Published in Etemad Newspaper, Sunday, May 4, 2025
What unites Iranian society today in a shared narrative is, among other things, the new round of nuclear negotiations with the United States, facilitated by the Sultanate of Oman. The reality is that, given the collective memory of the post-JCPOA era and the period of maximum pressure, Iranian society cannot remain indifferent to the issue of sanctions. The economic openness and positive atmosphere of 2016 and 2017, often referred to as the “living with the JCPOA” era, were largely uplifting and hopeful in the collective experience. Consequently, at the public level, these negotiations are followed with a mix of apprehension and optimism.
However, it appears that the initial public and market reactions were not entirely favorable to the negotiators. Premature heroization, excessive and premature optimism, volatile market responses, and heightened media hype—coupled with a “football-like” fixation on the talks—manifested in forms such as jokes, widely shared video clips, Twitter bravado, and the like. Such reactions, especially when no substantive progress has been made, place negotiators in a precarious position.
Before the first round began, questions abounded: “Will an agreement be reached by Saturday?” The public’s eagerness stems from a genuine desire for reform, and this enthusiasm is both commendable and capable of fueling kinetic energy for development. Yet, during the early and middle stages of negotiations, such explosive reactions create a dual challenge for negotiators: facing the counterpart across the table while contending with domestic markets and public opinion at home. Thus, managing negotiations extends beyond the talks themselves, requiring cross-sectoral and overarching efforts to inform the public, stabilize markets, and provide genuine support to negotiators.
The reality is that Donald Trump’s primary motivation for initiating these talks, alongside issues like Ukraine and the Gaza tragedy, is to secure a legacy for his second presidency—preferably one rooted in peace and diplomacy. However, such performative goal-setting carries consequences that could prove to be sensitive flashpoints:
The rapid pace of negotiations serves Trump’s legacy-building project but undermines the substance and impact of any potential agreement. The faster the talks proceed, the more likely the outcome will resemble the superficial, media-driven U.S.-North Korea agreement from Trump’s first term: a political statement open to interpretation, lacking enforceable mechanisms.
Pace of Negotiations: Conversely, slowing the talks could activate anti-negotiation forces, with the Israeli regime at their forefront. This could enable coalition-building and concessions to align others, including Europeans, pulling Israel out of its shock and isolation and repositioning it at the center of interactions and decision-making—a trend that has gradually intensified in recent weeks.
Negotiating Teams: The U.S. political team (as opposed to its technical experts) is notably inexperienced. Wittkopf and his aides are engaging in such complex, multilayered negotiations for the first time. Beyond diplomatic and political issues, even basic nuclear topics are entirely new to them. While this generally gives Iran’s seasoned negotiators an advantage—making direct talks potentially more favorable to Iran—dealing with an unfamiliar counterpart can introduce unforeseen challenges. Thus, Wittkopf and his aides’ initial oversimplification and generalization in the first two rounds cannot be attributed to the goodwill of the U.S. team or the new administration. As a result, after the courtesies and general political posturing concluded, a 12-member U.S. technical team of experienced experts was added, sidelining Wittkopf, and the talks hit their first substantive hurdles. This is not inherently problematic, as such negotiations inevitably face serious challenges. However, the concern here is the potential oversight of how these dynamics, combined with escalating U.S. demands and the Iranian public and markets’ growing accustomed to a positive atmosphere, could weaken the negotiating team’s leverage.
Constraints Compared to the JCPOA: The situation today—for Iran, the U.S., the region, and the world—has fundamentally changed since the JCPOA negotiations and agreement. In the region, aside from Israel, no other significant adversary to Iran or the agreement can be envisioned, as former enmities have largely transformed into competition. Such competition means most key regional players neither seek heightened Iran-U.S. tensions nor advocate for a comprehensive resolution of Iran’s foreign policy issues. Instead, maintaining a state of expectation and suspense benefits proponents of this regional outlook. Trump’s second-term America differs from Obama’s or even Trump’s first term; Europe is in a weaker position; and Israel remains as hostile, if not more so, toward Iran. China and Russia, however, appear less concerned than before about a broader resolution of Iran-West relations.
Other changes, beyond the level of regional and global governments, must also be considered: restrictions on the U.S. president’s ability to effectively lift sanctions, the addition of non-nuclear sanctions that diminish the impact of their removal, and the looming deadline for the JCPOA’s dispute resolution mechanism (snapback) are among the challenges ahead. Thus, expecting a sudden breakthrough is unrealistic, even though the JCPOA’s framework suggests much of the groundwork has already been laid.
Personnel Shifts: Recently, Trump’s national security advisor was reassigned to the U.S. ambassadorship to the United Nations. While media reports suggested a rift, Trump’s psychology suggests he would not appoint someone with fundamental disagreements to such a senior foreign policy role. From this perspective, this was merely a reshuffle, not a shift in outlook. Evidence includes Trump’s retention—despite rumors—of his hawkish, anti-Iran secretary of state as interim national security advisor, signaling no softening of his stance. One could even argue that hawkishness has extended beyond Washington, securing a key coalition-building role in U.S. foreign policy in New York.
Fundamental Question: Despite declared political wills and assuming their sincerity, ambiguities persist in the core details of these talks. It seems the minimum expectation for Iranian negotiators is a robust and reliable revival of the JCPOA, encompassing enrichment, sanctions relief, the permanent lifting of six U.N. Security Council resolutions against Iran, and the preservation of reversible nuclear capabilities.
On the other side, Trump’s team, aligned with his broader doctrine and unilateral JCPOA withdrawal, is unlikely to accept the agreement’s core terms. An agreement allowing uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, the preservation of nuclear facilities, continued nuclear R&D, and sanctions relief (secondary sanctions) would not only fail to burnish Trump’s legacy but would also raise a critical question from his public: If these terms were acceptable, why exit the JCPOA, creating such tensions and nuclear advancements in the Middle East?
Thus, the most pressing question for foreign policy thinkers and experts is: What shared framework could fit within both sides’ red lines? Perhaps Iran should proactively design this proposal to seize the initiative, preventing U.S. or Israeli think tanks and structures from shaping the narrative to contain Iran or derail the talks.
