Iran’s terms for ending the war travel through Doha, while the strait they concern cannot be counted

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told Al Jazeera in an interview published on 19 September that Tehran had conveyed a set of conditions to Washington through Qatari mediators for ending the war that began with joint US and Israeli strikes in late February. He posted the conditions to his X account the following day, and the state agency IRNA carried them as seven conditions. The elements reported consistently across accounts are an end to the fighting on all fronts, the unfreezing of Iranian funds, and an end to the US naval blockade. Rezaei said Tehran was awaiting a response from President Trump, and described Iran as more battle-hardened than in the first forty days of the war. The document is unusually retrievable for this file: it is a named official’s own post. What differs is the verb. IRNA says Iran announced seven conditions. Al Jazeera calls them Iran’s latest conditions. RFE/RL, which is funded by the US Congress through USAGM, reported that Iran repeats long-standing demands. The Jerusalem Post says Tehran reiterates.

The condition with a measurable object is the blockade, and it is measured badly. Al Jazeera, citing the marine analytics firm Kpler, reported on 3 September that six vessels crossed the strait on the Wednesday, eleven on the Tuesday and five on the Monday, with the ten-day average at thirteen vessels a day; Trump said the United States was helping around thirty ships across daily. Neither side has published a transit list. The commercial firm Windward, whose methodology is not disclosed, recorded twelve transits on 16 September, double the previous day, with eleven of the twelve moving without AIS and three very large crude carriers of 310 metres or more running dark inbound — a figure that sits awkwardly against the same firm’s description of a ten per cent rise in dark transits, and which should be queried before it is repeated. On 7 September Al Jazeera reported that Tehran would announce a new Hormuz shipping route within days. Two weeks on, no such route has been announced.

The consequences are being counted elsewhere, in places where the numbers are official. Bloomberg, working from CAPMAS data, reported on 8 September that Suez Canal revenue rose 42 per cent year on year in July, with 1,340 vessels transiting against 1,208 in June, a 27 per cent increase on July 2025. Lloyd’s List Intelligence notes that part of this is a distortion artefact: Yanbu cargoes that once went south are being routed north through Suez, partially loaded and topped up at Sidi Kerir. Bloomberg reported separately on 10 September that Saudi Arabia’s shift of exports to the Red Sea route put its barrels inside Houthi range, and that two tankers carrying Saudi crude were struck in July. On 19 September, US missions in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Iraq issued security alerts on the same day; the Baghdad text warns that “the security environment remains complex with the potential for unforeseen escalation.” On 20 September the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, saw President Sisi in Cairo, unannounced. The only account of what was said is Egypt’s.

Assessment: The bargaining is being conducted in metrics neither side will let the other audit. Iran’s blockade condition can only be judged against transit data held by two commercial firms and contested by the White House; Washington’s claim that the waterway is open rests on an escort count nobody has published. Both figures may be honest and still incompatible, because a count of escorted crossings and a count of all transits are not the same number. Three things deserve active distrust today. First, Al Jazeera’s 20 September liveblog headline that Tehran warned of a “painful” response carries no named speaker in what is retrievable; a warning attributed to a capital city is not attributable at all. Second, Al Jazeera obtained the Rezaei interview about Qatari mediation without disclosing its own Qatari funding. Third, the Cairo readout is the sole record of an American official’s words, which is how Egypt prefers it. Watch the verbs as closely as the vessel counts.