If President Donald Trump wants to secure a meaningful peace agreement with Iran quickly, he’ll have to maintain a tight negotiating focus on Iran’s nuclear program. All other concerns are secondary.
The failure of the negotiations in Pakistan last weekend was unsurprising. Iran clearly entered those talks with the aspiration to extract one-sided concessions from an American president desperate for peace. Iran’s simultaneous refusal to abide by the terms of a two-week ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz further underlined its brinkmanship. Trump was right to walk away from the talks. He has now rightly increased the pressure on Iran by enforcing an embargo of Iranian supplied oil and gas tankers. Still, Trump needs more realistic objectives when the next round of talks occurs later this week.
The “red lines” offered by chief U.S. negotiator Vice President JD Vance during last weekend’s talks were not realistic. Media reports suggest these red lines included demands that Iran “accept a broader peace, security and de-escalation framework that includes regional allies” and “end funding for terrorist proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.”
It would be great if Iran were open to relinquishing its ballistic missile program and its support for terrorist proxies. But it’s not going to happen. Not unless the U.S. is willing to escalate combat operations massively, including with ground forces, and maintain those high-intensity operations for the foreseeable future.
If, however, Trump now dangles the choice between continued military action and a deal that provides limited sanctions relief in return for verifiable restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, a good agreement will likely be possible.
Barak Ravid reports that the U.S. demanded a 20-year moratorium on enrichment activities at the most recent talks. He says that Iran countered with a single-digit offer. But a 15-year moratorium on enrichment alongside comprehensive verification protocols would address the basic concern of Iran’s nuclear threat. By not explicitly ruling out enrichment in perpetuity, these conditions would also feasibly allow Iran to save face. Trump could then provide some sanctions relief, offering greater relief if Iran were willing to make more concessions in relation to its long-range ballistic missile program. Were this agreement successful, the moratorium could be extended 15 years from now.
Israel and Saudi Arabia take a different perspective. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman want Trump to keep bombing Iran until the Islamic theocracy either collapses or agrees to a de facto surrender. A surrender in which it agrees to stop funding its proxies, to stop developing strike drones and ballistic missiles, and generally abandons its expansionist theological agenda.
The problem is that Iran views its drone and ballistic missile programs as its key means of deterrence. The regime similarly views its support for ideologically aligned terrorists as its key means of carrying forward its raison d’être: the expansion of its Khomeinist ideology across the Middle East. In turn, overly expansive U.S. demands only invite a drawn-out war with increasing demands on the U.S. military and increasing costs on the U.S. and global economy. Those costs are hurting Americans while hurting and alienating America’s global partners.
A drawn-out war will also inherently increase the risk of a further Iranian civil war. That development would carry a high risk of a humanitarian crisis and expanded terrorist threats. Israel and Saudi Arabia are not opposed to such a civil war in that it would ultimately weaken their Iranian regime nemesis. But also because they know that it would be the U.S. that carried the burden of managing that chaos.
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Trump was right to walk away from the talks in Pakistan and is right to block Iran’s energy export economy.
But if he wants to end this war in a meaningful way, he must remain a tight focus both on what matters most and on what Iran can swallow. The Iranian regime has been pummeled, but it is holding on. On a perceived mission from God, this regime isn’t just going to accept U.S. demands that it stop serving God. But it might give up its means of threatening a nuclear holocaust.
Trump should take such a deal.