Iran and the US appear on the way to a fifth round of nuclear talks in the coming days or weeks, raising the question: are the negotiations nearing a decisive point or will the parties start a period of playing chicken to see which side might make more concessions first under the threat of the talks imploding.
It is clear that the sides made progress in the four earlier rounds of talks both in terms of building goodwill and discussing technical details which could lead to a resolution.
The US has expressed readiness to lift all sanctions and possibly even to engage in joint ventures and investments into the Islamic Republic and maybe even aspects of its nuclear program.
Tehran had expressed readiness to both freeze and backtrack its nuclear achievements.
Essentially, while it has sufficient enriched uranium to the 60% level for several potential nuclear weapons and thousands of advanced centrifuges, two major achievements it did not have when the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal was sealed, Iran is ready to walk back these accomplishments.
It is ready to reenter “the box” of the JCPOA, where it can only enrich uranium to the 3.67% level and give up most or all of the 60% level enriched uranium.
Also, it appears that the Islamic Republic is ready to return IAEA inspectors to facilities where they were kicked out of or to add US nuclear inspectors.
No discussion on Iran nuclear concessions, stopping uranium enrichment
No one has said anything about Iran disclosing its past nuclear dimensions, which would be part of intercepting aspects of its weapons group beyond the uranium enrichment program.
Other than one statement very early in the negotiations, there has also been little discussion of Iran making concessions regarding its ballistic missile program, which can potentially have dual uses between conventional and nuclear weapons.
So the real sticking issue is whether Tehran will be willing to completely freeze its uranium enrichment for some symbolic period of time.
US officials appeared to have leaked the option of Iran committing to a complete freeze in uranium enrichment for three years, followed by a longer period of limited enrichment at the 3.67% level similar to the JCPOA limits.
In response, Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has threatened to scuttle the talks, the harshest tone from Iran since the talks started.
What is bizarre about the current standoff is that both sides are desperate for a deal even as they have major gaps between them.
US President Donald Trump has talked tough, but after turning up the heat on the much weaker Yemen Houthis for a few months, he dropped the issue without even getting them to stop firing at Israel as long as they didn’t attack American ships.
It is very clear that Trump does not want to participate in an attack on Iran.
All of the Sunni allies he met in recent days: the Saudi, the UAE, and Qatar, are all terrified of Iran – with the Saudis having been hit hard by them and their proxies in 2019.
And Trump likes to do business and is anti-war, especially after he saw in his first term that he boxed in Iran some, but never succeeded at stopping it from enriching uranium.
So what would stop him from conceding low levels of uranium enrichment to Khamenei, especially after his envoy Steve Witkoff hinted at this at the start of the talks.
On the other hand, once criticism of such a concession by Israel and many Republicans rose, Trump and Witkoff started to sound a tougher line on uranium enrichment.
Likewise, Iran is terrified that Israel may attack its nuclear program, which is the most exposed it has been in 20 years given that Israel already took out its best S-300 anti aircraft systems on October 26.
Khamenei is also missing his retaliatory option from Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which are on the run from Jerusalem.
This fifth round of negotiations could be a decisive point in negotiations where one or both sides make concessions they might not have dreamed of in order to avoid a failure of the talks.
Or we could see some weeks or months of a game of chicken or staring contest in which each side hopes the other will blink first.
There is no real deadline in May, after Trump already blew through his first 60-day deadline last week.
The real deadline is closer to mid-October when the European countries from the JCPOA could need to activate the snapback global sanctions mechanism or let it expire.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1730128020581377’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
