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    Iran says diplomacy with US only possible if Israeli aggression stops

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    Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said that his country is ready for more diplomacy with the US only if Israel’s war on his country is brought to an end “and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes he committed”.After several hours of talks with European foreign ministers in Geneva on Friday, there was no sign of a diplomatic breakthrough – or a resumption of negotiations with the US.Araghchi said: “Iran is ready to consider diplomacy once again and once the aggression is stopped and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes committed. We support the continuation of discussion with [Britain, France, Germany and the EU] and express our readiness to meet again in the near future.”Late on Friday, Donald Trump said he was unlikely to press Israel to scale back its campaign to allow negotiations to continue.“I think it’s very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.Araghchi said he was willing to continue talks with his European counterparts since they have not supported Israel’s attacks directly. But he said Iran was “seriously concerned over the failure of the three countries to condemn Israel’s act of aggression” and would continue to exercise its right to “legitimate defence”.He also said Iran’s capabilities, including its missile capabilities, are non-negotiable, and could not form part of the talks, a rebuff to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who in an earlier statement said they should be included in the talks.With Israeli diplomats and military commanders warning of a “prolonged war”, the route to direct talks between the US and Iran remains blocked, leaving the European countries as intermediaries.After Friday’s talks between Araghchi and his British, French and German counterparts, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said: “This is a perilous moment, and it is hugely important that we don’t see regional escalation of this conflict.”The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said there “can be no definitive solution through military means to the Iran nuclear problem. Military operations can delay it but they cannot eliminate it.”The talks are being held against the backdrop of Trump’s threat that the US could launch its own military assault on Iran within a fortnight – a step that would probably turn the already bloody war into a full-scale regional conflagration.European diplomats said they came to talks to deliver a tough message from the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and special envoy, Steve Witkoff: that the threat of US military action is real but that a “diplomatic pathway remains open”.But without direct talks between the US and Iran it is hard to see how an agreement can be reached to curtail Iran’s nuclear programme in a way that satisfies the US headline demand that Iran must never have a nuclear bomb.Trump suggested that European efforts would not be enough to bring any resolution. He said: “Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this.”The European ministers said they had expressed their longstanding concerns about Iran’s expansion of its nuclear programme, “which has no credible civilian purpose and is in violation of almost all provisions in the nuclear deal agreed in 2015”.The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said: “Today the regional escalation benefits no one. We must keep the discussions open.”Earlier on Friday, Macron said the European offer to end Israel’s war would include an Iranian move to zero uranium enrichment, restrictions on its ballistic missile programme and an end to Tehran’s funding of terrorist groups.The proposals were surprisingly broad, spanning a range of complex issues beyond Iran’s disputed nuclear programme, and appeared likely to complicate any solution unless an interim agreement can be agreed.One proposal recently aired is for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment for the duration of Donald Trump’s presidency. The concept of uranium enrichment being overseen by a consortium of Middle East countries – including Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – remains on the table.Macron, already accused by Trump of publicity seeking this week, set out a daunting agenda. “It’s absolutely essential to prioritise a return to substantial negotiations, including nuclear negotiations to move towards zero [uranium] enrichment, ballistic negotiations to limit Iran’s activities and capabilities, and the financing of all terrorist groups and destabilisation of the region that Iran has been carrying out for several years,” he said.In the previous five rounds of talks, the US insisted that Iran end its entire domestic uranium enrichment programme, but said it would allow Iran to retain a civil nuclear programme, including by importing enriched uranium from a multinational consortium.Iran claims that as a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, it has an absolute legal right to enrich uranium, a position neither the European nor American powers have endorsed. In the past, European negotiators have proved more adept than their US partners in finding compromises, including the temporary suspension of domestic enrichment, a principle Tehran reluctantly endorsed between 2003 and 2004. More

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      America is sleepwalking into another unnecessary war | Eli Clifton and Eldar Mamedov

