Iranians negotiate like they’re in the bazaar,” a Middle East scholar once wrote. “Westerners negotiate like they’re shopping at Macy’s.”
It’s a timely insight, reflecting the cultural differences that drive each side – and that are already benefiting Tehran at the expense of Washington as new talks begin over Iran’s nuclear program (and maybe other matters).
The United States and its European allies have been negotiating with Iran for more than two decades over its nuclear pursuits and, if past is prologue, the course of these new talks is pretty much foreordained.
As if at Macy’s, Washington will seek an agreement that’s worth the cost of any U.S. concessions. As if scouring a bazaar for a bargain, Tehran will “manipulate, stall, and extract,” by pursuing a strategy that has been “characterized by obfuscation and procrastination, prolonging discussions without yielding substantive progress and buying time while heading towards nuclear enrichment.”
To be sure, President Trump ordered a strike in June that crippled Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, so the regime has reason to worry that, in the absence of a deal, he will do it again. Trump has sent 12 warships and dozens of aircraft to bases near Iran, and he said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei should be “very worried” amid previous reports that the planned talks were falling apart.
Nevertheless, Washington is sending mixed messages about what it really wants (a deal with this regime or a change to another one). And, by abandoning the protestors for whom Trump promised that help was “on the way,” Washington is giving Tehran space to further its brutal crackdown on the protestors and their supporters and stabilize its rule.
What does Trump want? He’s been weighing “targeted strikes on security forces and leaders” to “create conditions” for regime change by “giving protestors the confidence that they could overrun government and security buildings.” At the same time, he urged the regime to return to negotiations over its nuclear program, suggesting that he’ll live with this regime if a deal materializes.
No one should be surprised that Iranian leaders accepted the offer (even if they want to limit the talks to the nuclear program while Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington wants to broaden them to include Iran’s ballistic missiles program, terror sponsorship, and oppressive rule at home).
Tehran recognizes that Trump won’t likely undercut the talks by launching strikes. So at least for now, the regime is safe from regime change.
Now, Iranian leaders will perform their usual dance by stretching out the talks, sending mixed signals about what they’re willing to do, and alternately raising and dashing the hopes of Washington and its allies.
In fact, the Persian dance is already underway. On the upside in recent days, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke enthusiastically about the talks. On the downside, Tehran complicated matters by insisting that the talks move from Turkey to Oman, and a senior Iranian official created a roadblock to a deal by stating that the regime won’t transfer its stockpiles of enriched uranium out of the country.
Meanwhile, free from the threat of a U.S. strike for now, Tehran has moved from slaughtering upwards of at least 16,500 people and injuring another 330,000 to taking “retribution” against doctors who treated injured protestors; against athletes, actors, and business leaders who supported them; against domestic media that covered the protests; and even against families that are holding funerals to bury their dead.
The more enduring the crackdown, and the longer Trump does not fulfill his promise of “help” for protestors, the more the regime can regain its footing and dampen the spirits of those who would overthrow it.
“[W]e saw President Trump’s tweets on satellite TV,” a protestor who insisted on anonymity told CBS News. “We read when he said: ‘Help is on the way.’ People trusted him. People trusted him big time. And people came to the streets.”
Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed shah and a key opposition leader, took Trump at his word and, on that basis, further encouraged the protestors. In a video message, he told Iranians that Trump “is ready to help you,” and he told Trump that Iran’s people “know that you’re not going to throw them under the bus.”
Because that help hasn’t come, some Iranians suggest that people won’t likely risk their lives again in such numbers unless the help comes first. “We’ve done our part,” one young protestor told NBC News. ‘[W]ithout any international intervention, I don’t think anyone else is going to do that again because it’s suicide.”
The talks will begin. The U.S. guns will remain silent, at least for now. And the brutal retribution will continue.
Score one for Tehran.
Lawrence J. Haas is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. and the author of, among other books, Harry and Arthur: Truman, Vandenberg, and the Partnership That Created the Free World