Iran wants to drag out talks, Trump wants a deal now. Neither is good for Israel

The vibes coming out of the first round of nuclear talks between Iran and the US are surprisingly positive — at least for the sides that engaged in them, if not for other interested parties.

US lead negotiator Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke in person shortly after Saturday’s talks wrapped up. Araghchi himself acknowledged the face-to-face meeting, despite Iran insisting earlier in the week that there would be no direct talks between the sides in Oman.

The Iranian diplomat also went out of his way to note that the talks took place in a “productive and positive atmosphere.”

The White House echoed Araghchi’s characterization of the negotiations.

Most significantly, the two adversaries agreed to keep the talks going, with a second meeting scheduled for this Saturday, apparently back in Oman.

The talks are still quite preliminary. But the reactions indicate that both sides want an agreement, a development that would present significant challenges for Israel.

A new tune

Iran’s willingness to talk marks a sharp change from its recent rhetoric.

Last month, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian promised that he wouldn’t talk to US negotiators: “It is unacceptable for us that they give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want.”

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the decision-maker on nuclear talks, told a group of university students that Trump’s offer for talks was “a deception.”

Weeks later, the Iranians are singing a different tune.

Many experts aren’t surprised by Tehran’s willingness to engage in negotiations.

“Iran has shown that it’s always happy to talk,” said Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “I don’t think Iran talking is really anything out of the ordinary.”

“Iran feels like it can negotiate the heck out of any situation with the United States,” explained Ori Goldberg, an Israeli expert on Iran and Shia Islam.

“The people in power in Iran right now are people who were always pro-negotiations,” he noted.

Araghchi, for instance, was a key player in the negotiations that led to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 countries, which include the US.

“Iran is aware of the consequences of failure and the consequences of any move towards weaponizing its nuclear program,” said Kelsey Davenport, director for Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association Iran.

Trump has been making sure that Iran knows the price of the talks falling through. Last week, when Trump surprised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by announcing talks with Iran that would begin on the coming Saturday, he also issued a stark warning that if the talks were unsuccessful, “Iran is going to be in great danger.”

Yet Davenport doesn’t believe the threats are behind Tehran’s willingness to talk to the Americans: “Iran is at the negotiating table because it wants to test US intentions, not because of a direct military threat.”

But others do see a direct connection between Trump’s threats and sanctions, and Iran showing up at the negotiating table.

The Islamic Republic of Iran really only responds to pressure

“The Islamic Republic of Iran really only responds to pressure, and massive or sustained pressure at that,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“It was the pressure generated by the return of Trump, coupled with the Islamic Republic’s weakening domestic situation and collapse of much of their regional proxy network, that is forcing the regime to backtrack,” he continued.

At the same time, just because Iran wants to talk doesn’t mean it will rush to an agreement.

The Islamic Republic dragged out negotiations with the Biden administration while plowing ahead on enrichment and other key components of its nuclear program.

Trump, on the other hand, wants to see an agreement reached quickly. He set a two-month deadline for the talks and said he’d be “making a decision on Iran very quickly.”

There is virtually no chance of a comprehensive deal being reached soon. It took six years from then-US president Barack Obama’s 2009 letter to Khamenei to the sealing of the JCPOA nuclear deal.

Trump promises to hammer out a deal that restricts Iran’s nuclear program far more than the 2015 agreement did. The president, during his first campaign, called the 2015 deal “the worst deal ever negotiated,” and he withdrew from it in 2018.

Getting Iran to agree to a tougher deal will be even harder now than it was a decade ago. Tehran now enriches uranium to 60 percent, a step away from weapons-grade, and operates far more advanced and numerous centrifuges than it did then.

“We’d have to get them to give up more than three or four times the nuclear infrastructure they gave up in the JCPOA to get to the same level or better” than where the program was in 2015, Misztal pointed out. “They’re trying to do three or four times as much in 1/20th of the time.”