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      As the United States inches closer to direct military confrontation with Iran, it is critical to recognize how avoidable this escalation has been. “We knew everything [about Israel’s plans to strike Iran], and I tried to save Iran humiliation and death,” said Donald Trump on Friday. “I tried to save them very hard because I would have loved to have seen a deal worked out.”As two of the last analysts from an American thinktank to visit Iran, just three weeks ago, we can report that Iran’s own foreign ministry and members of the nuclear negotiating team were eager to work out a deal with Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, and showed no indication they were interested in slow-walking talks.Over the course of conversations held on the sidelines of the Tehran Dialogue Forum, high-level foreign ministry officials expressed concern about the potential for a spoiling effort by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and various staff and officials showed themselves open to considering a variety of scenarios including a regional nuclear consortium for uranium enrichment under international oversight and bilateral areas of diplomatic and economic engagement with the United States.What we heard should have been cause for cautious optimism – yet instead, Washington squandered a rare diplomatic opening, seemingly allowing Israel to start a disastrous war of choice that may soon drag in the US. Contrary to the narrative that Iran was dragging its feet in negotiations, we saw no evidence of deliberate stalling. In fact, Iran’s worsening economic crisis had created a strong incentive for Tehran to strike a deal – one that would provide sanctions relief in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, with even the possibility of broader normalization with the US on the horizon. Middle-class Iranians we spoke with elsewhere in Tehran were frustrated with the economic situation and, despite a highly developed sanctions-resistant economy, eager for sanctions relief allowing them greater access to international travel and trade.Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, emphasized flexibility on nearly every issue outside Iran’s red line on low-level uranium enrichment. That was echoed in private conversations we held with foreign ministry staff and members of the nuclear negotiating team. Domestic enrichment is non-negotiable for Iran but they believed they had front-loaded their concessions to Witkoff, offering up a 3.67% limit on their enrichment with whatever monitoring and surveillance mechanisms were necessary for the US to feel confident the deal was being honored.Enrichment, even at a low level, is a matter of national pride, a symbol of scientific achievement and a defiant response to decades of sanctions, the red line consistently stated in our conversations and one which they thought was agreeable to Witkoff. Iran claimed to be completely blindsided by Witkoff’s 18 May statement that zero enrichment was the only acceptable terms for a nuclear deal but was open to returning to talks to discuss ways forward. After weathering immense economic pain to develop this capability, no Iranian government – reformist or hardline – could feasibly surrender to the zero enrichment demand. The idea that Tehran would dismantle its enrichment program in 60 days, as the Trump administration demanded, was never realistic.This was not mere stubbornness – it was rooted in deep mistrust sown by Trump. The US had already violated the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) by unilaterally withdrawing during Trump’s first term, despite Iran’s verified compliance. Why would Tehran now accept another agreement requiring total denuclearization, with no guarantee Washington wouldn’t renege again?Iranian officials signaled openness to creative solutions, including shipping excess low-enriched uranium to Russia; forming a regional consortium for enrichment; allowing US inspectors to join International Atomic Energy Agency teams – a major shift from previous positions. Other ideas were also floated at the Tehran forum, albeit not from official sources – temporary suspension of enrichment and a pause on advanced IR-6 centrifuges as confidence-building measures. Araghchi’s expressed willingness to return to JCPOA-permitted enrichment levels (below 4%) – was a concession so significant that it drew criticism from Iranian hardliners for giving too much, too soon. This was not the behavior of a regime trying to stall; it was the posture of a government eager for a deal, engaged in an effort to avoid spoilers in Jerusalem, Washington and at home in Tehran, and knowing full well that long, drawn-out negotiations would offer more, not fewer, opportunities for enemies of diplomacy to strike.The US team, led by Witkoff and mediated by Oman, seemed to share this urgency. The Iranian government seemed empowered enough to make a deal – if the US had been willing to take yes for an answer. Yet here we are, on the brink of another Middle East conflict – one that was entirely preventable. Instead of seizing this rare moment of Iranian flexibility, the US chose escalation. The consequences may be catastrophic: a wider regional war, soaring oil prices and the total collapse of diplomacy with Iran for years to come.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt is still possible to step back from the brink. Tehran has signaled willingness to re-engage in talks if Israeli ceases attack. Omani channels remain open. Yet, after the start of the Israeli bombing campaign, the political space for negotiations has shrunk.The US is sleepwalking into another Middle East quagmire, an open-ended war with unclear goals, loose talk of regime change and the potential for a regional conflagration if Iran attacks US military installations in the Persian Gulf. And this war comes after Iran extended a real offer for compromise. If Washington chooses bombs over diplomacy, history will record this as a war not of necessity, but of tragic, reckless choice.

      Eli Clifton is senior adviser at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

      Eldar Mamedov is non-resident fellow at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and member of the Pugwash Council on Science and World Affairs More

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      Ukraine, Gaza and Iran: can Witkoff secure any wins for Trump?

