It takes the reflexes of a gamer to keep up to date with US foreign policy under Donald Trump.
We thought the President had fallen out with Zelensky, only for a Vatican conversation between them to lead to an economic deal. We thought Trump’s team was stable compared to his first administration, only to find his National Security Adviser ousted after 100 days.
We assumed that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would drive the President to take advantage of the deterioration in Iran’s security position after the destruction of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon, and the fall of Bashar-al Assad in Syria, and follow through with anticipated strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But it has not happened.
Now the surprise talks between the US and Iran on its nuclear capabilities – around which there have been positive atmospherics – may have been derailed by an outburst from the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, when he issued a very public warning to Iran over its support for the Houthis in Yemen, that it would “pay the consequence at a time and place of our choosing”.
The next round of talks between Iran and the US were speedily announced by the mediating Omanis to have been postponed for “logistical reasons”
So, how to make sense of the nuclear diplomacy between US and Iran today?
Do not underestimate what it has taken from each side to get to opening up a dialogue with the other. I learned early on in the Foreign Office that in dealing with adversaries, understanding where the other side was coming from was vital, and did not imply acceptance or justification.
Whilst Western media not unreasonably focuses on Iran’s regime governance domestically, its destabilising activity, and its backing of militant groups in the region, Iran sees a hostile and threatening US and Europe, who largely backed Saddam Hussein against them in the war of the 80s which may have cost over a million Iranian lives, and where chemical weapons were used by Iraq with no one in the west raising an eyebrow.
When Iran negotiated the JCPOA nuclear deal of 2015, their hardliners told the negotiators they were being taken for a ride, and that history told them not to trust the US, who would walk out on the deal, no matter if Iran fulfilled its terms, and Iran would be vulnerable. Trump did just that, citing other reasons for his following policy of “maximum pressure.”
As for the US, I was one of the foreign ministers representing the so-called P5 +1 at a private UN meeting in 2017, called by Frederica Mogherini to seek to persuade the US not to abandon JCPOA and witnessed the first ever meeting between US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
With maybe just over a dozen people in the room, they sparred conversationally. Tillerson told Zarif that Iran had killed Americans, and he was not prepared for the US to take risks with Iran again. Why did they have to test ballistic missiles to exceptional accuracy, for example, if not to be aggressive, or have nuclear ambition? Zarif said that if they intended to have nuclear weapons they would not need to test for accuracy, such was the nature of those armaments, and they needed defences because the US had supplied their enemies with some $400bn worth of weaponry. What did they expect Iran to do?
I also recall a pertinent conversation in Rome at a conference with Brian Hook, Trump’s Iran envoy during his first term, about maximum pressure. I asked him, “what if that doesn’t work?” And he said “Maximum pressure”, and I said “yes, I know, but still ….” “Maximum pressure.” There was no plan B.
To move on from these depths of distrust, and events such as President Trump’s assassination of IRGC Commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020, to the recent talks suggest some major things have changed. The unexpected election of President Masoud Pezeshkian, and the promotion of experienced and well-regarded diplomat Abbas Araghchi to Foreign Minister are significant, but the more important new factors are in the region itself.
The Gulf states are growing richer, better armed, and more self confident, and they are no longer prepared to be a potential battleground for a war between Israel and the US, and Iran, which would be catastrophic for a region whose economic success depends on stability. At the same time as some reached out to Israel, in the Abraham Accords, arguing for a vision of the Middle East which included Israel, they were also reaching out diplomatically to Iran, making the point that they would increasingly set their own policy choices. Just two weeks ago, the Saudi Defence Minister, and brother of de facto Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), visited Tehran.
And have we taken for granted the Israeli relationship with Trump? The course of the war against Hamas in Gaza has stretched relationships with Israel to the limit. Notwithstanding the horrific events of 7 October 2023, the relentless bombardment of Gaza by Netanyahu – to an increasingly agonised backdrop of hostage families who feel marginalised, and large-scale Israeli demonstrations against the perceived tactic of continuing the war to preserve an Israeli coalition government reliant on hard-right elements – has divided Israel’s traditional friends the world over.
Could Trump have been as appalled as many others at the carnage in Gaza? The shocked reaction of Netanyahu to the announcement made by the President in front of him on 12 April that talks were to take place between the US and Iran suggests maybe he was. Were the talks evidence that Trump’s administration, and business interests, are listening to Arab voices on Iran, rather than Israel’s?
Up until Hegseth’s comments, conventional analysis had placed him as an anti-interventionist, against hawks like the re-shuffled Mike Waltz who supported Netanyahu’s belief that Iran’s security vulnerabilities were an opportunity to kill off its nuclear programme by force, and in doing so change the regional power balance in a manner reminiscent of US interventions in the Middle East over recent decades.
Make no mistake – the region does not want a nuclear Iran, not just for itself but for the inevitable consequences of nuclear proliferation. But an attack on Iran, if a clear alternative is available, is the least best option. Iran might seek what retaliation it could, and, in messaging terms, on social media and driven by countless millions, do not be surprised if the actions of the US were not characterised as being in support of a free and safe world, but simply acting as the arm of Israel, and repeating US errors of the past. It might not land well.
It would now help if the US made its position clear. However difficult the situation of the Houthis in Yemen and on the Red Sea, should it upend the US-Iran talks? Does the US want to end all nuclear activity in Iran, or only the increased enrichment achieved since the end of the previous deal? And what terms might be included to curb Iran’s destabilising activity, and satisfy Arab neighbours, always aggrieved they were excluded from that deal, and indeed how can Israel’s legitimate fears be satisfied so it does not seek to undermine any agreement reached, as it did so effectively after 2015?
Despite hostile rhetoric from US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Trump administration has yet to provide a clear and convincing answer to the question of what to do about Iran.
