The stakes could hardly be higher for fresh nuclear talks between the United States and Iran planned for this weekend.
Israel, which views Iran as an existential threat, and the U.S. see Iran as a rogue regime intent on pursuing weapons of mass destruction that will stop at little to undermine its opponents.
Iran‘s leadership, meanwhile, faces a choice between giving up its nuclear aspirations, which would most likely render it more vulnerable in the long run, or continuing along the path of nuclear development and dramatically raise the risk of an attack from Israel and the U.S.
While Iran has always denied that it wants to develop nuclear weapons, top officials have repeatedly said that if it is attacked, this will change and eventually push it toward building a nuclear bomb.
President Donald Trump revealed the upcoming negotiations in a surprise announcement Monday while standing alongside the leader of Iran’s arch enemy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While Trump touted the discussions as “direct” talks with Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi quickly countered by saying the negotiations would be indirect, at least for now.
The White House has not responded to questions about the discrepancy.
Indirect talks would likely function as a “starting point and a communication bridge” to help both sides understand each other’s positions, according to Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program.
“It’s probably going to be more maximalist than any follow-up conversation that they might have,” she said. “We have to remember there has not been any direct engagement between the U.S. and Iran for awhile.”
Tough talk
The American team is taking a tough stance as it goes into talks this weekend, with the U.S. issuing fresh sanctions Wednesday.
Hanging over discussions in the Gulf kingdom of Oman will be Trump‘s threat that if the talks fail to yield results, “Iran is going to be in great danger.” Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if it refuses to strike a deal on the future of its nuclear program.
The bid to end Iran’s nuclear program is one that Trump has resumed from his first term, when he pulled the U.S. out of the landmark 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and allow inspections of its facilities in exchange for sanctions relief.
Trump withdrew from the JCPOA because, he said, it was a “horrible one-sided deal” that did not address Tehran’s ballistic missile program nor its network of proxies throughout the region. The U.S. move infuriated the Iranian government after it had adhered to the terms the agreement signed with the Obama administration and five other world powers.
Saturday’s talks also come after repeated warnings from Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran was “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium up to 60% purity, inching closer to the around 90% level that constitutes weapons grade.
In an op-ed in The Washington Post, Araghchi maintained there was no evidence Tehran had violated its commitment not to seek nuclear weapons. It was “willing to clarify our peaceful intent and take the necessary measures to allay any possible concern.”
Meanwhile, the conflict in the Gaza Strip that has consumed the Middle East for the past year and a half has seen two of Iran’s key nonstate allies in what’s known as its axis of resistance, Hamas and Hezbollah, severely weakened by Israeli forces, with Washington increasingly taking aim at the Houthis in Yemen.
‘Very high price’
Richard Dearlove, former head of the British intelligence agency MI6, told NBC News in an interview Thursday he believed the Trump administration would “demand a very high price” — that Iran give up its entire nuclear program, both for energy and weapons.
“I think there’s a bottom line for Trump and Israel that Iran must not have nuclear capability,” he said.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University and a former spokesman for Iran in its nuclear negotiations with the West, said he did not believe that if talks this weekend failed to produce such a result that the immediate “alternative would be war.”
Trump, for his part, has offered little reassurance, warning Monday: “If the talks aren’t successful, I think it’s going to be a very bad day for Iran.”
“Iran definitely is in a different situation from where it was, say, back in 2016 or even 2023,” Tabrizi said, noting that “a lot has happened over the past year and a half” alone, with the weakening of Tehran’s proxies.
Mousavian agreed, saying both sides will be using the indirect talks as an opportunity to “assess each other and the intentions of the other side.”
But time is of the essence. With Irans’s proxies severely weakened and it’s air defenses damaged in tit-for-tat clashes with Israel last year, Israel and Republican hawks in Washington believe the moment is ripe for military action against Iran’s nuclear sites.
