that would be...

If it was as bad as some people are predicting, that would be the effective end of his presidency.