Iran Is Playing for Time in the U.S. Nuclear Talks

 For full article see https://www.meforum.org/mef-online/iran-is-playing-for-time-in-the-u-s-nuclear-talks

 The U.S. and Iran have kicked off nuclear talks in Oman, with Iran playing its usual game of strategic patience.

 Why it matters: Contrary to some of the more overheated commentary of recent months, the Iranian regional project has not been destroyed, or even conclusively defeated. Rather, it has been weakened, significantly.

• In light of this, Iran's strategy is clear: keep discussions tightly focused on nuclear issues, dodging any mention of its missile program or regional meddling. 

What's next: Iran's game plan is simple—either secure a deal similar to Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or drag out talks to dodge sanctions and military threats. 

• Iran’s strategy of proxy warfare, which had brought it unprecedented power and influence across the region, has suffered a number of very telling blows since October 2023. 

Some thoughts: The stakes couldn't be higher for U.S. foreign policy.

• Iran is banking on the U.S.'s eagerness for a deal, exploiting it to rebuild its strength while its adversaries watch warily. 

• Whether or not the regime manages to build them up again to their former capacity will be decided in Washington, and in Oman, in the coming months.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ismail Baqaei said on Sunday that Iran would refuse to discuss anything other than the nuclear programme in the talks. Tehran, Baqaei said, ‘will not have any talks with the American side on any other issue.’

One of the major criticisms of the 2015 nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) negotiated by Barack Obama’s administration was that it failed to address other aspects of Iran’s drive for regional hegemony. Specifically, the Iranian ballistic missile program and Tehran’s support for an array of proxy political-military organisations across the Middle East were left out of the discussion. The result was that the JCPOA removed sanctions on Iran, enabling it to ratchet up its campaign of subversion across the region, and to test-fire more than 30 nuclear-capable ballistic missiles over the past decade.

Trump pulled the US out of the agreement in 2018, declaring he could negotiate a ‘better’ deal. Iran, meanwhile, is determined to ensure that the current negotiations maintain a similar narrow focus to those a decade ago.

With this narrow focus ensured, the Iranian regime will then seek one of two outcomes. It wants either a renewed nuclear agreement which, in its essentials, resembles the JCPOA, or a drawn-out negotiating process which leads nowhere but enables Iran to avoid further sanctions and the possibility of US or Israeli military action against its nuclear programme.

If the Iranian regime constitutes the most powerful anti-Western and Islamist force in the Middle East, and if it has been damaged and now needs time to recover, why are its enemies granting it what it needs? Why – when the regime is vulnerable, its economy in tatters, its regional proxies on the ropes, its standing among its own people at an all time low – are its enemies giving it the time it needs to emerge from its current low point?

Iranians themselves are watching carefully, and with concern. The basic structures of the Iranian power arrangement in the region remains intact, if enfeebled. Whether or not the regime manages to build them up again to their former capacity will be decided in Washington, and in Oman, in the coming months.