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Tehran, Iran – Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States promises Iran a rocky road that could lead to different outcomes when it comes to its relations with the West, analysts say.
US leaders, along with Israelis, have been openly discussing military strikes on top Iranian nuclear facilities and critical infrastructure like power plants and oil and petrochemical facilities.
Iran’s leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remain defiant, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have held large-scale military exercises, predominantly focusing on defending sensitive sites.
A shift, but to where?
For more than two decades, Iran’s relationship with the West has largely been defined by developments in the country’s nuclear programme and efforts to stop it from getting a bomb. Tehran has consistently maintained that it does not seek a weapon of mass destruction.
Recently, top political and military authorities in Iran have been discussing the possibility of shifting Tehran’s officially stated policy of not pursuing a nuclear weapon amid rising security threats.
There seem to be two schools of thought in Tehran: one appears open to the possibility of engaging the US, including on the nuclear programme, and another is vocal about pursuing a weapon, especially given the erosion of deterrence against Israel and setbacks to its regional allies, Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at the Washington-based Crisis Group, pointed out.
“But if the former camp prevails, it will still require willingness in Washington to engage Tehran – and given the Islamic republic’s vulnerabilities, there will likely be some inclination to press the regime harder rather than entertain concessions to it.”
Iran has lost one of the tenets of its forward defence strategy with the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the blows dealt to its “axis of resistance” across the region.
The country is also labouring under extensive sanctions that are negatively affecting its already embattled economy, plummeting national currency and high inflation, along with an energy crisis.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, right, shakes hands with International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi before a meeting in Tehran on November 14, 2024 [Atta Kenare/AFP]Amid dire economic conditions, the government of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which is expected to send its diplomats to Europe later this month for talks with the E3 – France, Germany and the United Kingdom – looks like it wants to further engage with the West.
The overall framework being discussed appears similar to the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2015 – lifting some economic pressure on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
But no new framework has taken shape yet, and any talks so far appear to have been consultations aimed at clarifying viewpoints.
Appetite for a new agreement
Things are different this time, compared with when Iran and the West negotiated for years in the leadup to the nuclear deal.
In 2018, Trump reneged on the JCPOA and imposed harsh sanctions against Iran. He also ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top general and a main architect of its regional axis, five years ago.
“Unlike the first Trump administration, the Europeans are going to be much more aligned to whatever policy the US chooses because the Europeans have in some ways endorsed the maximum pressure campaign themselves in recent years because of the growing tensions they have with Tehran,” Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations said.
This year should see major developments that will better clarify the direction of Iran’s nuclear programme, Abas Aslani, senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, told Al Jazeera.
Several of the JCPOA’s clauses have expired, Aslani said, so there is an increased willingness to negotiate a new understanding – especially since a main sunset clause of the JCPOA, which allows the West to reinstate any lifted United Nations sanctions on Iran (the snapback), will expire in October 2025.
Geranmayeh said the E3 is keeping snapback as the last tool they have to leverage Iran and they are aware that once it is used, it can set off a “very unpredictable chain of escalatory events”.
Iran’s nuclear site in Isfahan, Iran, on April 4, 2024 [Planet Labs PBC via AP]As such, Europe will be spending the time left until October to prevent escalation and push for diplomacy.
However, there remains a major question mark over how Europeans respond if Trump demands an immediate snapback of sanctions on Iran by the E3 in exchange for tradeoffs on transatlantic issues dealing with European security, the expert said.
“We will either move toward significantly higher tensions or some sort of, albeit limited, agreement over the nuclear programme, depending on whether Iran and the US can reach some sort of understanding,” Aslani said.
There is also a possibility Tehran and Washington may sit down for direct negotiations, something Iran has refused to do due to the US’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA.
“If the Trump administration tries to push too hard to get concessions, then it’s going to be exceedingly difficult to reach an agreement even if there’s a broader understanding,” he said.
Iran’s nuclear programme
The latest information indicates Iran has not started building a bomb yet.
However, a year after Trump left the JCPOA, it began increasing its level of enrichment and number of centrifuges, repeating the process after Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities and international censure.
In recent months, it has installed thousands of new centrifuges in reaction to the passing of another Western-introduced censure resolution against it at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board.
It is now enriching uranium up to 60 percent, a relatively short technical step away from the more than 90 percent required for a bomb, with the IAEA reporting Tehran has enough fissile material for multiple bombs.
The increased nuclear activity gives Iran some leverage when it comes to talking to Trump, but it also comes with considerable risks, said the Crisis Group’s Rafati.
“Tehran is enriching at near weapons-grade and with virtually zero breakout time, which blurs the line between a situation that is concerning and alarming enough for the US and/or Israel to consider military action,” he told Al Jazeera.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the centrifuges in Tehran, Iran, on June 11, 2023 [Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA via Reuters]Nuclear breakout time is the time required to produce enough fissile material for a bomb. If it decides to go for a bomb, Iran would have to design and assemble a weapon, integrate it with a long-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and successfully test it.
We are in a short-term holding pattern as the “big elephant in the room” of Trump taking power is days away and there is still no clear idea how his administration plans to shape its ties with Iran, according to senior analyst Geranmayeh.
“I think in the first few weeks of 2025, Iran is unlikely to significantly escalate its nuclear activities unless President Trump aggressively doubles down on the maximum pressure campaign,” Geranmayeh told Al Jazeera.
She added that Iranian nuclear activity may slightly cool if the US prioritises diplomatic talks aimed at de-escalation, meaning two very different scenarios could unfold ahead depending on where Trump positions himself.