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      Donald Trump’s version of Pax Americana, the idea that the US can through coercion impose order on the world, is facing its moment of truth in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran.In the words of the former CIA director William Burns, it is in “one of those plastic moments” in international relations that come along maybe twice a century where the future could take many possible forms.The US’s aim has been to keep the three era-defining simultaneous sets of negotiations entirely separate, and to – as much as possible – shape their outcome alone. The approach is similar to the trade talks, where the intention is for supplicant countries to come to Washington individually bearing gifts in return for access to US markets.The administration may have felt it had little choice given the urgency, but whether it was wise to launch three such ambitious peace missions, and a global trade war, at the same time is debatable.It is true each of the three conflicts are discrete in that they have distinctive causes, contexts and dynamics, but they are becoming more intertwined than seemed apparent at the outset, in part because there is so much resistance building in Europe and elsewhere about the world order Donald Trump envisages, and his chosen methods.In diplomacy nothing is hermetically sealed – everything is inter-connected, especially since there is a common thread between the three talks in the personality of the property developer Steven Witkoff, Trump’s great friend who is leading the US talks in each case, flitting from Moscow to Muscat.View image in fullscreenTo solve these three conflicts simultaneously would be a daunting task for anyone, but it is especially for a man entirely new to diplomacy and, judging by some of his remarks, also equally new to history.Witkoff has strengths, not least that he is trusted by Trump. He also knows the president’s mind – and what should be taken at face value. He is loyal, so much so that he admits he worshipped Trump in New York so profoundly that he wanted to become him. He will not be pursuing any other agenda but the president’s.But he is also stretched, and there are basic issues of competence. Diplomats are reeling from big cuts to the state department budget and there is still an absence of experienced staffers. Witkoff simply does not have the institutional memory available to his opposite numbers in Iran, Israel and Russia. For instance, most of the Iranian negotiating team, led by the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, are veterans of the 2013-15 talks that led to the original Iran nuclear deal.Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s chief foreign policy adviser, who attended the first Russian-US talks this year in Saudi Arabia, spent 10 years in the US as Russian ambassador. He was accompanied by Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund who then visited the US on 2 April.In the follow-up talks in Istanbul on 10 April, Aleksandr Darchiev, who has spent 33 years in the Russian foreign ministry and is Russian ambassador to the US, was pitted against a team led by Sonata Coulter, the new deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, who does not share Trump’s benign view of Russia.View image in fullscreenAs to the Gaza issue, Benjamin Netanyahu has lived the Palestinian conflict since he became Israel’s ambassador to the UN in 1984.Richard Nephew, a former US Iran negotiator, says the cuts to state department means the US “is at risk of losing a generation of expertise … It’s beyond tragedy. It’s an absolutely devastating national security blow with the evisceration of these folks. The damage could be permanent, we have to acknowledge this.”One withering European diplomat says: “It is as if Witkoff is trying to play three dimensional chess with chess grandmasters on three chessboards simultaneously, not having played the game before.”Bluntly, Witkoff knows he needs to secure a diplomatic win for his impatient boss. But the longer the three conflicts continue, the more entangled they become with one another, the more Trump’s credibility is questioned. Already, according to a Reuters Ipsos poll published this month, 59% of Americans think Trump is costing their country its credibility on the global stage.The risk for Trump is that the decision to address so much so quickly ends up not being a show of American strength but the opposite – the public erosion of a super power.In the hurry to seal a deal with Iran inside two months, Trump, unlike in all previous nuclear talks with Tehran, has barred complicating European interests from the negotiation room.To Iran’s relief, Witkoff has not tabled an agenda that strays beyond stopping Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb. He has not raised Iran’s supply of drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. Nor has he tabled demands that Iran end arms supplies to its proxies fighting Israel.That has alarmed Israel, and to a lesser extent Europe, which sees Iran’s desire to have sanctions lifted as a rare opportunity to extract concessions from Tehran. Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, and Mossad’s head, David Barnea, met Witkoff last Friday in Paris to try to persuade him that when he met the Iran negotiating team the next day in Rome, he had to demand the dismantling of Tehran’s civil nuclear programme.Witkoff refused, and amid many contradictory statements the administration has reverted to insisting that Iran import the necessary enriched uranium for its civil nuclear programme, rather than enrich it domestically.Russia, in a sign of Trump’s trust, might again become the repository of Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium, as it was after the 2015 deal.Israel is also wary of Trump’s aggrandisement of Russia. The Israeli thinktank INSS published a report this week detailing how Russia, in search of anti-western allies in the global south for its Ukraine war, has shown opportunistic political support not just to Iran but to Hamas. Israel will also be uneasy if Russia maintains its role in Syria.But if Trump has upset Netanyahu over Iran, he is keeping him sweet by giving him all he asks on Gaza.Initially, Witkoff received glowing accolades about how tough he had been with Netanyahu in his initial meeting in January. It was claimed that Witkoff ordered the Israeli president to meet him on a Saturday breaking the Sabbath and directed him to agree a ceasefire that he had refused to give to Joe Biden’s team for months.As a result, as Trump entered the White House on 19 January, he hailed the “EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signalled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies”.But Netanyahu, as was widely predicted in the region, found a reason not to open talks on the second phase of the ceasefire deal – the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a permanent end to the fighting.Witkoff came up with compromises to extend the ceasefire but Netanyahu rejected them, resuming the assault on Hamas on 19 March. The US envoy merely described Israel’s decision as “unfortunate, in some respects, but also falls into the had-to-be bucket”.View image in fullscreenNow Trump’s refusal to put any pressure on Israel to lift its six-week-old ban on aid entering Gaza is informing Europe’s rift with Trump. Marking 50 days of the ban this week, France, Germany and the UK issued a strongly worded statement describing the denial of aid as intolerable.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is calling for a coordinated European recognition of the state of Palestine, and Saudi Arabia is insisting the US does not attack Iran’s nuclear sites.Witkoff, by contrast, has been silent about Gaza’s fate and the collapse of the “EPIC ceasefire”.But if European diplomats think Witkoff was naive in dealing with Netanyahu, it is nothing to the scorn they hold for his handling of Putin.The anger is partly because Europeans had thought that, after the Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s public row with Trump in the Oval Office, they had restored Ukraine’s standing in Washington by persuading Kyiv to back the full ceasefire that the US first proposed on 11 March.View image in fullscreenThe talks in Paris last week between Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and European leaders also gave Europe a chance to point out it was Putin that was stalling over a ceasefire.But instead of putting any countervailing pressure on Russia to accept a ceasefire, Witkoff switched strategy. In the words of Bruno Tertrais, a non-resident fellow at the Institut of Montaigne, Witkoff is “is now presenting a final peace plan, very favourable to the aggressor, even before the start of the negotiations, which had been due to take place after a ceasefire”.No European government has yet criticised Trump’s lopsided plan in public since, with few cards to play, the immediate necessity is to try to prevent Trump acting on his threat to walk away. At the very least, Europe will argue that if Trump wants Ukraine’s resources, he has to back up a European force patrolling a ceasefire, an issue that receives only sketchy reference in the US peace plan.The Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, addressing the country’s parliament on Wednesday, pointed to the necessity of these security guarantees. “Any arrangement with the Kremlin will only last so long as the Russian elite dreads the consequences of its breach,” he said.View image in fullscreenBut in a sense, Trump and Putin, according to Fiona Hill at the Brookings Institution, a Russia specialist in Trump’s first administration, may already have moved beyond the details of their Ukrainian settlement as they focus on their wider plan to restore the Russian-US relationship.It would be an era of great power collusion, not great power competition in which Gaza, Iran and Ukraine would be sites from which the US and Russia could profit.Writing on Truth Social about a phone call with Putin in February, Trump reported” “We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II … We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together.”Witkoff has also mused about what form this cooperation might take. “Shared sea lanes, maybe send [liquefied natural] gas into Europe together, maybe collaborate on AI together,” he said, adding: “Who doesn’t want to see a world like that?” More

