A New Iran Deal—Faster, Please!
Getting the United States involved in another Middle Eastern conflagration would fly in the face of everything Trump has said over the last decade.
As expected, President Trump signed an order on February 5 restoring the “maximum pressure” policy toward Iran, which had characterized the latter years of his first presidency. The question is—to what end?
The context this time is very different. In 2018, the Trump administration spoke about a desire for a “better deal” than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). President Barack Obama’s team had finalized this nuclear program agreement in 2015, with which Iran had complied until the United States pulled out. The real objective seemed to many observers to be to undermine the clerical regime in Iran in the hopes of securing a favorable resolution through “regime change,” despite then National Security Advisor John Bolton’s public disavowals.
The first Trump administration never engaged diplomatically with Iran on the nuclear issue in any serious manner. Now, President Trump is expressing a very clear desire for such engagement, even as he roils the region with an endorsement of the expulsion of the Palestinian population from Gaza and some sort of U.S. takeover of the territory, a non-serious idea that I will leave for others to dissect. The question is how much chance of success this overture will have.
As Raz Zimmt pointed out in an article published by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) on February 4, the aftermath of the successful strike against Iran’s air defenses and ballistic missile production, combined with the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and the weakening of Hezbollah, alongside severe problems in its economy and energy sector, has caused some in Israel to perceive an opportunity to administer a “regime change” coup de grace. Prime Minister Netanyahu has spoken to Israeli reporters about a “golden window of opportunity.”
A number of Americans also have echoed that. Saeed Ghasseminejad of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies wrote recently in The National Interest about a string of assassinations which, in his view, suggest that the Islamic Republic’s “foundation is cracking, perhaps beyond repair.” Many others have echoed this general view. There also is a longstanding corollary to this argument that a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program might serve to shatter the brittle clerical regime’s hold on power. To be fair to this argument, there are plenty of data points that suggest that opposition to the regime is simmering below the surface, as has been true for a long time.
As for Iran, they have given plenty of signals recently that they are interested in re-engaging with the United States on the nuclear issue, alongside some disturbing accelerations of their enrichment program. Pro-regime news outlets have been telegraphing that message insistently, emphasizing the need for dialogue even with a clear-eyed knowledge that America will always remain an adversary. Some Iranian officials even heaped praise on Trump’s funding cutoff to USAID, which has provided grants to dissident groups.
The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani, even said recently that “Iran never meant to fight Israel directly or destroy it” while suggesting that Israel would ultimately collapse on its own as the Soviet Union has done previously. But there are also suggestions that Iran’s weakened regional position and lack of a conventional deterrent against Israel, which it thought it had in Hezbollah, could lead it to pursue weaponization absent a deal.
However, to obtain a deal, the Trump administration will need to swallow its pride and tacitly admit that it erred when it chose to exit the JCPOA in 2018. At that time, Trump administration officials spoke of a “better deal” while sitting back and waiting for Iran to either capitulate or for “regime change” to solve the problem. This time, if they want to succeed, they need to recognize that the Iranian nuclear program of 2025 is far beyond where it was when the JCPOA was concluded a decade ago. Getting back to the roughly one-year breakout time of the JCPOA is not going to happen.
Even without weaponization, Iran clearly sees its nuclear “threshold status” as something that imparts increased geopolitical heft and has a utility of its own. What the United States needs is enough of a gap to be able to verify that Iran is not weaponizing. This would probably require Iran to give up its 60 percent highly-enriched uranium and accept a level of monitoring and transparency that would go beyond the Additional Protocol it adhered to as part of the JCPOA. Yet, Tehran would not reduce its enrichment capacity back to JCPOA levels by getting rid of the more advanced centrifuges it has built since 2018. Again, this is an admittedly unpopular position in Washington, but it is probably what would be realistic and necessary to secure a deal. Comparing it to the 2015 terms is pointless.
Such a deal should be seriously pursued. Obviously, both sides are likely going to start out well away from where the negotiations would end up. Time is of the essence. President Trump has suggested that Special Envoy for Gaza Steven Witkoff will also take on the Iran file. This probably means that action on Iran will be deferred until the end of February when Phase I of the Gaza ceasefire deal expires. The Trump administration is seeking to extend Phase I into Phase II and a permanent ceasefire.
However, despite Witkoff’s lack of previous diplomatic experience, he seems to be well-informed and reasonable. Trump certainly could have done worse, given some of his other nominees. There is a window of opportunity that needs to be exploited, given that Iran is accelerating its nuclear program to amp up pressure for negotiations. Similarly, the time remaining for our European partners to pursue “snapback” sanctions under the UNSC resolutions underpinning the JCPOA closes in October.
Sanctions can work to coerce Iran to make concessions, but only if they are paired with a serious and realistic negotiating strategy, as was the case under President Obama. Waiting for sanctions to undermine the Iranian government’s hold on power would be very risky. They could choose to weaponize if we don’t engage promptly. As history has repeatedly shown, most recently in Syria, calling the timing of regime collapse is a fool’s errand. We cannot know when or even if it will happen. It is interesting to observe how the second Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela has changed with Rick Grenell’s recent visit, shifting the focus from restoring democracy to returning migrants, where most Americans’ concerns are focused. Letting go of maximalist “regime change” objectives can achieve results.
One also needs to bear in mind that Iran’s military weaknesses have been overstated when it comes to its core capabilities. This could cause catastrophic results for American interests. Iran and its Axis of Resistance may have lost control of Syria and been severely weakened in Lebanon. However, it still has a very large number of missiles and drones with which it could attack Gulf Arab oil infrastructure—a capability it has demonstrated with its strikes against Khurais and the uniquely critical Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia in 2019. The critical facilities are somewhat better defended today but still have nowhere near the protective umbrella that Israeli population centers have with their multi-layered defenses. Iran probably could take enough oil offline for long enough to cause an unprecedented price spike if it wanted to do so.
It is in America’s interest, and President Trump’s self-interest, to try to come to a deal with Iran that allows us to avoid weaponization verifiably. There will be many people in Washington and elsewhere who will be trying to run interference and tilt the administration back toward regime change as a goal, and military strikes short of evidence of weaponization as a viable policy option.
But Trump needs to stay focused on his core goal of putting America first and realize that the United States and Israel have interests that are not entirely coterminous and that an Iranian military response could cause inflationary pressure and economic damage, derailing his other goals. Getting the United States involved in another Middle Eastern conflagration would fly in the face of everything Trump has said over the last decade. He needs to do everything he can to avoid that outcome.
Greg Priddy is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and does consulting work related to political risk for the energy sector and financial clients. Previously, he was director of global oil at Eurasia Group and worked at the U.S. Department of Energy.
Image: White House / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.