Iran Wants to Talk

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/04/us-iran-nuclear-sanctions/682280/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo

Posted by theatlantic

6 comments

  1. Arash Azizi: “Donald Trump loves letters. We know this from his first term, when he exchanged 27 letters with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in the course of 16 months and wrote a particularly memorable missive to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In his second term, he has already found an unlikely new pen pal: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

    “Early in March, a high-ranking Emirati diplomat delivered a letter from Trump to Khamenei. Iran has now sent Khamenei’s response through its preferred mediator, the Sultanate of Oman.

    “Iran’s letter is detailed and leaves the door open for negotiations, a source close to the Iranian establishment told me, on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press. In addition to the official response, Iranians have used multiple channels, including private business ones, to send signals to Trump and his team, the source added.

    “About two months ago, Khamenei said that talking with the U.S. was ‘neither rational, nor smart, nor honorable.’ This seemed consistent with his posture during Trump’s first term … Yet the supreme leader has been known to buckle under pressure and call it a strategic retreat. 

    “… Khamenei is not about to give up his lifelong anti-Americanism at this late hour, at the age of almost 86. Still, Iran is in dire economic straits, and domestic pressure is mounting. Trump’s message to Iran, meanwhile, has been constant and clear: *Talk with me, agree to a deal in which you stop pursuing nuclear weapons and arming regional militias, and I’ll let you prosper.*

    “If Iran declines, Israel, flush from having battered the Iranian allies Hamas and Hezbollah, could finally strike Iran’s nuclear program. But even short of that, Trump’s policy—his previous administration called it ‘maximum pressure’—could fatally damage the already beleaguered Iranian economy. 

    “… This explains why Iran is coming to the table. But knowing just how weak his hand is, Khamenei has tried to appear tough. In an Eid al-Fitr speech on Monday, he affirmed that Iran’s positions had not changed, ‘nor has the enmity of America and the Zionist regime, which continue to threaten us with their evil doings.’ 

    “… Trump’s epistolary relationship with Khamenei is unlikely to develop into the sort of bromance he experienced with Kim, and even those personal talks collapsed because they weren’t accompanied by the necessary technical negotiations. But Iran is now going out of its way to affirm that it held up its end of the old nuclear deal and forswore developing nuclear weapons. What the Iranians also seem to know is that if they want to get a new deal with America, they will have to learn Trump’s style, and that includes the president’s love of letters.”

    Read more: [https://theatln.tc/O56035hk](https://theatln.tc/O56035hk) 

  2. Only thing Trump is good for is to deal with rogue states like Iran. You can‘t be restrained and logicial when dealing with the Middle East. They only respond to force. We saw this during Obama‘s presidency. Iran even with a deal did all sorts of stunts to provoke America like hijacking a navy boat. Under Trump they know that pulling those stunts would mean the end of their regime.

  3. Seems like a nothing article. Iran has said they were open to indirect talks for a while. It doesn’t mean they’re gonna submit to Trump though, and it seems that’s what Trump is trying to get them to do. Not negotiate. Submit. 

  4. Israel has taken a year and a half to fight two militia groups, one it’s still fighting in tiny Gaza. If anyone thinks that’s a sign of some super strong country that can now just roll over Iran, then yeah OK 👍. Not to mention the distance, Iran isn’t right beside Israel so they can’t just carry out non stop bombings like they do in Lebanon and Gaza, we’ve already seen this struggle they have with Yemen. Now imagine it with Iran, a country far larger than Yemen with sites much more spread out.

  5. We already had a deal on this. Russia, China, France , Germany… all the big players signed it. They Trump pulled us out…

  6. We already had a deal on this. Russia, China, France , Germany… all the big players signed it. Then Trump pulled us out…

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