In Tehran, bewildered diplomats told me they suspect the Trump administration is exploiting nuclear negotiations as a instrument for generating instability to weaken Iran’s economy and foment social strife.
With nuclear negotiations between the Trump administration and Iran’s Reformist government at a standstill, I held two separate, lengthy background conversations in Tehran this past week with a pair of seasoned Iranian diplomats with detailed knowledge of the talks in Muscat, Oman.
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Like most Iranians, the diplomats were eager for a durable deal that would provide sanctions relief. But they said their side could not seem to break through to a Trump team they described as dithering, divided, distracted by other conflicts, and incapable of holding to a consistent position. Worse, as the negotiations drag on, the Trump administration is defaulting toward the hardline Israeli position which rejects all uranium enrichment, even for civilian purposes, violating a right Tehran considers sacrosanct.
The Iranian diplomats have now begun to suspect the Trump administration held an ulterior motive for engaging in talks, and is exploiting the meetings in Oman as a instrument for generating instability to weaken Iran’s economy and foment social strife.
Their comments to me echoed a warning issued by the Leader of Iran’s Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khamenei, as Tehran considered a request from Trump for nuclear talks last March. “Negotiating with this US administration won’t result in the sanctions being removed,” Khamenei declared. “It will cause the knot of sanctions to become tighter and pressure to increase.”
Following two months of political confusion and a significant escalation of US financial warfare, the Ayatollah’s words have proven prescient. Iran’s Reformist government now risks repeating the folly of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, or JCPOA, which failed to deliver meaningful sanctions relief in the brief period before Trump shredded the deal, and ultimately led to a regime of “maximum pressure” culminating with the US assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
Iran’s government entered the latest round of talks under heavy pressure, with Trump dispatching a B-2 bomber strike force to the Diego Garcia Airbase to enforce his demands. The negotiations also took place in the shadow of the post-October 7 wars, in which Iran’s regional allies had suffered serious setbacks and with the last retaliation it vowed against Israel, True Promise III, still unfulfilled. Iranian public opinion researcher Ebrahim Moehseni told me his polling at the time showed that a majority of Iranians from all social sectors supported the talks.
According to the two diplomats I spoke to in Tehran, Iran’s negotiating team arrived in Oman with a sense of pessimism, but quickly grew more positive as they realized the Americans were not introducing demands for Iran to sever relations with its allies in Lebanon and Yemen, scrap its long range ballistic missiles, or destroy its reactors in Natanz and Fordow. But after each encouraging exchange, they watched key Trump negotiators issue bellicose statements to media immediately after returning to Washington, essentially reversing the positions they had taken in Muscat. The Iranians suspected Trump’s team, led by real estate lawyer Steve Witkoff, was kowtowing to Israeli assets like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and its top donor, Miriam Adelson.
During each round of talks, the Iranian team introduced concrete proposals to bridge disagreements and maintain momentum. But according to the diplomats I spoke to, they found themselves waiting for a week or more to receive a reply from the Americans. They described Witkoff as distracted by other diplomatic assignments and said he often put Iran on the back burner while he tended to Ukraine-Russia negotiations or the Gaza war.
The diplomats were especially concerned by the apparent power struggle between Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. They suspected that Rubio was exploiting US media appearances to project control over the negotiations, and worried that his apparent rivalry with Witkoff would prevent Trump’s team from reaching a consensus on the nuclear issue.
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One Iranian diplomat referenced historian Robert Dallek’s book, The American Style of Foreign Policy, to elucidate his view that the Trump administration’s counter-productive approach reflected a deeper crisis in the US establishment. The 1983 book argued that domestic pressures and social shifts at home have placed US foreign policy makers on a persistently irrational trajectory. The diplomat pointed to former Secretary of State Tony Blinken as a case study in Dallek’s thesis, recalling how Blinken routinely moved the goalposts on previous agreements with Iran in order to prevent negotiations from taking concrete form during the Biden years. His implication, as I read it, was the preponderance of pressure from the Israel lobby and military industry had been too overwhelming to allow either the Biden or Trump administration to execute a lasting deal.
Both diplomats I spoke to brought up recent reports revealing that Witkoff had promised Hamas he would force Israel to lift the starvation siege on the Gaza Strip if they released the US-Israeli captive Edan Alexander. They were dismayed that Witkoff had reneged on his promise and allowed Israel to slaughter hundreds of civilians in an apocalyptic frenzy throughout the week. Trump’s bad faith tactics with Hamas have cast a pall over the negotiations in Oman, fueling Iranian pessimism about a workable deal.
But perhaps no statement was more damaging to the prospect of a deal than Witkoff’s proclamation on ABC’s ‘This Week’: “We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability.”
The comments fit the pattern of Trump negotiators sabotaging progress in Oman by issuing onerous demands and threats immediately after returning to Washington. And few issues are more central to the Islamic Republic’s sense of independence than its civilian nuclear program.