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      Iran’s vice-president and most prominent reformist resigns

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      Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s most prominent reformist, has resigned from the government, saying he had been instructed to do so by an unnamed senior official.He implied the move was endorsed by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, although he did not name him in his resignation letter as he stepped down as vice-president for strategic affairs.His departure, a hammer blow to the still relatively new government of President Masoud Pezeshkian, follows the impeachment of the economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, as Iranian conservatives go on the offensive using the continued decline in the national currency as a reason to demand a change of course.The double removals pushed the Iranian stock market into a further tailspin as Iranian businesses sensed that the political path to reopening commerce with the west was fast being shut down by conservatives that never reconciled themselves to Pezeshkian’s victory.Donald Trump’s decision to try to restore maximum economic sanctions against Tehran has undercut those Iranian reformists seeking to come to a new global agreement covering the oversight of its nuclear programme.Zarif – who resigned before, in August, only to return to government shortly after – has faced incessant criticism for his American-born children allegedly being dual Iranian-US citizens.His critics, many of them opponents of talks with the US over its nuclear programme, have claimed his appointment breaches a 2022 law that debars individuals with ties to the west from holding senior positions.The nationality of his children, dating to his period as a diplomat based in the US, was one reason why the vice-president tried to step down previously shortly after joining Pezeshkian’s administration in August 2024.Zarif, who was Iran’s top diplomat between 2013 and 2021 in the government of the moderate president Hassan Rouhani, had campaigned alongside Pezeshkian for the presidency on a near-joint ticket. Zarif has been a lightning rod for criticism of the reformist government led by those who lost the presidential election.The then-foreign minister became known on the international stage during lengthy negotiations for the 2015 nuclear accord formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The agreement led to the lifting of western sanctions in return for independent UN-led inspections to ensure Iran’s nuclear programme was purely for civilian use.The deal was torpedoed three years later when, during Trump’s first term as president, the US pulled out of the deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.View image in fullscreenBut, in his resignation note, Zarif implied his latest departure from government was not voluntary. It was said a high-ranking official had instructed Pezeshkian to return him to university. Pezeshkian refused, instead asking the official to directly relay the instruction to Zarif.After a meeting with the official in question, the vice-president for strategic affairs reluctantly agreed to submit his resignation.Zarif has always been seen as the most articulate exponent of Iranian foreign policy to western audiences. A career diplomat, he has repeatedly called for the foreign ministry to be given clearer authority over international relations, and not to be contradicted by the independent foreign policy led by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.Earlier on Saturday, the Iranian parliament had voted by 182 votes to dismiss Hemmati, who was also previously governor of the Iranian central bank. He had been in office for only six months and 12 days, the fastest impeachment in the history of the Iranian revolution dating to 1979.Despite the presence of Pezeshkian in the parliament in a display of solidarity, Hemmati failed to fend off the vote of no confidence and was dismissed from his position. The Iranian parliament is dominated by hardliners mainly elected in 2024, and has never reconciled itself to the surprise election of Pezeshkian to the presidency later in the summer.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPezeshkian, deeply aware that his government was likely to be undermined by society’s unelected officials, had continually emphasised the need for consensus – but the events of the past 48 hours suggests he failed.Explaining his resignation, Zarif did not identify the person with whom he met, saying instead: “Yesterday, I went to meet him at the invitation of the head of the judiciary. Referring to the country’s conditions, he recommended that I return to university to prevent further pressure on the government, and I immediately accepted.”The resignation brought no relief to the Iranian stock market, which plunged further in the red.Zarif expressed his resentment at his treatment. He said: “Although I faced the most ridiculous insults, slanders and threats against myself and my family in the past six months, and even within the government, I spent the most bitter 40 years of service, I persevered in the hope of serving.“I have not been and will not be one to run away from hardships and difficulties in the path of serving this land and country, and in the past 40 or so years, I have endured so many insults and slanders for the small role I have played in advancing national interests, from ending the Iran-Iraq war to finalising the nuclear file, and I have held my breath to prevent the interests of the country from being damaged by a flood of lies and distortions.”He added: “I hope that by stepping aside, the excuses for obstructing the will of the people and the success of the government will be removed.”Azar Mansouri, the head of the Reformists Front, an alliance of smaller parties, said she did not know of any way Iran’s economic problems could be lifted without ending economic sanctions, and taking the steps necessary to be removed from the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the body that oversees global transparency in financial transactions.Conservatives have pointed to the humiliation of Volodymyr Zelenskyy by Trump in his recent Oval Office encounter as a warning to those in Iran who believe it is possible to negotiate with the US president.Opponents of Hemmati, led by the conservative Front of Islamic Revolution Stability, admit his dismissal is part of a wider campaign against the government, including Hemmati’s efforts to reconnect the Iranian economy to the west by removing Iran from the FATF blacklist.Abolfazl Abu Torabi, the MP for Najafabad, told an Iranian newspaper recently: “I believe that the problems of the foreign exchange market in the country will not be solved by impeaching the minister of economic affairs and finance. This is a fact. It is the government’s approach that needs to be reformed, because according to a report by the parliamentary research centre, economic growth has decreased by 1% over the past six months.” He claimed Hemmati’s attitude had led to inflationary expectations. More

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      Netanyahu seeks to draw Trump into future attack on Iranian nuclear sites

