Trump gives Iran days to end power struggle, return to peace talks (axios.com)

President Trump is giving Iran's warring factions a short window to unify behind a coherent counter-offer — or the ceasefire he extended Tuesday ends, three U.S. officials tell Axios. "Trump is willing to give another three to five days of ceasefire to allow the Iranians to get their shit together," one U.S. source briefed on the matter said. "It is not going to be open-ended." Why it matters: Trump's negotiators believe a deal to end the war and address what's left of Iran's nuclear program is still achievable. But they also worry they may not have anyone in Tehran empowered to say yes. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is barely communicating. The IRGC generals now in control of the country and Iran's civilian negotiators are openly at odds over strategy. "We saw that there is an absolute fracture inside Iran between the negotiators and the military — with neither side having access to the supreme leader, who is not responsive," a U.S. official said. Behind the scenes: U.S. officials first began to see the divisions after the first round of Islamabad talks, when it became clear IRGC commander Gen. Ahmad Vahidi and his deputies had rejected much of what Iran's own negotiators had discussed. The split broke into the open last Friday. When Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz , the IRGC refused to implement it — and began publicly attacking him. In the days that followed, Iran gave no substantive response to the latest U.S. proposal and refused to commit to a second round of talks in Pakistan. The intrigue: The fracture is partly a consequence of Israel's March assassination of Ali Larijani , the previous secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Larijani had the authority and political weight to hold Iran's decision-making together. His replacement, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr — whose job is to coordinate between the IRGC, civilian leadership and the supreme leader — is not effective, a U.S. official said. Driving the news: The last 48 hours have been extremely frustrating for the White House — particularly for Vice President Vance , who had his suitcases packed for Islamabad to lead a second round of peace talks. Instead, he found himself waiting for the IRGC generals now in control of Iran to let parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Araghchi travel to Pakistan to meet him. On Monday evening , the Iranians appeared to have given Pakistani mediators the green light for talks. By Tuesday morning, that signal was gone, replaced by a demand that the U.S. lift its naval blockade. Air Force Two sat for hours on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, ready to depart — until it became clear the trip wasn't happening. White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who had been set to fly from Miami to Islamabad, boarded a government plane to Washington instead. On Tuesday afternoon , Trump huddled with his national security team: Vance, Witkoff, Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense