Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf issued a blunt ultimatum to the United States on Tuesday, May 12, demanding Washington accept Tehran’s 14-point peace proposal or brace for what he called continued and compounding failure.
“The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it,” Ghalibaf wrote in a post on X.
The warning came after US President Donald Trump publicly rejected Iran’s latest counteroffer, describing it as totally unacceptable and declaring that the fragile ceasefire in place since April 8 was on life support. Peace talks have stalled, with negotiators failing to produce a breakthrough in the previous round of discussions.
Ghalibaf insisted that Washington must recognise the rights of the Iranian people as defined in the 14-point proposal, warning that any alternative approach would yield nothing but successive failures. Iranian military officials separately cautioned that the country remains prepared to respond to any renewed American attack.
The deadlock centres on several interconnected disputes. Tehran’s peace proposal calls for an end to the war, the lifting of the US naval blockade of the region, and the release of Iranian assets frozen in foreign banks for years. A particularly sensitive sticking point concerns Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent. Washington insists the material be transferred out of the country, while Tehran maintains its right to domestic enrichment for peaceful purposes, though Iranian officials have said the enrichment level remains open to negotiation.
The threat calculus escalated further on Tuesday when Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for Iran’s parliamentary national security commission, suggested that lawmakers might consider enriching uranium to 90 percent, or weapons-grade levels, if hostilities resumed. He described this as one option that parliament would examine in the event of another attack.
US and Israeli strikes earlier this year targeted Iranian interests, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains restricted, continuing to rattle global energy markets.
