Published in the Jerusalem Post, 21 April 2025
To this end Iran and the US held
talks in Oman on April 12. Afterwards Iran’s foreign minister,
Abbas Araghchi, told state television they had taken place in a
“productive, calm and positive atmosphere.” Both parties agreed
that a second round would take place one week later, which indeed they
did on April 19, in the Omani embassy in Rome. Araghchi
told Iranian TV that the talks had been “constructive” – which
probably means that Iran is getting its way on developing a civil nuclear power
program while it waits for Trump to complete his term in the White House.
Meanwhile the parties agreed to meet again in the coming week.
Trump would no doubt assert that
the talks are going well because he has warned Iran that
the US would use military force if a deal was not reached. Moreover,
despite Iran repeatedly saying it would not negotiate under pressure, even as
preparations for the first meeting were in hand the US moved more
warships and stealth bombers to the region and imposed more sanctions on
individuals and companies supplying Iran with weaponry.
That first meeting was not
precisely what Trump had requested in his letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He proposed face-to-face talks leading to a deal to
prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. This, he asserted, would
avert possible military strikes by the US and Israel. However Khamenei
authorized only indirect discussions between the parties.
Iran’s President Masoud
Pezeshkian, in a cabinet meeting on March 30, confirmed that in reply to
Trump’s letter Iran had rejected face-to-face talks. However, he
revealed, he had written that “the road to indirect negotiation is left
open.”
That is how the meeting was
organized. Al-Monitor reports that it took place in a luxury hotel in
Muscat. According to Iranian spokesman, Esmail Baghael, each delegation
had its separate room and messages were exchanged via Oman’s foreign minister.
The whole process went well until
a mischievous gremlin intervened, causing a tempest in a teapot – or, as the
British have it, a storm in a teacup.
When, after nearly three hours,
the indirect talks ended, the delegations left their separate rooms and, as
chance would have it, met on the way out. The two delegation heads –
Araghchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff – came face to face, and
chatted briefly.
“It was very normal,” said
Araghchi. “When we were leaving, the two groups ran into each other and we
spoke for a few minutes… we have always respected diplomatic politeness while
encountering American diplomats.”
However when news of the encounter
reached Iran, hardliners were appalled. Hamid Rasaei, an Iranian MP,
reminded Araghchi that the Supreme Leader had authorized indirect talks only.
“Mr Araghchi, you had permission
for indirect negotiations,” he declared. “This was not a normal encounter at
all. You could have left the place later… and not meet.”
Other hardline commentators viewed
the direct contact as potentially undermining Iran’s negotiating position.
The Iranian government, seeking to
downplay the incident, emphasized how limited the face-to-face exchange had
been, with no photographs taken. State-affiliated media outlets largely
echoed this view of the affair. The fact that there has been no official
statement from Khamenei, no censure or public reprimand, indicates his tacit
agreement that the encounter should not affect the continuation of the
negotiations.
This episode, together with a
variety of other factors, indicates that Iran is extremely keen to come to an
agreement with the US and be free of the heavy burden of sanctions that has
crippled its economy for years, particularly those targeting oil exports and
financial institutions. The consequential currency devaluation and
inflation have eroded public purchasing power, while oil price volatility has
heavily reduced government revenues.
Domestic instability is another
burden the regime has had to cope with. The country has seen repeated
waves of unrest, first over the deteriorating economic situation, and most
recently after the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, following her arrest by the
morality police for wearing her hijab “incorrectly”. These widespread
protests demonstrate the regime’s declining legitimacy among its own
population. The government may believe that a deal with the US which
lifts the sanctions would improve domestic conditions and reduce the risk of
more unrest.
Iran is clearly in a weakened
state compared with the recent past. It spent decades building an empire
of satellites, funding and arming them – Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza,
Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, and countless jihadist
militias. Most have been severely depleted in the past few years by
Israeli and Western action, and Iran’s influence, once based on its militarized
outreach, has been much reduced. At the same time Iran’s economic
difficulties have limited its ability to fund them.
These and related factors go some
way toward explaining why, despite his long-standing resistance to negotiations
with the US, Khamenei has allowed the current talks to take place. He has
consistently placed a high priority on regime survival, and has a track record
of permitting diplomacy as a tactic. A major precedent was the
negotiations back in 2015 leading to the original nuclear deal, concluded with
then-US President Obama in the lead. Khamenei regards negotiation
as an occasional tactical necessity, not as a strategic shift of
Iran’s fundamental purposes which remain the destruction of Israel
and the spread of Shiite Islam across the whole world.
Khamenei often delegates
negotiations to elected officials (e.g. the president or foreign minister)
while keeping a critical distance. This allows the regime to test waters
diplomatically without appearing weak. It also allows him to blame
failures on negotiators should talks collapse. The regime is thus able to
claim any deal was done on Iranian terms, not under Western pressure.
In short Khamenei allows talks
when the regime is under existential pressure, when he can control and frame
them, and when he can avoid blame if talks fail or claim success if they work.
The current round of negotiations
with the US are not signs of a change of heart on the part of the Iranian
regime or its Supreme Leader. They are a calculated survival
tactic. Accordingly not much credence can be placed on any
agreement Iran might make to abandon its decades-long pursuit of a
nuclear arsenal. As long as that regime survives it will not abandon its
cardinal objective – or the means to achieve it.
Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: “Why Iran has agreed to sit down for nuclear talks”, 21 April 2025:
Source: a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com – All rights belong to the original publisher.
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