The U.S. and Iran Are Talking Again

U.S. to Iran: Ditch Enrichment or No Deal

While Pakistan moves seemingly irresistibly towards wider war with neighboring India, its other neighbor, Iran might actually be moving in the direction of peace.

This coming Sunday the United States and Iran will hold a fourth round of talks in Oman over Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

(Update)

Highlighting the delicacy and danger in these talks, Breitbart is reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is steadfastly opposed to the talks, amid concerns that the deal might end up containing many of the features which were in Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.

The reports suggest Iran might keep its nuclear enrichment infrastructure, after supposedly stopping enrichment. There are also no clear agreements yet to stop Iranian sponsorship of foreign terror groups, or its ballistic missile program.

Like the first Iran deal, the new negotiations seems to lack any human rights component, which means that the West will have little leverage to open up Iran politically, as the West did with the Soviet Union.

Breitbart’s Joel Pollak goes on to speculate that Netanyahu might go so far as order an Israeli strike on Iran without the aid or approval of the Trump Administration—which might be something the Administration would not exactly oppose.

The chance is growing that Israel will strike Iran on its own and leave the U.S. to mediate in the aftermath. That may be what Trump actually wants; public disagreement with Israel gives him plausible deniability.

While the talks are promising, we should not forget they are also perilous.

---

One development that might be a promising sign: Iran is reportedly asking for direct negotiations with the US, rather than working through Omani mediators.

The move comes against the backdrop of Tehran’s disappointment with Omani mediation and its desire to hold direct talks with the U.S. However, if direct negotiations are ultimately not agreed upon, the option of Norwegian mediation is being considered.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff, in an interview with Breitbart, sounded upbeat on the prospects for a deal.

One point that has been getting a bit of attention has been Iran’s repeated assurance that they do not want nuclear weapons.

“We do not want a nuclear bomb and never have,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said at a ceremony in Tehran. “We seek peace, security and dialogue — but dialogue rooted in dignity and independence. We will not retreat from our scientific and technological achievements.”

In an interview with Sean Hannity last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid out the US position with regards to that statement by Iran:

So I think if in fact – Iran likes to say they’re not interested in nuclear weapons. They like to say all they want is peaceful nuclear energy. Then they should not be afraid of inspections by inspectors of any kind, including Americans.

And look, there’s a win here for Iran, okay? They can actually have real economic development, can have real investment in their country, but they have to walk away from sponsoring terrorists, they have to walk away from helping the Houthis, they have to walk away from building long-range missiles that have no purpose to exist other than having nuclear weapons, and they have to walk away from enrichment.

Enrichment is, unsurprisingly, the main concern. Civilian use of uranium typically enriches to no more than 3-5% fissile U^235—the level used in civilian light-water reactors.

Without enrichment, Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.

President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have repeatedly stated the US position: Iran must not enrich uranium. Right-wing think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies lays out the case against Iranian enrichment:

Even if Iran retained low-level enrichment — or enrichment to 3.67 percent purity — it could increase production to weapons grade at any time. The Institute for Science and International Security, for example, estimated on May 6 that Iran could make weapons-grade uranium within a month if it retained its current low-enriched uranium stock and more than 13,000 fast-enriching advanced centrifuges.

To block Iran’s path to a bomb, the Trump administration must hold firm on its dismantlement and no-enrichment demand, which must include the full, permanent, and verifiable dismantlement, in-place destruction, or export of Iran’s centrifuges and related infrastructure.

Will Iran give up its enrichment facilities? The US position—stated repeatedly—is they must. Iran’s position has been they don’t want nuclear weapons, which begs the question of why they have advanced enrichment facilities capable of enriching uranium to 60% and better.

If Iran does agree to give up uranium enrichment—and agrees to the inspection regime necessary to ensure compliance with that condition—then there is reason to hope a deal can be made.

The trick will be structuring an agreement so that it is “self enforcing”. As former President Richard Nixon observed about negotiating with Russia, the question is never one of “trust”, but one of aligning interests.

And my answer to this whole proposal or question as to whether or not the Russians can be trusted is very simply only if we make agreements which are in their interest to keep, self-enforcing agreements, and only if everything we do with them positively is linked to something else which will cost them if they break the agreement. But you can't trust them on the basis that, well, we're sincere and they're sincere. That is totally irrelevant where the Russians are concerned.

The same approach is required for Iran. While it is necessary to take them at their word for the purposes of moving a negotiation forward, the final deal must leverage Iranian interests to achieve the desired outcome of no enrichment.

If the deal makes it in Iran’s own perceived interests to surrender its enrichment facilities, then Iran will do so.

Can a deal like that be made? That is what the talks have to resolve.