Trump betrayed the diplomatic effort, says Iranian FM

Tehran: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has dismissed US President Donald Trump's declaration that their countries would re-engage in nuclear negotiations in the coming week. “If our interests require a return to negotiations, we will consider it. But at this time, no agreement or promise has been made, and no talks have taken place.” Araghchi made the point that they were negotiating when Israel launched its June 13th unprovoked attack on Iran. Trump followed up last weekend by striking three Iranian nuclear sites with bunker buster bombs with the intention of finishing off Iran's nuclear programme. Araghchi accused Trump of betraying the diplomatic effort to resolve differences. While Trump claimed the US had "obliterated" Iran's main nuclear sites, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said the sites had been seriously damaged but suggested that Iran should be able to enrich uranium "in a matter of months."

According to CNN, the Trump administration could encourage Iran to resume talks by offering $20-30 billion to establish a civilian nuclear energy programme without Iranian enrichment of its own nuclear fuel. The finance, it is said, could be provided by the Gulf countries, naturally not the US. The administration would also ease sanctions and unfreeze Iranian assets in foreign banks. While such a speculative deal has been deliberately leaked and widely reported, it is unlikely to materialise. It looks like "pie in the sky," as the saying goes.

Tehran is unlikely to reject a return to talks, but Iran is still assessing its military, political, and diplomatic losses from Israel's 12-day war and US strikes on its nuclear sites. Iran has to lay down its own conditions and decide when the atmosphere is propitious before re-engaging. Iran has laid down two red lines: low level uranium enrichment must continue on Iranian soil and Iran will not discuss its ballistic missile programme which Iran argues is essential for self-defence. Trump seeks to cross these red lines by eliminating both domestic enrichment and missiles.

Trust has not characterised Iranian-US relations since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over-threw Washington's ally Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in early 1979 and, radical "students" seized control of the US embassy in Tehran and held staff for 444 days. They were not freed until Ronald Regan had taken over the US presidency from Jimmy Carter. Unfortunately, this gesture did not clear the way for the restoration of relations due to US rejectionism. The blow of losing the Shah, compounded by the humiliation of the embassy occupation made the US, particularly Congress, testy and unforgiving and easily influenced by domestic and Israeli anti-Iran hawks.

Iranian popular trust in the US was undermined during the decades-long the rule of the shah who developed Iran's economy and carried out modernising social reforms but ruled with an iron fist. His tool was his intelligence agency Savak which allied with the US Central Intelligence Agency and Israel's Mossad. The shah put Iran firmly in the Western camp during the Cold War with the Soviet Union and adopted pro-Israel policies.

Iranian resentment continues over the 1953 US-British coup against popularly elected Prime Minister Mossadegh who nationalised the Anglo-Iranian oil company. Resentment intensified when in 1954, the shah reached a deal giving Western countries control of Iran's oil industry. He also allowed US companies to play a dominant role in trade and Iran’s domestic markets. This was exploited by the Iranian opposition, especially Khomeini who mounted his "revolution" from exile in France. He returned to Tehran in early 1979 after the shah had fled to the US. After several years of turmoil, Khomeini installed the cleric-dominated model of governance

A decade after the fall of Shah, Iran's President Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) tried and failed to reconcile with the US and the West. He was followed by Mohammed Khatami (1997-2005) who in 1999 launched his "Dialogue of Civilisations" which he hoped would achieve this end. One effort in this campaign was a Cyprus conference attended by US scholars, policy makers, influential Iranians, and foreign correspondents. While Khatami’s call for dialogue failed to change Washington, one result of this conference was the creation of the website Gulf 2000 which continues to provide platform for information and comment on Iran, the Gulf and the region.

Khatami was succeeded by erratic hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013). His hostile attitude toward the US and the West gave a boost to the powerful anti-Iran lobby in Washington, which was heavily influenced by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who had tried for three decades to drag the US into a war with Iran.

The landmark 2015 agreement limiting Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions was negotiated during the presidency of reformist Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021). Iran carried out its commitments under the Obama administration deal and secured some relief from sanctions which had crippled its economy. At that time, IAEA chief Grossi said Iran's nuclear programme was "primitive." The deal restricted enrichment to 3.67 per cent for civilian power plants, reduced its stockpile, compelled Iran to export enriched uranium above the limit, and compelled Iran to use old model centrifuges for enrichment.

Iran was subjected to the most stringent and invasive regime of monitoring and inspections ever imposed on any country. However, in 2018, Trump aborted the deal and proclaimed1,500 sanctions, disrupting the process of reconstituting US-Iran relations. Iran responded in 2019 by enriching uranium to 20 and 60 per cent, amassing a large stockpile, building advanced centrifuges, and curbing IAEA monitoring, Hardliners in the Iranian clerical establishment engineered the 2021 election of Ebrahim Raisi who reverted to an anti-US stance until he died in a helicopter crash in 2024. Iran again swung to the reformist faction by electing Masoud Pezeshkian as president who had pledged to clinch a new nuclear agreement.

Having failed to restore relations with the US, which remains Iran's chief antagonist on the global scene, Tehran has cultivated ties within the region. This process was expanded by the 2023 restoration of Saudi Iranian relations and promised the stability Gulf countries require to pursue economic and social advancement. This has been jeopardised by Israel's war on Iran and US military and political intervention.