After more than three months of bombing and blockade, the US and Iran are once again at a standstill, preparing for tough talks over the limits of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
This time, the Iranians will come to the table armed with valuable knowledge: They can survive the worst the Americans throw at them.
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that their fierce campaign of airstrikes, launched on February 28 and lasting 40 days, would overthrow Iran’s democratic regime, or at least force it to make major concessions.
This did not happen despite the assassination of many of Iran’s senior leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the destruction of the country’s navy, air force and other military assets.
Instead, the Iranian regime has survived and strengthened under new and perhaps even more radical commanders. It has also gained a new tool with worldwide consequences through its control of the Strait of Hormuz, while the war has brought unprecedented US sanctions against it. Israel’s military behavior.
“Iran is leaving this war with a feeling of euphoria. They are managing the Strait of Hormuz, no one could force them to retreat militarily,” said Meir Javadenfar, an Iran expert at Israel’s Reichman University. He predicted that Iran would now view the oil-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf as its sphere of influence.
Meanwhile, the war – which has consumed a large proportion of US precision weapons and damaged key US military facilities in the region – has also exposed the limits of US military power. This, in turn, has weakened Washington’s main argument in its efforts to wrest future nuclear concessions from Tehran, which retains stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and has not yet agreed to fresh international inspections.
“When it comes to nuclear negotiations, we are back to the pre-war stage, but American influence has been removed,” said Dania Thafar, director of the Gulf International Forum think tank. “Pandora’s box has already been opened, everything has been tested, and Iran feels it has nothing more to lose or fear. From the Iranian perspective the worst has already happened, and they have survived it.”
Ever since former President Barack Obama tried to negotiate with Iran more than a decade ago, the credible threat of US military force was indispensable to any progress, said Daniel Shapiro, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Biden administration and US ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017.
“Now, as we go into nuclear negotiations, Iran has already proven that it can hit the best of the United States and Israel, survive, and deliver some very effective retaliatory strikes, create global economic chaos and cause economic and political harm to President Trump and the United States,” Shapiro, who is currently a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said. “The Iranians will view with great suspicion that they face a significant military threat if these talks do not move forward. And so it is very likely that these talks will be inconclusive.”
Although Iran no longer fears the American stick, the American carrot remains attractive. Even before the latest round of fighting the Iranian economy was in crisis due to runaway inflation and a water crisis – some of the causes of the mass protests. The regime faced a lethal crackdown In January. The US and Israeli bombing campaign, which destroyed some of Iran’s most important industrial sites, has further compounded the damage.
“Given the economic pressures the country will face, and the incredible costs of reconstruction after this war, Iran is still in a vulnerable position,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, chief executive of the Bourse and Markets Foundation think tank. “The deal ultimately moves them back to the status quo, but in the interim, the country has borne huge costs. Iran cannot fully rebuild after this war without comprehensive sanctions relief. And so the incentive remains to achieve a full deal.”
However, key figures in the Iranian regime do not believe the US will ever ease or lift sanctions, which is why it was so important for Tehran to secure advance payments as part of the deal to be signed on Friday, said Vali Nasr, a Johns Hopkins University professor who has been involved in informal contacts with Iran.
“The carrot is extremely powerful and extremely important for them if they don’t want to face another January uprising in Iran,” he said. “But the issue is creating confidence that the carrot is actually there. The main debate in Iran is really about this, between those who think you should persevere and reach for that carrot, and those who say ‘Don’t fool yourself, there is no carrot.'”
Neither side has published the text of the memorandum of understanding that was negotiated with Pakistani and Qatari mediation. Conflicting accounts are still circulating on some key issues. It is not clear exactly how much money Iran will receive, when and under what conditions. It is also unclear whether and how Iran will be able to charge for maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Due to its nature of being tied to nuclear talks, the planned MOU is tenuous and not necessarily long-lasting – just as the agreement that ended Israel and the US’s 12-day war with Iran last June lasted only eight months.
Alex Vatanka, a Tehran-born senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of a recent book on the Iranian regime, said, “This is an extremely weak ceasefire. A lot of people in Iran don’t think it’s a deal yet. They basically think regime change is still on the agenda, and even if Trump wants to abandon it, the Israelis can’t and won’t try to recreate some reason to go back to war.” “If you are Iranian, you have reason to be very suspicious because you have not changed your ways, so why would you expect that your enemy would be more willing to accept you today than before the 12-day war and the 40-day war?”
Nadim Koteich, an Emirati political adviser and media executive, said that unless Iran fundamentally changes its behavior, he considers a resumption of hostilities the most likely scenario. He said, “The drivers of the second round are still alive. Tehran and Washington are already describing two different deals, and Israel never signed one.” “To keep it going, Iran would have to delude itself – verifiable compliance, de facto International Atomic Energy Agency access, uranium stockpile moves, proxy restraint. I would bet on defection before I would bet on a deal.”
Once the Iranians receive billions of dollars in cash as part of the agreement to be signed on Friday, they could create new obstacles to delay any future progress in nuclear talks, said Zohar Palti, the former head of the Mossad intelligence directorate who is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank. He said, “From their perspective, the Americans gave them what they wanted, and probably asked for very little.” “Therefore, they see no reason to offer anything meaningful in return.”
Although negotiated by Iran and the US without Israel, the planned memorandum commits the Jewish state not to fight Lebanon’s pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia – essentially establishing Iran’s right to target the Gulf if it does. The deal has already drawn criticism from parts of Israel’s ruling coalition and leaders of the center-left opposition, which is hoping to oust Netanyahu in elections this autumn.
With Israeli forces determined to remain in the occupied parts of southern Lebanon, the potential for flare-up is great. “The whole pro-Iran axis is excited now. Maybe it’s arrogance, maybe it’s a false sense of superiority, but for now we will suffer the consequences,” said Ksenia Svetlova, a former center-left opposition Israeli lawmaker and Middle East analyst. “They know Israel’s hands are tied.”
Gulf countries are also in trouble. “They can’t abandon the American security architecture, because if you want to build something parallel, it will take years,” said Kabir Taneja, executive director of the ORF Middle East think tank in Dubai. “In the interim, they are prisoners of geography. They don’t have much choice but to contain Iran. Iran is in a position where it knows people have to talk to it now.”
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov yaroslov.trofimov@wsj.com
