For the first time in a generation, there was a national consensus in Iran that negotiations with the United States are necessary to resolve the issues over Iran’s nuclear program. Practically every political group and faction, as well as the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supported talking with the United States.
With Israel’s brutal war against Palestinians still raging, Trump’s second presidency started with opening a diplomatic window to resolve the overly aggrandized and outsized issue of Iran’s nuclear program. Given its national consensus and the election of moderate Masoud Pezeshkian as President, Iran welcomed this opportunity for two main reasons. One was that it had completely fulfilled its obligations under the 2015 nuclear agreement, formally known as the joint comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) up until a year after the U.S. withdrew from it in May 2018, demonstrating that it can deliver its part of any deal. The second reason was that without the United States, the EU-3 parties to JCPOA had proved entirely ineffective and incapable of holding their part of the deal independently, particularly the economic aspects.
Thus, Iran made concrete proposals, not only for its uranium enrichment program, but also for opening the nation’s vast untapped market to American corporations and investors. It proposed setting up a regional consortium together with the Arab nations of the Persian Gulf for enriching uranium and transferring its know-how to them. Furthermore, Iran’s thinking was that it is possible to strike a deal about the level of uranium enrichment. After all, Iran had agreed under JCPOA to both limit its enrichment to only 3.67% and allow comprehensive inspections by IAEA.
What did Iran receive for its concrete proposals and serious efforts for negotiating with the United States? President Trump deceived Iran by pretending that he was seriously pursuing the talks, while plotting military attacks on Iran with Israel. He gave the green light to Benjamin Netanyahu to finally get his two-decade old wish to attack Iran, followed by the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, including the Fordo enrichment facility that is buried deep under a mountain South of Tehran, the Capital.
Israel’s twelve-day illegal and unprovoked war began with assassination of 16 of Iran’s top nuclear scientists, as well as its senior military leaders, with the hope that by de-capitating Iran’s military high command, it will be paralyzed and unable to respond. Fooled by Iran’s exiled monarchists, an out-of-touch small group akin to Cuban exiles in Florida and Russian Tsarists in Paris after the October 2017 Revolution in Russia, Netanyahu also hoped that the Iranian people will rise to topple their regime, and bring to power a pro-Israel regime. None of that happened. Iran’s military quickly recovered, and in less than 14 hours began counterattacking Israel. Iranian people rallied to the defense of their homeland, as they always do since Iran is not a “Banana Republic;” it is home to one of the oldest civilizations with a deep sense of pride and nationalism.
Netanyahu also claimed repeatedly that Israel’s war is not with the Iranian people, but with Iran’s regime. But Israel attacked Iran’s infrastructure, including many apartment buildings and three children hospitals, killing at least 1060 people and injuring over 5,000.
Israel carried out its assault by invoking preemption of a potential Iranian nuclear attack, which was baseless since, the doctrine of preemption requires meeting four requirements, namely, imminence of the preemptive attack, credibility of the information about the attack, the preempted attacker’s capability to carry out its attack, and the exhaustion of diplomacy for preventing the attack. None of it existed when the attacks began.
Since the ceasefire, Trump has said repeatedly that he wants to return to negotiation table. But Iran is not in any hurry. Why should it be? It is widely believed that Iran’s stockpile of about 400 kg of enriched uranium, one of its main cards, has survived. There is also much speculation about the Fordo facility not destroyed, but merely damaged. In addition, neither the International atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), nor the European signatories of the JCPOA condemned the unprovoked illegal attacks on Iran. In fact, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz even thanked Israel for “doing our dirty job” of attacking Iran, further enflaming Iranians’ anger.
During five rounds of negotiations, it became clear to Iran that the issue at hand, which initially was absence of intent on pursuing and obtaining nuclear weapons by Iran, suddenly transformed to preventing Iran from preserving its legally protected right to uranium enrichment. The IAEA report of May 31 also stated there is “no credible indications of ongoing, undeclared structured nuclear program,” in line with what Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, stated recently.
But Trump allowed Netanyahu to sabotage the negotiations that had made significant progress. Writing in the Financial Times, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated, “In only five meetings over nine weeks [before the war], US special envoy Steve Witkoff and I achieved more than I did in four years of nuclear negotiations with the failed Biden administration. We were on the cusp of a historic breakthrough.” Despite this, Netanyahu and Trump decided to attack Iran, with the latter’s claim that Iran was very close to making a bomb having no merit.
Thus, having experienced the pain and damage of the US-Israel attacks, which Iran views them as flagrant violation of international law, why would Iran be in a hurry to return to negotiations? What guarantees that Netanyahu will not sabotage negotiations again?
Despite all such considerations, however, Iran’s official position to let the diplomatic window open again is that it must become sure that the U.S. will not attack Iran again in the middle of negotiations, since Iran itself has remained adherent to the contours of self-defense under the international law in response to the U.S. attacks. As is well established, invoking the self-defense doctrine must meet three requirements, namely, proportionality, minimizing the civilian casualties, and retaliation in kind. The U.S. attacks involved only nuclear facilities, no civilian life was lost, and that there was a relatively reliable time-space tantamount to pre-warning, as well as enough foreknowledge about the type and nature of the attacks. If Iran were to remain committed to the self-defense doctrine, its response had to be pre-warned, would not involve any human casualties, and aimed at a similar or in-kind facility that would only result in physical damage. Iran’s response to the U.S. attacks did meet all the three requirements. So, unlike the fantastical depictions of Iran as a violator of international norms in the mainstream Western media, Iran was, and is, a rational actor.
Netanyahu’s plans for a regime change or turning Iran to a failed state have failed, while the U.S. attacks shattered the delicate balance of Iran’s calculations. The United States’ guarantee of peaceful negotiations is only the first step in restituting a normal conduct that indicates its commitment to meet the basic requirements of good faith and absence of intent on regime change on a prima facia level. If the U.S. fails to guarantee a nonviolent conduct during the negotiations; that is, to act rationally, the precarity that has plagued the United States’ and its Israeli and European allies’ strategy of “peace through strength/ignorance,” will not only reinforce Iran’s suspicions, but will also create no chance for Iran to return to the negotiations. Instead, it might move toward making nuclear weapons.
Amirhassan Boozari has an SJD from UCLA School of Law, and an LLM from Case Western Reserve University. He taught as an adjunct professor at UCLA International Institute and UCLA School of Law. He has published one book on Iranian constitutionalism and currently serves as an expert in foreign law and as a consultant in international law.
Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and the NIOC Chair in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California, has written extensively on Iran and the Middle east over the past three decades.