A more likely scenario is a limited, interim deal that freezes some elements of the nuclear program, forestalls a US military strike, and offers limited sanctions relief.

It would give Trump something he can tout as a quick win, while allowing Iran to draw out the next stage of talks as long as possible.

Closing windows

Talks can’t drag on forever. A number of “clocks” relating to Iran’s nuclear program mean that pressure will steadily grow on Trump to reach a deal or move to more aggressive means of stopping the program.

A recent US intelligence assessment found that Iranian scientists were looking for shortcuts that would allow them to create a crude weapon in months, if the country’s leadership decides to do so.

Iran is also building a new underground centrifuge assembly facility at Natantz, one believed to be deep enough to withstand America’s bunker-buster bombs.

Once the facility is complete, the threat of US or Israeli military strikes becomes far less meaningful.

Israeli strikes last year in response to massive Iranian missile and drone attacks took out Iran’s most advanced air defense batteries, leaving sensitive sites open for attack. But they won’t remain that way. “It’s just a matter of time before the Iranians rebuild and get resupplied by the Russians,” said Misztal. “They’re in talks to get advanced Russian fighters and other types of weapons.”

And finally, the JCPOA “snapback” — the mechanism for quickly reimposing biting United Nations sanctions on Iran — expires in October. The E3 — the UK, France, and Germany — told Iran that they would invoke the snapback by the end of June if it continued to violate its commitments.

“The US and the E3 aren’t aligned in their strategy,” said Davenport. “If the E3 move forward with that path while negotiations are ongoing, that puts an agreement at risk and it significantly escalates nuclear tension.”

Israel’s dilemma

The talks between Washington and Tehran put Netanyahu in a bind.

Unable to oppose talks that Trump clearly wants, he instead is calling for “a Libya-style agreement.”

In his vision, inspectors would “go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision with American execution.”

That isn’t in the cards.

In a Fox News interview this week, Witkoff appeared to indicate that the US is looking to limit Iran’s uranium enrichment rather than dismantle its nuclear program altogether. “Where our red line will be, there can’t be weaponization of your nuclear capability,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

Moreover, the fact that Iran agreed to a second round of talks is a reliable indication that Witkoff wasn’t pushing for a dismantling of Iran’s program last Saturday.

Trump himself has said that Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon” — not that it would have to do away with its entire nuclear program.

And if Trump is angling for Iranian commitments that prevent a breakout to the bomb and place limits on uranium enrichment, he will need a negotiator well-versed in the fine technical details of Iran’s nuclear program and in the sanctions Tehran wants lifted.

Witkoff is not that person. Though he was joined by State Department experts in Oman, he has expressed scorn for expertise and professional diplomats. “Sometimes I hear like, ‘Well, you didn’t spend years at the State Department,’” Witkoff told MSN.com before the Oman talks. “And I almost want to say, ‘Well, how would that have helped me?’”

If an interim deal is reached, Israel would be very unlikely to strike Iran and destroy Trump’s diplomatic achievement in the process.

Netanyahu would be looking at talks dragging out while Iran rebuilds its air defenses and its nuclear program. Israel’s military threat against Iran would be diminished, and he wouldn’t be able to blast Trump in front of Congress like he famously did Obama.

There is hope for him, however. Senior administration officials like National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said in March that the US is seeking “full dismantlement.”

“Iran has to give up its program in a way that the entire world can see,” Waltz said.

If talks don’t fall apart on their own, Israel will look to top US officials like Waltz and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to push Trump to use the ample leverage he has created to push Iran into a far stricter deal than it wants.

Otherwise, Iran will have found its path back from a brutal year that saw Trump return to the White House and Israel batter its proxy network.

“Make no mistake,” warned Ben Taleblu, “the collapse of a US negotiating red line from dismantlement to arms control would be detrimental not just for the United States, not just for US partners in the Middle East like Israel, but for all status quo countries who want to make sure that the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism doesn’t have access to the world’s most dangerous weapons.”