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      Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that, with Donald Trump’s support, his government will “finish the job” of neutralising the threat from Iran, amid US reports that Israel is considering airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites in the coming few months.Trump has said he would prefer to make a deal with Tehran, but also made clear that he was considering US military action if talks failed, and his administration has laid down an early maximalist demand: Iranian abandonment of its entire nuclear programme.“All options are on the table,” the US national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told Fox News on Sunday. The new administration will only talk to Iran, Waltz added, if “they want to give up their entire programme and not play games as we’ve seen Iran do in the past in prior negotiations”.Earlier this month, Trump offered the Iranian regime a stark choice.“I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear,” he told the New York Post. “I would prefer that to bombing the hell out of it.”In politics as in business, Trump’s vaunted “art of the deal” has relied heavily on bluster and threats, but analysts question how well that will work with Tehran. They also warn that the window for a diplomatic resolution to the standoff with Tehran will get narrower with each passing month, as Iranian nuclear capabilities progress, and Netanyahu works to persuade Trump to participate in joint strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities while it is at its most vulnerable.Israel’s prime minister has tried and failed to convince successive US administrations to take part in military action against Iran, including Trump’s. During his first term in the White House, Trump declined, in line with his aim of keeping the US out of foreign wars.In 2018, however, Trump did fulfil another Netanyahu request, withdrawing the US from a three-year-old multilateral agreement that had constrained Iran’s programme in return for sanctions relief. Since then, Iran has pushed forward with nuclear development and now produces increasing amounts of 60%-enriched uranium, which means it is a small technical step away from the production of weapons-grade fissile material.Tehran insists it has no intention of making a nuclear weapon and remains a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could upend that policy if Iran’s nuclear sites came under threat.Israel and Iran launched a series of tit-for-tat attacks on each other last year, culminating in substantial Israeli airstrikes on 25 October that inflicted significant damage on Iran’s air defences.That damage, combined with Israel’s crippling campaign over the past year against Iran’s most important ally in the region, Hezbollah, has left Iran in its most militarily vulnerable state for decades.View image in fullscreenStanding alongside the new US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Sunday, Netanyahu made clear he wanted to take advantage of that vulnerability.“Over the last 16 months, Israel has dealt a mighty blow to Iran’s terror axis. Under the strong leadership of President Trump, and with your unflinching support, I have no doubt that we can and will finish the job,” he said.US intelligence agencies have been briefing reporters over the past week that they believe Israel is likely to attack Iranian nuclear sites in the first half of 2025. But the intelligence assessments also underlined Israeli reliance on US support in the form of aerial refuelling, intelligence and reconnaissance. US officials also said such strikes would, at most, set back Iran’s programme by a few months, and could trigger Tehran’s decision to take the decisive step towards making weapons-grade uranium.Whatever the misgivings in Washington, the Trump administration approved the sale earlier this month of guidance kits for bunker-busting BLU-109 bombs, likely to be essential in inflicting damage on Iran’s most deeply buried enrichment plant at Fordow.Netanyahu was the first foreign visitor to be invited to the White House after Trump’s re-election, and according to the Washington Post, the two leaders discussed “several possible levels of American backing, ranging from active military support for a kinetic strike – such as intelligence, refuelling or other assistance – to more limited political backing for a coercive ultimatum”.Raz Zimmt, a research fellow and Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said there was another clock ticking on diplomacy with Iran. Under the 2015 nuclear agreement, its remaining signatories, including the UK, France and Germany, can trigger a “snap back” of all international sanctions on Iran, but that leverage expires in October this year, giving European capitals the options of “use it or lose it”. If the mechanism is triggered, it could lead to a further escalation, Zimmt said.“I think there is a very limited diplomatic window of opportunity until August or September, to reach some kind of settlement between Iran and the US,” he said. “If there is no agreement by then … I think it will be much easier for Netanyahu to get not just a green light [from Washington] but perhaps some kind of military capabilities which will make it easier for Israel to achieve a broader and more effective impact.”Netanyahu regularly describes Trump as the “best friend” Israel ever had in the White House, a description echoed by Rubio and other administration officials, but that friendship will be put to a decisive test as Israel continues to press the case for an attack on Iran.Ariane Tabatabai, a Pentagon policy adviser in the Biden administration, said it would fuel “tension between the ‘restraint’ camp in the administration and the more traditional Republicans who are more inclined toward a more forceful approach to Iran”.“It’s not clear yet in these early days which group will have more influence in the inter-agency process and ultimately drive policy, but that’ll be a factor as well.” Tabatabai said.Trump prides himself in keeping the US out of foreign wars, but he has shown himself ready to take military action against Tehran, ordering the assassination by drone of a Revolutionary Guards commander, Qassem Suleimani, in Baghdad in January 2020.Saudi Arabia is reportedly offering to mediate to avoid a conflagration, but even if Trump wanted to hammer out a deal, argued Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, Trump’s browbeating style of negotiation could easily backfire when it came to Tehran.“The Trump style is he goes in heavy,” Vatanka said. “But Ali Khamenei has to be extremely careful how he responds to Trump so his personal image is not damaged.”“Iran has been weakened in the region – no doubt about it – but they still claim to be leading proponents of the Islamic cause who stand up to western bullying,” he added. “So what might work with certain countries in Europe or in Latin America will not necessarily work with the Iranian regime.” More

