President Trump said Monday that the US will engage in “direct” negotiations with Iran next Saturday, and that if Tehran fails to reach an agreement in its final ditch effort to curb the country's nuclear program, it will be “at great danger.”
If a direct meeting takes place, they would be the first official face-to-face negotiations between the two countries as Trump abandoned the Obama-era nuclear deal seven years ago. They will also come at a dangerous moment as Iran lost air defense around its major nuclear sites last October due to Israel's exact strike. And Iran can no longer rely on Middle Eastern proxy forces (Hamas, Hezbollah, and now Syria), and is threatening Israel with retaliation.
In a social media post, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi confirmed that consultations will take place in Oman on Saturday, but he said they are indirect and means that the intermediary will work with both sides. “It's as much an opportunity as a test. The ball is on the American court,” Araguchi said.
Iran's highest leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has refused to sit with American officials in direct nuclear negotiations since Trump withdrew from the last deal. However, after Trump spoke on Monday, three Iranian officials said Ayatollah Khamenei had shifted his position to allow in-person talks.
Officials said direct consultations could arise if Saturday's indirect consultations were respectful and productive. Officials asked not to name them as they were not allowed to speak publicly.
Still, Iran is almost certain to resist dismantling its entire nuclear infrastructure, giving it the ability to “threshold” to fuel the bomb in a few weeks. Many Iranians have begun to openly talk about the country's need to build weapons as they have proven rather vulnerable in a series of missile exchanges with Israel last year.
Sitting by Trump on Monday during a visit to the US, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the resulting trade must follow what is called the “Libyan model.” However, many of Libyan nuclear enrichment devices were never uncrated before being handed over to the US in 2003. Iran's nuclear infrastructure has been in operation for decades, with many of it spreading across the country.
Netanyahu was oddly quiet during a lengthy question and answer session with reporters, in contrast to his last visit to Washington two months ago. After some introduction remarks, he was primarily a spectator as Trump said he threatened to “screw” the US and further punish tariffs against China unless he overturned the threat of retaliatory tariffs by Tuesday. He further muddied the water about whether his tariff structure was a permanent source of US revenue or was intended to simply utilize negotiations.
Netanyahu left the oval office without a public commitment from Trump to wipe out the 17% tariffs he placed in Israel, one of America's closest allies. Getting such a commitment was one of the important purposes of his travels, along with securing more weapons for the war with Hamas in Gaza and Israeli military action on the West Bank. When two men discussed the military options of Israeli or joint Israeli Americans, they did not show that they did so in public comments to major nuclear presence sites in Iran.
The closest thing Trump came to is, “I think everyone agrees to what is obviously going to do a deal, and the obvious is that it's not something I want to be involved, or frankly, if Israel can avoid that, I would like to be involved.” Again, Netanyahu is not said to have barely let him say a word because Trump is intentional and dominant.
Trump added:
To some extent, Trump has solved his own problems. The 2015 nuclear agreement saw Iran ship 97% of its enriched uranium abroad, giving it the necessary equipment to produce a small amount of remaining amount and nuclear fuel. President Barack Obama and his top aides said at the time the deal was the best they could extract. However, after Trump was drawn from the deal, the equipment and know-how remained for rebuilding in Iran, and today there is enough fuel to produce six nuclear weapons in a relatively short order.
How long it takes is a matter of conflict. The New York Times reported in early February that new intelligence showed that a secret team of Iranian scientists were exploring faster, if any, faster, to develop atomic weapons. They have added urgency to talks ever since Trump was explained about these findings that probably came at the end of the Biden administration. The administrative authorities say they will not engage in long-term negotiations with Tehran.
Trump's surprise announcement about what he called a “top-level” meeting on Monday exploded in Iranian media. Some Iranians responded to enthusiasm and said on social media they hoped that negotiations would resolve their financial pain and avoid the threat of war that has become so severe in recent months.
“Trump's comments on the way we see it, the negotiations, were clear and strong signals for both Israel and Iran,” Medi Ramati, a conservative political analyst close to the government, said in a telephone interview with Tehran. “He is putting the brakes on Israel's military strike plans, and he is openly sending a positive pulse to Iran, who supports diplomacy and wants to resolve our problems.”
Earlier that day, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmail Bagheli told Iranian media:
It seems that Iran is at the table at all, a recognition of its much weakened state. The nuclear facility was not so vulnerable. And in addition to attacking Iran's air defense in October, Israel also destroyed missile production facilities where Iran mixes rocket fuel. As a result, Iran's ability to produce new missiles is temporarily limited.
But nuclear experts say the biggest expert Iran feels can give will not approach the demand that Trump's national security adviser, Michael Waltz, said.
That means ending the Natantz nuclear enrichment site, which the US and Israel attacked with Stuxnet cyber weapons 15 years ago, and Israel has been accidentally thwarted ever since. That means destroying the enrichment site at Fordau, located beneath a mountain of military bases. And that means breaking down other facilities spread across the country, under the eyes of international negotiators.
If Trump fails to achieve a complete demolition, he will be forced to confront questions about whether he has more than the Obama administration gained 10 years ago. Trump dismissed the agreement as “disaster” and embarrassment, noting that by 2030 all restrictions on Iran's nuclear production would be raised.
Experts say his challenge will accomplish more than Obama did.
