"Let us begin anew. … Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate," U.S. President John F. Kennedy said in his inauguration address on Jan. 20, 1961. He was talking about the Soviet Union and the tensions of the Cold War, but it's almost as if the same words could be uttered today by current President Donald Trump, substituting the Iranians for the Soviets.
This week, at the end of a press conference that barely touched on Middle East issues, Trump was asked if he would be willing to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, as he did with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Without missing a beat, Trump replied in the affirmative – much the same manner in which he agreed to a meeting with Kim. In both cases, it was a split-second decision. In the former, thawed diplomatic relations and a widely broadcast summit meeting with the communist dictator led to a symbolic but significant breakthrough in bilateral relations between the U.S. and North Korea (which included North Korea's gesture of returning the bodies of American soldiers and an agreement to end the provocative nuclear experiments). Another historic summit, this time with Rouhani or Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be just as important, and maybe even more so when it comes to the Middle East.
"I'll meet with anybody. I believe in meeting," Trump said at the press conference.
"I would certainly meet with Iran if they wanted to meet. … We could work out something that's meaningful, not the waste of paper that the [Iran] deal was," the president declared.
As one might expect, Trump's remarks made headlines and led the evening news broadcasts, but for anyone who has been listening to Trump in recent months, they didn't comprise anything new. Everyone remembers how on May 8, Trump announced that he was pulling the U.S. out of the nuclear deal and reinstalling major sanctions on Iran. The president made Iran an offer it couldn't refuse: Either Iran could make a deal of substance that would ensure a long-term change to Tehran's nuclear program and subversive activities, or it would be left isolated, facing economic collapse and possibly the fall of its regime.
Trump emphasized at the time that the U.S. withdrawal was not designed to cancel the agreement, but rather to improve it. The way Trump – a businessman and real estate tycoon – sees it, former President Barack Obama paid far too high a price for something that not did not benefit him and would also lose value every year. Obama's nuclear deal, for Trump, was defective at its core because it included only temporary limitations to the Iranian nuclear program and failed to address its ballistic missile program. As if that wasn't enough, the deal effectively gave a green light to Iranian to continue undermining the Middle East while enjoying the fruits of the agreement once the sanctions were lifted.
But along with the dramatic announcement that the U.S. was leaving the deal, Trump also took care to hold out an olive branch. At the end of his speech, Trump appealed directly to Iran: "Iran's leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate a new deal. They refuse, and that's fine. I'd probably say the same thing if I was in their position. … But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people," the president said, adding that when that time came, the Iranians would find that he was willing and able to do so.
Shortly thereafter, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the U.S. would be willing to reinstate diplomatic ties with Iran if it came to its senses and agreed to work on a better, more thorough nuclear deal.
The same contradiction appeared in Trump's remarks this week: On the one hand he is willing to meet Iranian leaders without preconditions, and on the other he will hold the meeting only if the meeting could discuss a deal that wouldn't be a "waste of paper," like the existing version. In other words, Trump is making it clear to Iran that unlike his predecessor, it isn't urgent to him. He will talk with them, but on his own terms. He will prove that his motives are pure and he knows how to make it clear he has a stick while waving a carrot. Will the Iranians grab hold of the lifeline he is offering? They might not have a choice.
In the next few days, some of the tough economic sanctions that Trump reapplied in May will take effect. In November, the rest will take effect, and Iran will find itself effectively isolated in international trade.
Iran is sticking to the pretense that the deal can be saved, but its efforts are pointless and every Iranian is feeling the effect in their pockets: Because of the economic uncertainty, international companies are canceling contracts with Iran, withdrawing money from the country and closing down factories there. As a result, everyone is trying to game the system. A black market is booming, and the Iranian rial has dropped to a new low of 120,000 rials/$1.
Meanwhile, the people of Iran – who are watching their government continuing full-tilt to waste resources on its adventures in Syria and Yemen – are taking to the streets and demanding solutions. The regime knows that it can't turn back the wheel to the way things were before the 2015 deal, because the young people today aren't the young people of the early 2000s, and social media won't allow the citizens to be toyed with.
The expectations created by the 2015 deal, and the credible threat Trump created when he decided to reinstate the toughest possible sanctions against Iran, have brought Iran to a watershed moment. It can do one of two things: clash with the West or talk to it. Iran won't want to give Trump an excuse to attack, so it probably won't rush to pull out of the nuclear agreement. On the other hand, Iran will want to minimize the ramifications of Trump's withdrawal, and is already sending signals that its leaders will be willing to talk with him. Only this week, Arab media reported that Oman's foreign minister had started mediating between Washington and Tehran. Iran denied the reports.
Iran would be wise to let Trump take the lead on a revised version of the deal. Even if the two sides reach an amorphous agreement that is open to interpretation (like the one between the U.S. and North Korea), it would be a coup for Trump.
Now that the situation in Syria has stabilized somewhat, Iran can afford to make concessions to Trump and say, "We'll stop our blatant intervention in the Middle East, we'll uphold the nuclear deal after the restrictions are up, and we'll stop firing missiles." But in Iran, where senior officials are trying to sell the people on the need to "stand strong" against the West, the penny still hasn't dropped. Officials were shouting far and wide this week that they would not hold talks with the U.S. until it rejoined the deal. They've apparently forgotten that there's a new sheriff in Washington, who in the year and a half since he took office has managed to surprise everyone, at home and abroad.
The American economy is flourishing, ties with North Korea are taking off, and the U.S.'s stature in the Middle East has strengthened immeasurably – even attacks by Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf have stopped. Trump knows that the ball is in Iran's court. He also knows that however afraid Tehran might be of a photo op, it is even more afraid of a massive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and a challenge to the regime.
