A weakened Iran and a flexing America maneuver in run-up to pivotal talks
| London
Top American and Iranian negotiators are due to begin talks Friday in Oman after a nearly nine-month hiatus, during which dramatic events on the ground have transformed the strategic playing field in Washington’s favor – and against Iran’s.
Beneath the shadow of a significant U.S. military build-up aimed at Iran, there are raised expectations at the White House that it can impose a maximalist deal. President Donald Trump has threatened to strike “with speed and violence” if Iran does not agree to diminish its strategic capacities.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, countered this week that any American attack will trigger a regional war and lead to a “decisive blow” against the United States. The issue, he said, is that the U.S. “wants to devour Iran.”
Why We Wrote This
U.S.-Iran talks set for Friday were briefly canceled, then revived at the urging of Arab governments. But the two adversaries’ preferred agendas are very different. Amid reciprocal threats, does each side have a realistic grasp of what is at stake?
Indeed, Washington sees Iran weakened by 12 days of Israeli bombardment last June, by U.S. strikes then against Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities, and by Israel’s two-year degradation of Iran’s regional “Axis of Resistance” allies that began with its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Also contributing today to the Islamic Republic’s sense of vulnerability is the political aftermath of nationwide anti-regime protests that it crushed with unprecedented brutality last month, leaving thousands dead. The residual anger is so deep that some Iranians say they now welcome U.S. strikes on their own country – if only to punish the regime.
The combined pressures present Iran’s leaders with a crisis unlike any they have faced, even as they mark the 47th anniversary of their self-declared “government of God,” with plans for large public marches.
Last-minute revisions
Iran insisted at the last minute on changing the talks’ venue from Turkey to Oman, and on limiting them to nuclear issues, while the United States wants much wider concessions. Arab countries and Turkey, concerned that U.S. strikes would spark a regional conflict, convinced the White House to accept the changed venue and a revised agenda.
“What’s problematic is that I don’t think the Iranians have digested that this isn’t quite the negotiation they want it to be,” says Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. “So, as usual, they are trying to make demands and extract concessions the whole way.”
“Trump is unpredictable, and Trump isn’t afraid – and the Iranians should have absorbed this – to use coercion and force,” she adds.
Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that the ayatollah “should be very worried” about strikes. As protests grew in Iran in early January, triggered by economic grievances, Mr. Trump vowed to “hit very hard” if protesters there were killed.
At the height of Iran’s crackdown, Mr. Khamenei mocked the president’s promise to “rescue” protesters, saying, “Trump should know that world tyrants ... were brought down at the peak of their arrogance. He, too, will be brought down.”
Yet, after the uprising was crushed and the high toll began to emerge, Mr. Trump encouraged Iranians to “take over” their institutions, and said, “Help is on the way.”
“We didn’t die to get a nuclear deal”
Among Iranian protesters who took Mr. Trump at his word – and said his city was “truly like a battle zone” – was an accountant and father of two in Khorramabad, in western Iran, who asked not to be named for his protection.
“Everyone I know is extremely disappointed with all the rumors about negotiations,” he says. “We didn’t die to get a nuclear deal; we wanted these thugs to go. People think Trump has betrayed them very, very badly.”
He goes on to say that many Iranians daily track the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and have “become military and navigation experts [who] know precise specifications” of U.S. naval ships.
“People are desperate for intervention, because after what we saw with the massacres, we now understand that this regime only knows the language of force, from a party more powerful than them,” he says, adding: “Many would have opposed intervention before the bloodbath on Jan. 8 and 9, but trust me, now it is quite different. We have no one else to cling to, other than America, because it is the only power that can teach [the regime] a painful lesson.”
Some 6,883 deaths have been confirmed, and 11,280 other fatalities remain “under investigation,” according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has tabulated accurate casualty tolls in the past. The killings far outstrip the lethal scale of any previous crackdown on protests in Iran.
Mr. Khamenei has been warned in high-level meetings about the increased risk of renewed protests if the U.S. strikes, Reuters reported this week.
“An attack combined with demonstrations by angry people could lead to a collapse [of the ruling system],” an Iranian official told the news agency. “That is the main concern among the top officials, and that is what our enemies want.”
Broader U.S. demands
While U.S. officials say President Trump prefers a deal, reported U.S. demands include halting nuclear enrichment, limiting missile range, and ending support for regional militia allies – points that Iran says are unacceptable and amount to surrender.
“Optics do matter, and this is really a problem,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, at a panel discussion on Tuesday.
“President Trump likes a quick win, and he wants to come out and say, ‘The other guy just told me I was right and he was wrong, and I win.’ That’s not going to work with the Islamic Republic,” said Mr. Vatanka. “Khamenei will not come out and say he was wrong, that he’s dragged the country through this mud for 22 years, only to give up something [Iran’s nuclear program] he could have given up as early as 2003.”
Humiliation, he said, is also a factor. “I don’t know if the White House takes that into account. Or maybe they do, and they want ... to make an example out of the Islamic Republic and say to any other country around the world, ‘This is what happens to you if you stand up to the United States.’”
That said, “I think there is a deal to be made. ... I suspect that’s what the Trump team wants,” said Mr. Vatanka. “I’m not hearing or seeing evidence of a major project aimed at transforming Iran. ... What I am seeing is more and more of a, ‘Iran is weak, let’s get a better deal, and then the president can call it a victory and move onto the next file.’”
But getting to that point will be a challenge.
In 2018, Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, negotiated during the Obama administration, which Iran had been adhering to. Mr. Trump called it the “worst deal ever” and imposed “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran.
Mr. Khamenei reacted by banning “any talks” with America, which he said “never remains loyal to its promises.” Talks with Mr. Trump’s White House were “doubly forbidden.”
In 2020, Mr. Trump ordered the assassination in Baghdad of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s regional Axis of Resistance strategy. And last June, Israel launched its surprise attacks even while the U.S. and Iran were due to hold a round of talks in Oman.
Dissent from hard-liners
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have called for “fair and equitable” talks. Mr. Trump has used the same language.
But hard-line Iranian lawmaker Amirhossein Sabeti told Parliament this week that Iranians “are waiting for a pre-emptive strike against Israel and U.S. bases in the region. They do not want [the Pezeshkian team] to once again pursue a misguided strategy of negotiating with the United States. Didn’t they bomb Iran last time, while talks were still underway?”
“This is a [ruling] system that ultimately is deeply competitive, not over existential issues, but the critical issues that will define the future trajectory of the Islamic Republic,” says Dr. Vakil of Chatham House. “On existential issues, they rally together. But on future-proofing the system, like negotiations with the United States, there isn’t a rally-around-the-regime effect.
“You can see this playing out going into the negotiations. And, for better or worse, Khamenei isn’t yet reining in the competing power centers in a way that he should, if he wanted a deal – or if he recognized the existential nature of the moment,” she says.
An Iranian researcher contributed to this report.
