BERLIN — Talks between the United States and Iran, which President Donald Trump said Monday would begin Saturday in Oman, face considerable problems of substance and well-earned mistrust.

But time is short for what is likely to be a complicated negotiation.

“We’re at a fork in the road, heading toward a crisis,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.

While Trump has recently threatened Iran with “bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” he has also made it clear that he prefers a diplomatic deal. That reassurance — made in the Oval Office sitting next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has pressed for military action — will be welcomed widely in the Arab world.

Even if the target is the Islamic Republic of Iran, with all of its ambitions for regional hegemony, Arab countries from Egypt through the Gulf fear the economic and social consequences of an American and Israeli war, especially as the killing in the Gaza Strip continues.

Trump Demands Iran Stop Nuclear Enrichment

But Trump’s public demands — that Iran stop nuclear enrichment, hand over its large supply of enriched uranium and destroy its existing nuclear facilities — will almost surely be rejected by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, as an unacceptable humiliation and surrender. How far both sides are willing to compromise is unclear, but Trump is well known for making ultimate demands at the start and then searching for a deal.

This weekend’s talks are expected to be at a high level and include Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and reportedly Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Russia and much else. While the two sides disagree on whether these initial talks will be “direct,” as Trump said, or “indirect” through intermediaries, as Iran said, it will not matter very much, given the importance of the two men.

What will matter, as Araghchi said, is that the effort is “as much an opportunity as it is a test” — a test of the willingness of both sides to negotiate seriously on restricting Iran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is only for civilian purposes, in return for permanent sanctions relief.

But even if war can be avoided, the space for talking is narrow, European officials and analysts say, because by the end of July the Europeans must signal whether they will reimpose the punishing United Nations sanctions against Iran, currently suspended under the 2015 nuclear deal, but which expire Oct. 18. If that happens, Iran says it will pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty altogether.

And that might cause Israel, with U.S. help, to engage in an extensive military campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Both Israel and the United States have vowed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran Eager to Avoid Multilateral Sanctions

Iran is eager to avoid a further set of multilateral sanctions, on top of the ones that Washington imposed after Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018. But the Europeans have said they will reimpose sanctions absent a new nuclear deal. That has prompted Iran to vow that it would then abandon the nonproliferation treaty, which has a 90-day timeline, which might even then allow for some last-minute diplomacy.

Even if Iran agreed to keep international nuclear inspectors in the country, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in charge of implementation of the treaty, has made it clear that Iran’s previous refusals to be open with its inspectors mean that the world is already blinded to a significant degree about Iran’s nuclear program. And an unregulated Iranian nuclear program — with the strong potential for a breakout to produce even a primitive nuclear weapon — may prompt Israel and the United States to attack Iran.

The West and Israel are concerned that Iran has been secretly planning a faster, cruder approach to building a weapon; it already has enough near weapons-grade uranium to build at least six bombs, according to IAEA data.

“It’s hard to imagine that Israel would be happy with a nuclear program as advanced as Iran’s without U.N. supervision,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director for the International Crisis Group.

Bombing Campaign Would Lead to Iranian Counterattacks

A bombing campaign would most likely prompt serious Iranian counterattacks on American and Israeli targets and Gulf infrastructure, like Saudi oil facilities, which no Arab nation in the region wants to see. It could also prompt Iran to weaponize its nuclear program and build a bomb.

Whether the Europeans will be willing or legally able to postpone the deadline for imposing more sanctions is unclear, analysts say. But there would have to be enormous progress toward a new deal to even consider the option.

Given mutual mistrust — after all, Trump already pulled out of one nuclear deal — a new accord would have to “perpetually restrain Iran’s nuclear advancement in return for perpetual economic guarantees,” ones that Khamenei, “who is deeply anti-American,” believes will be guaranteed, Vakil said. Iran is also likely to want strong security guarantees for the future of the regime.

Netanyahu said Monday in the Oval Office that he sought a deal “the way it was done in Libya,” referring to 2003, when Moammar Gadhafi, then the leader, agreed to eliminate all of his country’s weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear-weapons program. If Trump “seeks to dismantle the Iranian nuclear program Libya-style, in addition to closing down Iran’s missile program and Tehran’s relations with its regional partners, then diplomacy will most likely be dead on arrival,” argued Trita Parsi, an Iran expert at the Quincy Institute.

But if Trump’s strategy “is centered on achieving a verification-based deal that prevents an Iranian bomb — his only red line — then there is reason to be optimistic about upcoming talks,” he continued.

Vaez believes the Iranians are skeptical about getting a deal with Trump. “I see signs that they are preparing for war,” he said, including efforts to increase social cohesion, vowing not to enforce a strict law on the hijab, releasing some political prisoners and warning about protests.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Steven Erlanger/Haiyun Jiang
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