Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz
WSJ, Jan. 22, 2025
“Without enforceable red lines, Tehran has an insuperable advantage. Whenever the U.S. gives ground to Iran, diplomacy turns into extortion.”
Will Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei agree to nuclear negotiations with President Trump? According to the Justice Department, the cleric’s minions tried to assassinate Mr. Trump during the campaign. But given the Islamic Republic’s precarious standing in the Middle East, its ever-worsening economy tied to a collapsing currency and shortages of energy and gas, and a foreboding among many regime loyalists about their grip on Iranian society, Mr. Khamenei might be willing to make compromises in his nuclear aspirations in return for softened U.S. sanctions. After all, he has already made Iran a nuclear-threshold state.
The more important question: If Mr. Trump agrees to nuclear negotiations with Iran, how will he approach them? Will he firmly deny Iran the capacity to enrich uranium and retain deeply buried centrifuge facilities and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles? Will he demand that the International Atomic Energy Agency inspect all suspected nuclear sites in Iran and have access to all nuclear-related paperwork and personnel? Will he insist on all the things Barack Obama should have demanded but didn’t when he approved the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015?
Or will Mr. Trump take a more conciliatory approach? Will he agree to billions in sanctions relief in return for a temporary halt in Iran’s production of 60%-enriched uranium and the transfer of its existing stockpile to Moscow for “safekeeping”? Will he soften sanctions in exchange for an extension of Obama-era prohibitions on Iranian nuclear production, which would again leave in place atomic-weapons infrastructure?
Whichever path Mr. Trump takes, unless he connects nuclear talks to Iran’s regional behavior, he will find himself in Mr. Obama’s predicament: Any sanctions relief will fund Tehran’s nefarious actions, including the supply of arms to regional terror proxies that have killed Americans and Israelis. This would fundamentally compromise the Jewish state. Among all the painful things the Oct. 7, 2023, attack revealed, the worst was that Mr. Obama’s decision to address Tehran’s nuclear intentions while ignoring its other regional activities gave the regime carte blanche to arm and fund Israel’s enemies. ….SOURCE