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      The Guardian view on the Iranian nuclear deal: hopes grow for the JCPOA, but time is tight | Editorial

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      Good news does not always arrive in obvious forms. Six years ago, the Iran nuclear deal was a diplomatic triumph earned by a long and painful process. This weekend saw a much more modest but equally necessary victory. Though Iran has reduced the International Atomic Energy Agency’s access for ensuring compliance with the deal, a three-month agreement reached on Sunday will allow continued monitoring. As the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, observed, it “salvages the situation for now”. The fear has been that though Tehran’s non-compliance has been carefully calibrated to date, its next steps might be irreversible.After four years of havoc wrought by the Trump administration, which abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and did its best – or worst – to kill the deal, this is welcome news. It indicates new political will and flexibility on the part of Iran as well as the US. There is now a real prospect of informal talks, brokered by the EU. Tehran appears reassured that the Biden administration does not plan to leverage Donald Trump’s sanctions to gain more concessions, as it had suspected. So there is more time on the clock – but not much. The supreme leader’s speech on Monday, saying that Iran could enrich uranium up to 60% if needed is a reassurance to hardliners internally as well as a reminder to the US. A short-term fix must pave the way for a longer-term solution. On the US side, the Biden administration’s rhetoric and appointments, alongside its coordination with the “E3” – Germany, France and the UK – indicate an eagerness to make progress. Both governments face formidable domestic opposition. Joe Biden has a huge agenda and limited political capital. In Iran, the short term IAEA deal was bitterly attacked in parliament. Elections in June are likely to see hardliners more hostile to the US prosper, though a more unified political establishment might in some ways simplify matters. In moving before President Hassan Rouhani leaves office in August, the two sides will be dealing with familiar faces and the US can draw on his attachment to the deal. The longer diplomacy takes, the more progress Iran will make on its nuclear programme.Credit is due to the E3 for shoring up the JCPOA against the odds, despite intense pressure from the Trump administration and its inability to find an effective economic mechanism for support. That commitment has paid off. But much more still needs to be done to save the deal. The US does not want to look like it is going easy on Tehran. But it could quietly end its obstruction of Iran’s $5bn (£3.5bn) IMF request for Covid relief, or give the nod to the release of frozen funds in other countries under arrangements ensuring they are used for humanitarian purposes.The ultimate obstacle is the credibility deficit left by Mr Trump. Iran is all too aware that a new administration may not only discard but trample on its existing commitments. That means that a “more for more” process to go beyond the deal and resolve outstanding issues regarding missiles and regional relations will be ultimately be more necessary than ever. The Trump years have shown that a narrow deal like the JCPOA cannot be stable in the current environment. But there can be no progress without a return to it. More

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      Biden presidency 'may herald new start for Saudi-Iranian relations'

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      An opportunity for a new beginning between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been presented by Joe Biden’s presidency, two leading Saudi and Iranians close to their diplomatic leaderships are proposing in an article in the Guardian today.The article is co-written by Abdulaziz Sager, the Saudi Arabian chairman and founder of the Gulf Research Center, and Hossein Mousavian, a former senior Iranian diplomat and now a nuclear specialist based at Princeton University.Their proposals are the fruit of a track 2, or backchannel initiative that has been under way privately for months.Their discussions are one of the few forms of private dialogue under way between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and to the extent that their discussions have been approved by serving diplomats in both capitals the initiative may signal a new willingness on both sides to the use the advent of the Biden presidency to explore an end to the years long enmity between the two countries.In an interview with the reformist Iranian newspaper Etemaad last week, the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, hinted at a new approach. He also accepted that opportunities for dialogue with Riyadh had been missed, adding that it was imperative that Iran was the pioneer in this enterprise.He said that “we have no territorial claim or interest in accessing the natural resources of other regional countries; therefore, it is Iran that can initiate this effort from a position of wealth. We shouldn’t wait for others.”Sager and Mousavian warn of the consequences if Saudi Arabia and Iran remain in conflict, writing that “we remain at the mercy of a single miscalculation that could turn the protracted cold war between our states hot, potentially ushering in disastrous consequences for the entire region”.They claim that both countries perceive the other as seeking to dominate in the region, with Riyadh convinced that Iran is trying to encircle the kingdom with its allied proxy supporters while Tehran views Saudi Arabia as in alliance with the US to undermine the Islamic Republic.“Riyadh charges Iran with interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Iraq; Tehran sees Saudi Arabia doing the same in these very countries.”They urge both sides to agree – perhaps with the help of the UN – a set of principles around non-interference, the inviolability of national boundaries, rejection of violence, respecting the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, respect for religious minorities and abandonment of the use of proxy forces to advance national interests. The principles also support the free flow of oil and navigation, and rejection of the procurement of weapons of mass destruction.The authors stress: “Postponing de-escalation would be a grave mistake, as the region has proved time and again that on the rare occasion that opportunities for constructive dialogue present themselves, they must be grasped swiftly before they vanish.”They admit that the task may seem impossible, but claim that both sides have taken steps to show they are willing to avoid an inescapable zero-sum confrontation, for instance by quiet cooperation over facilitating Iranian Muslim participation in the hajj pilgrimage.
On Thursday the French president, Emmanuel Macron, was reported as saying Saudi Arabia may need to be involved in any follow on to the Iran nuclear deal signed by Iran, the US, three European powers, China and Russia. There is a widespread expectation that if the US and Iran could get back into mutual compliance with the deal discussions about Iran’s relations with its regional neighbours would have to follow. More

