U.S.-Iran Nuclear Diplomacy Is Stirring: Is It Serious?

Ray Takeyh is Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Is there a serious prospect of U.S.-Iran talks about the militarization of Tehran’s nuclear program?

There is a possibility of resumed talks, partly due to a series of Iranian setbacks. Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel—which spurred regional conflicts—the Iranian regime has lost some of its most important regional allies. Hamas has been nearly destroyed, Hezbollah decapitated, and the former President Bashar al-Assad regime overthrown in Syria. In Iraq, Iran’s influence may also be weakening. Iran was the loser in military exchanges with Israel last year as the Israeli air force easily penetrated its defenses while Iran’s missiles failed to reach their targets. All this leaves Iran’s nuclear installations exposed to a possible military strike by Israel and/or the United States. 

The idea of negotiations makes sense from the Iranian perspective. Diplomacy would be an effective means of shielding the program from such attacks since it is unlikely that either the United States or Israel would strike militarily while the talks proceed. However, Iran might not to concede much during those talks.

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U.S. Relations With Iran

1953–2023

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Are there any signs of leadership changes in Iran that might signal a path to talks?

There is a lot of confusion on this front. Once the news came out that U.S. President Donald Trump had written a letter to Iranian leadership asking for talks, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei seemed to have shut the door on such negotiations. He stressed that “some foreign governments and domineering figures insist on negotiations, while their goal is not to resolve issues but to exert control and impose their own agenda.” Iran’s foreign ministry even claimed that it received no such letter. Finally, the Iran mission to the United Nations put out a different message claiming, “if the objective of negotiations is to address concerns vis-à-vis any potential militarization of Iran’s nuclear program, such discussions may be subject to consideration.”

It is hard to tell at this point what the actual Iranian response is. Khamenei’s statement can be seen as cautioning against trusting the United States but not necessarily rejecting the idea of talks. Meanwhile, the UN mission may be trying to establish that any talks will have to be narrowly crafted. At any rate, the two countries may still be at the state of talks about talks. 

Are Russia or any other outside actors involved in the recent round of exchanges?

Russia appears to be the key interlocutor in current U.S.-Iranian exchanges. In his early February telephone conversation with President Trump, President Vladimir Putin seemed to have offered Russia as a mediating partner. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s February 25 trip to Tehran, Iran, involved discussions about Iran’s nuclear program and it is likely the nuclear dispute between the United States and Iran was mentioned.

It is important to note that Russia was also part of the diplomatic process that yielded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. The United States withdrew from that accord in 2018, but the other parties, including both Iran and Russia, have not formally abandoned it. Iran has gone beyond the parameters of the nuclear deal by assembling centrifuges capable of processing uranium to weapons grade material in short order. Meanwhile, Iran and Russia have strengthened their military ties, with Iran providing thousands of drones for Russia’s use in its war against Ukraine, and Russia providing Iran with ballistic missile technology and parts.

How effective was the previous Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign? 

The maximum pressure strategy imposed by the first Trump administration did have an economic impact on Iran. In 2017, before Trump first imposed the U.S. sanctions, Iran exported 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day. By 2020, this figure had plummeted to around 350,000 barrels per day. If fully implemented, the new pressure campaign authorized by an executive order last month would significantly slash Iran’s revenue from oil exports. But there are doubts as to whether it will indeed reduce the exports to zero, as threatened by the order, or even to 2020 levels. 

The new sanctions campaign comes at a particularly challenging time for Iran, as the country is reeling from a high inflation rate—currently about 35 percent—and sluggish growth. 

The question remains whether Iran is willing to make substantial concessions to get sanctions relief. During the first Trump administration, Iran refused U.S. offers of dialogue, blaming the United States for leaving the JCPOA and stressing it was the United States’ responsibility to return to the agreement.

This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy