TEHRAN, Iran – Donald Trump’s second term as US president promises to put Iran on a rocky path that could lead to different outcomes regarding its relations with the West, analysts say.
U.S. leaders, along with the Israelis, have openly discussed military strikes against Iran’s critical infrastructure, including its main nuclear facilities, power plants, and oil and petrochemical facilities.
Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, remain defiant, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has conducted large-scale military exercises primarily focused on defending sensitive sites. are.
It’s a shift, but where?
For more than two decades, Iran’s relationship with the West has been largely defined by the progress of the country’s nuclear program and efforts to prevent it from dropping bombs on Iran. The Iranian government has consistently maintained that it does not seek weapons of mass destruction.
In recent days, top Iranian political and military authorities have been discussing the possibility of changing the Iranian government’s publicly stated policy of not pursuing nuclear weapons, amid growing security threats.
There seem to be two schools of thought in Tehran. One appears open to the possibility of engaging with the United States, including over its nuclear program, and the other is vocal about its pursuit of weapons, especially in light of declining deterrence and regional setbacks against Israel. are. Nathan Lafferty, senior Iran analyst at Washington-based Crisis Group, pointed to the ally.
“However, even if the former camp were to win, Washington would still need a willingness to engage with Tehran and, given the Islamic Republic’s fragility, to pressure the regime even harder than to make concessions. There will be a tendency.”
Iran has lost one of the tenets of its forward defense strategy with the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and the blow to the “axis of resistance” throughout the region.
The country is also struggling with an energy crisis, as well as massive sanctions that are hurting an already struggling economy due to a plummeting currency and high inflation.
Amid dire economic conditions, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government plans to send diplomats to Europe for talks with the E3 group of France, Germany and the UK later this month, but it also wants to deepen its engagement with Western countries. He seems to be thinking about it.
The overall framework being discussed appears to be similar to the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers in 2015, which provides Iran with restrictions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. This will relieve some of the economic pressure.
However, the new framework has not yet materialized, and all discussions to date appear to have been aimed at clarifying viewpoints.
seek a new contract
The situation is different this time than when Iran and the West negotiated a nuclear deal for years.
In 2018, President Trump scrapped the JCPOA and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran. He also ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top general and chief architect of the regional axis, five years ago.
“Unlike the first Trump administration, Europeans have in some ways supported the maximum pressure campaign itself as tensions with Iran have escalated in recent years, so Europeans have been influenced by the policies that the United States chooses. They will be more aligned,” said Geranmae, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Abbas Asrani, a senior fellow at the Middle East Center for Strategic Studies, told Al Jazeera that this year should see significant progress that will give more clarity to the direction of Iran’s nuclear program.
Mr. Asrani said that some of the provisions of the JCPOA have expired, so it is important to negotiate a new understanding, especially after the JCPOA’s key sunset clause that allows Western countries to reinstate lifted United Nations sanctions against Iran (snapbacks). He said there is a growing desire to do so. , Expiration date is October 2025.
Geranmae said E3 maintains snapbacks as a last resort to exploit Iran, recognizing that once used, it could set off a “very unpredictable chain of escalation.” said.
Therefore, Europe will spend the remaining time until October on de-escalation and promoting diplomacy.
However, there remains a big question mark over how European countries will react if President Trump demands the immediate lifting of E3 sanctions against Iran in exchange for a trade-off on transatlantic issues that affect European security. said the expert.
“Depending on whether Iran and the United States can reach some kind of understanding, we will either significantly increase tensions over their nuclear program or move towards some kind of agreement, albeit a limited one,” Asrani said. said.
There is a possibility that Iran and the United States will engage in direct negotiations, but Iran has refused due to the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA.
“If the Trump administration presses hard for concessions, it will be extremely difficult to reach an agreement even if there is broad understanding,” he said.
Iran’s nuclear program
According to the latest information, Iran has not yet started making bombs.
However, a year after President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, the agency began increasing enrichment levels and the number of centrifuges, repeating the same process in the wake of Israel’s attack on its nuclear facilities and international condemnation.
Thousands of new centrifuges have been installed in recent months after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board passed another resolution condemning the country introduced by Western countries.
Currently, uranium is enriched at up to 60 percent, putting it relatively close to technically reaching the 90 percent or more required for a bomb, and the IAEA says Tehran has enough fissile material for multiple bombs. It is reported that they are doing so.
Increased nuclear activity gives Iran some leverage in talks with President Trump, but it also comes with considerable risks, said Crisis Group’s Rafferty.
He told Al Jazeera: “Iran is almost weapons-grade wealthy, has virtually no escape time, and is on the verge of becoming so alarming that the United States or Israel would consider military action.” “It’s becoming vague,” he said.
Nuclear detonation time is the time required to produce enough fissile material for a bomb. If Iran decides to develop a bomb, it would need to design and assemble the weapon, integrate it with a long-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and successfully test it.
Senior analyst Geranmae says President Trump’s “elephant in the room” is just days away and there is still no clear idea of how the Trump administration intends to shape its relationship with Iran. Therefore, we are stuck in a short-term holding pattern.
“I think it is unlikely that Iran will significantly escalate its nuclear activities in the first few weeks of 2025 unless President Trump aggressively intensifies his maximum pressure campaign,” Geranmae told Al Jazeera.
He added that Iran’s nuclear activities could subside somewhat if the United States prioritizes diplomatic negotiations aimed at de-escalating tensions, which could be one of two entirely different conditions, depending on where President Trump positions himself. It added that this meant that different scenarios could develop in the future.
