MESSAGE
| DATE | 2025-06-17 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Iran Looks to Trump and Nuclear Talks as Escape
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With Iran’s air defenses shredded, allies sidelined and its arsenal of
missiles dwindling, the country’s theocratic leaders face the prospect
of having to submit to a tougher negotiation on their nuclear program as
their only way out of a worsening situation.
Iran’s next steps could determine whether the theocratic regime will
overcome what is arguably its gravest crisis since its war with Iraq in
the 1980s. Tehran is looking to talks as a possible escape hatch, a way
of saving face and preserving its theocracy, said diplomats and analysts.
Iran canceled talks with the U.S. on a nuclear deal scheduled for
Sunday, but as Israeli attacks intensify, Tehran is signaling it is open
to diplomacy. President Trump also has said he wants a deal and the war
to end. He confirmed Monday that Iran had reached out through
intermediaries.
“They’d like to talk, but they should have done that before,” Trump said
at a Group of Seven summit of industrial countries in Canada. Trump
later said he would leave the G-7 meeting one day early to deal with the
crisis in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations, worried about a possible
regional war, have been lobbying Trump to pressure the Israelis to halt
their campaign. Iran says it is ready to return to the negotiating table
if Israel pauses its attacks.
“In the future, if the aggression stops, it is obvious that the ground
will be prepared for a return to diplomacy,” Iranian Foreign Minister
Abbas Araghchi told foreign diplomats Sunday in Tehran.
But an Israeli official said Monday that Trump hadn’t pressured the
Israelis to halt their military campaign. “Trump isn’t telling us to
stop,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
While Iran has been weakened by the attacks, it remains unclear how much
it is willing to compromise on the circumstances or substance of
negotiations.
Senior Iranian officials have publicly expressed mistrust of Trump and
rejected his claims that the U.S. wasn’t involved in Israel’s attack on
Iran. Yet, they have also been careful not to harshly attack the Trump
administration as they denounce Israel, wary of taking any measures that
could provoke the U.S. into confrontation.
“They have no choice but to keep the door open to a diplomatic
solution,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North
Africa program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. “Whether
they like it or not, it involves the United States and the Trump
administration. They have to be quite careful, not too inflammatory.”
Israel, too, needs to be cautious about unexpected consequences from its
military campaign, such as potentially emboldening hard-liners in Iran
who favor nuclear parity with Israel as the only deterrence against
future attacks. That could set off a race to build a nuclear bomb once
Iran has the opportunity, provided its nuclear facilities survive the
Israeli attacks.
Since Friday, Israeli warplanes and missiles have damaged the Iranian
regime’s infrastructure, striking Iranian nuclear sites, missile
launchers, oil and energy facilities and government buildings. Israel
has assassinated top Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists.
The regime has appeared increasingly vulnerable. The roads out of Tehran
have been clogged with people fleeing the city. On Monday, the blasts
could be heard live on Iranian state TV as Israel expanded its targets
to include buildings in Tehran belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting.
“Iran isn’t going to be able to match Israel from a military
standpoint,” said Michael Singh, a senior fellow at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy. “So it’s going to look for other
advantages.”
Four months ago, senior Iranian officials handed Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a white paper that predicted a frightening
future for the country.
The document envisioned a scenario where Israel would conduct airstrikes
on Iran’s nuclear program, while Washington would implement “maximum,
maximum pressure” in the form of sanctions. Yet, it envisioned
negotiations with the U.S. on a nuclear deal would also unfold at some
point, according to people who have seen the white paper.
Khamenei and his top advisers never expected Israel to launch airstrikes
on the scale they have seen in recent days while they were negotiating
with the Americans. Araghchi told diplomats that they had been played by
Trump and U.S. Middle East special envoy, Steve Witkoff, into thinking
negotiations would prevent a strike, according to European and Arab
officials.
The Iranians have said privately that they could be open to resume
negotiations, as long as Trump publicly says he doesn’t support the
Israeli strikes. “A private message is not enough; the U.S. government
needs to condemn the attack on nuclear facilities and explicitly
withdraw from this conflict to prove its good intentions,” Araghchi told
the foreign diplomats on Sunday.
Araghchi said Iran would only accept a deal that allows it to enrich
uranium. He accused Israel of striking Iran to prevent the nuclear talks
going forward.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the strikes were
necessary to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Most Western
experts agree Iran wasn’t constructing a bomb, but was pushing forward
and could have created one in a few months. It is unlikely that Israel
would accept any resumption of talks if enrichment of uranium remained
on the table.
Some Israeli analysts see Iran’s willingness to return to the
negotiating table as a stalling tactic. Trump should wait until Israel
gets a decisive victory, giving him more leverage, they said.
“They are trying to put a wedge between the U.S. and Israel,” said Avner
Golov, former senior director for foreign policy at Israel’s National
Security Council. “They are trying to push America to push Israel to
stop and buy time for diplomacy.”
The longer Israel’s attacks continue, the more the Iranian regime will
be debilitated militarily and economically. The regime could also face
dissent within its own ranks for miscalculating Israel’s strategy and
its capabilities.
If diplomacy doesn’t end the war soon, Iran could decide to expand the
war regionally, said Singh and other analysts. Blockading the Strait of
Hormuz, for example, would likely trigger a major oil supply crisis, a
surge in prices and a drop in global stock markets.
That could “create more pressure” on the U.S. and Gulf nations, said
Singh, to “force a diplomatic outcome.” But it could also prompt the
U.S. to get more directly involved in the war.
“Iran still has difficult and dangerous moves that it can make ahead of
it, and it’s trying to avoid taking those positions for the time being,”
said Vakil.
For now, Trump is trying to leverage the Israeli strikes, convinced that
the Iranians are weakened and willing to agree to concessions,
especially on stopping uranium enrichment.
But experts who have followed Iran for decades say it is unlikely Tehran
will give up any ability to enrich uranium, despite their weakened state.
“They know Trump is keen to strike a deal,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project
director for the International Crisis Group. “But they’re unlikely to
bend over backwards to accommodate him lest it confirms that they’re
desperate.”
“For the Iranians, the only thing that is more dangerous from their
perspective than suffering from Israel’s bombing is surrendering to
America’s terms.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/international-relations/iran-looks-to-trump-and-nuclear-talks-as-escape-hatch-as-attacks-intensify/ar-AA1GPQXC
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