Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of the Islamic regime’s Supreme National Security Council, set out six conditions this week for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Not one of them concerns a ship.

The conditions, as Zolghadr described them, are an end to threats against Iran, a permanent halt to military action against Iran and its allies, the withdrawal of U.S. naval and air forces from the waters and airspace around the country, compensation for wartime damage, the lifting of all sanctions, and the unconditional release of frozen Iranian assets. The Strait stays closed, he said, until “America corrects its behavior.” U.S. officials have described their own starting point in almost exactly inverted terms. Vice President JD Vance has said the American priority is restoring commercial shipping, clearing the mines and returning oil and gas exports to prewar levels, and other officials have said any interim arrangement must allow vessels to transit without political approvals or permissions. Each side has now defined the other’s first concession as the thing that must happen before its own becomes available.

Neither side has left itself room to move first

The six conditions contain no reference to mine clearance, traffic separation schemes, escort arrangements, insurance, or merchant vessel security. Every item addresses the political and military relationship between the two states. Set against the earlier diplomacy, in which several of these same issues were reportedly handled as reciprocal steps to be sequenced against one another, the change is in the structure rather than the content. Compensation and sanctions relief are no longer items to be traded. They are the gate.

The American position has hardened in the mirror image. Free transit without permissions is not a bargaining item that can be part-delivered; a corridor that requires approval for some flags is NOT the thing U.S. officials have said they are negotiating for. Both governments have chosen formulations that are difficult to soften without a visible reversal, which is a familiar problem in maritime disputes and rarely resolves quickly.

The Iranian line also did not come from a single office. Within hours of Zolghadr’s statement, army spokesman Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia said the new order Iran has imposed in the Strait is irreversible, and IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Hossein Mohebi said reopening depends on Iran’s own mechanisms rather than on anything agreed with Oman. Three institutions that do not normally coordinate their public messaging said versions of the same thing on the same day, which points to an agreed government position rather than factional noise.

The Oman talks are not the opening of the Hormuz

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been consistent that the Oman talks cover temporary routes and the legal framework for managing navigation, and that a route agreement should not be read as a reopening of the Strait. Mohebi’s statement went further, detaching the outcome from the mediation entirely. Whatever emerges from Muscat, on that account, does not decide the status of the waterway. An agreement could still be announced within days, and tankers could begin transiting under it.

Running alongside the Oman channel is legislation under review in the Iranian parliament that would bar vessels linked to the U.S., Israel and other states the regime designates as hostile from transiting until Iran is compensated for wartime damage. The draft would impose transit charges on other commercial traffic, reported at cargo-based fees of up to 7 percent, with penalties for violations and provisions for continued routing cooperation with Oman. The 7 percent figure comes from accounts of the draft rather than a published text and has not been independently confirmed. The bill has not passed and is not law.

The tracks answer different questions. Oman determines where ships sail and how they avoid mines. The parliamentary bill determines who may sail, at what cost, and under whose authority. A vessel can have a cleared lane and still lack permission to use it.

Neither track ends at the prewar Strait

What the Oman channel can produce is a routing arrangement. What U.S. officials have said they require is transit without permissions, as the condition rather than the result. Neither arrives at the prewar Strait, where ships passed without asking anyone. The Islamic regime has said the reopening depends on its own mechanisms, and no Iranian official has described what those consist of, who operates them, or what triggers them.

The sequencing is where this closes. The regime has made an end to threats, a permanent halt to military action against Iran and its allies, the withdrawal of U.S. naval and air forces from the waters and airspace around the country, compensation for wartime damage, the lifting of all sanctions and the release of frozen assets the preconditions for reopening the Strait, which means the American forces would have to come off station first. It is difficult to see the U.S. easing its naval posture before the Strait is fully open, which is the assessment here rather than a stated American position. Each side has made the other’s first move its own price of admission, and neither has offered a smaller version of the demand.

That is not a gap that narrows on its own. It is not looking too good.