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      Trump 'considered striking Iran's nuclear sites' after election loss

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      Donald Trump asked top aides last week about the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming weeks, according to a New York Times report.
      During a meeting at the Oval Office on Thursday, the outgoing US president asked several top aides, including the vice-president, Mike Pence, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen Mark Milley, “whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks”, the newspaper says.
      The senior officials “dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike”, warning him that an attack could escalate into a broader conflict in the final weeks of his presidency, the Times writes.
      Trump reportedly asked the question after a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran was continuing to stockpile uranium.
      According to the Times, the most likely target of such a strike would have been Natanz, where the IAEA reported that Tehran’s “uranium stockpile was now 12 times larger than permitted under the nuclear accord that Mr Trump abandoned in 2018”, three years after it was signed in an attempt to curb Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
      Iran has long been Trump’s bete noire, and he reintroduced sanctions then tightened them even further after scrapping the nuclear accord.
      European partners in the accord, which have struggled to keep the deal afloat despite Trump’s efforts to torpedo it, hope for a renewed diplomatic approach after Joe Biden’s election victory on 3 November, although Trump refuses to concede defeat.
      The Trump administration has pledged to increase the punitive measures, which some critics see as an attempt to build a “wall of sanctions” that Biden would have difficulty dismantling when he takes office next year. More

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      Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security council unites against 'unpleasant' US

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      The extent of US isolation at the UNhas been driven home by formal letters from 13 of the 15 security council members opposing Trump administration attempts to extend the economic embargo on Iran.The letters by the council members were all issued in the 24 hours since the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, came to the UN’s New York headquarters to declare Iran in non-compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal.Under that deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), comprehensive UN sanctions on Iran would be restored 30 days after the declaration. But almost every other council member has issued letters saying that the US has no standing to trigger this sanctions “snapback” because it left the JCPOA in May 2018.The US has said it is still technically a participant because it is named as one in a 2015 security council resolution endorsing the JCPOA. The argument was rejected by France, the UK and Germany even before Pompeo made his declaration.Since then, Reuters reported that it had seen letters from Russia, China, Germany, Belgium, Vietnam, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Indonesia, Estonia and Tunisia, all rejecting the US position.Only the Dominican Republic has yet to issue a formal letter on the subject. Last week the Caribbean state was the only security council member to back the USwhen it tried to extend an arms embargo on Iran. Pompeo visited the island two days after that vote.Council members who normally consider themselves US allies on most issues said they would have supported Washington if a compromise had been found, in which the arms embargo could have been extended for a limited time period. The defeat of the US resolution on the embargo led directly to Pompeo’s legal gambit to try to snap back UN sanctions.Diplomats at the UN said the depth of US isolation was in part a reflection of the abrasive style used by Pompeo, who accused Europeans of choosing to “side with the ayatollahs”, and the US ambassador to the UN, Kelly Craft, a political appointee.“The Americans were actually being over the top in their ridiculousness,” one diplomat said.“The underlying point here is that most countries on the security council basically agree with the US that Iran is not a nice country and it having nuclear weapons and more arms is not a good thing,” the diplomat said. “But the Americans misplayed their hand so often, so aggressively, that they isolated themselves from people not on policy, but on just being unpleasant.” More