June 18, 2025
by Warren L. Nelson
After a month of internal debate in Washington over what the Trump Administration should demand in nuclear talks with Iran, the decision was made in the second week of May to insist on complete dismantlement of Iran’s enrichment industry—a decision forced on a reluctant President Trump when the overwhelming majority of all the Republicans in Congress signed a letter demanding total dismantlement.
The US-Iran talks now are hanging by a thread.
For weeks, Trump’s staff had been divided. Chief negotiator Steve Witkoff told Trump the dismantlement demand was a deal-killer and would mean Trump’s wish to resolve the dispute with Iran would fail. On the other side, Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the forces saying there could be no workable solution unless Iran’s entire enrichment program was dismantled.
Trump declined for more than a month to make any decision. His comments—almost daily—instead said everything was very simple and that all Iran had to accept was that it could not have a nuclear bomb, or it would face a horrible alternative. That formulation avoided the issue of dismantlement. Trump also stumbled around, sometimes suggesting the horrible alternative would be massive bombing, but then saying in a formal speech in Saudi Arabia that the horrible alternative would be more sanctions and economic pressure. Amir Jadidi, a journalist with the pro-Reform daily Ham longer reaches us. I turn on the tap—the pipe howls and shakes like it is possessed. Seconds later, the shower coughs and Mihan, recently wrote sarcastically about his personal experience. “My modest Tehran apartment is inside a 40-unit building, where, without a pump, water does not continue on page thirteen.
The decision was finally forced May 14, when Trump was sent a letter from the Republicans in Congress that said they would not accept anything but complete dismantlement. The letter was signed by every Republican senator except for Rand Paul of Ken tucky and by 80 percent of the GOP members of the House. The letter was unequivocal; it was not the usual wishy-washy political statement saying we “urge” this and we would “prefer” such-and such an action. It said there must be dismantlement.
A few days later, Trump said there must be dismantlement. Then Witkoff said there must be dismantlement.
Tehran was aghast. But Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi surprisingly did not walk out of the talks. He just said Iran had worked too hard to master enrichment to ever give it up. He said enrichment was a “right,” while avoiding saying that people also have a right to poke out their own eyes but do not have to exercise that right.
Polls have long shown Iranians overwhelmingly want Iran to have a nuclear industry. They see it as a major national accomplishment that shows Iran has entered the modern world—the theme the Islamic Republic has sung for years.
Unmentioned is the fact that Iran doesn’t really have a need for enrichment. It has one nuclear power generating plant in operation at Bushehr and two under construction by Russia. And Russia insisted that the contracts for those three plants mean that Russia will provide the nuclear fuel for them and will remove the spent fuel (which can be used to make weapons).
Iran also has a small nuclear research reactor in Tehran that was supplied by the US and that requires fuel enriched to almost 20 percent. But that small reactor requires little fuel and does not justify the huge expense of a vast enrichment industry. It would be cheaper to buy that fuel abroad. Iran is enriching large quantities of uranium for which it has no use whatsoever—unless it plans to make nuclear weapons.
The Islamic Republic has defended its nuclear program by saying it will soon run out of fossil fuels and thus needs a nuclear power system so it won’t be dependent on crude oil imports. There are two problems with this argument. First, Iran has more oil and gas reserves combined than anyone else but Russia, so it isn’t about to be fossil-fuel poor for generations. Second, it doesn’t have enough raw uranium to run even those three nuclear power plants without uranium imports, so the argument about avoiding dependence on foreigners falls flat.
In recent weeks, while the Islamic Republic has been talking to Washington, it has spent much time complaining bitterly about the Americans being insulting to Iran and not appearing to be really interested in making a deal. The primary evidence for this conclusion, Iran says, is that Trump keeps imposing yet more sanctions on Iranian oil exports while insisting it wants to make a deal.
The regime says it is inconsistent for the Americans to put pressure on Iran while at the same time saying they want a deal. The regime also complains whenever anyone in the US says something offensive about the Islamic Republic. However, Supreme leader Ali Khamenehi has actually been working overtime to insult the Americans. For example, when an audience broke out in chants of “Marg bar Amrika,” he responded by lauding them and telling them to keep it up. Another day he said all Western leaders including Trump were “beasts.” In another speech he lashed out at Trump as a “dis grace” and charged that Trump was “lying” when he said he wanted peace. It was a strange display by the head of a regime that complains that the United States is disrespectful.
This was all rhetoric, probably intended to polish the Leader’s chops as a tough man able to stand up to anything the Americans do.
More significantly, however, Tehran has complained that the Americans say one thing in the negotiations and something else back in Washington. That appears to be true. Iran has expressed pleasure after each of its four sessions of talks with Witkoff, suggesting that Witkoff has never talked about dismantling Iran’s enrichment industry. That is in keeping with the fact that Witkoff has not wanted to demand dismantlement because he calculates that would kill a deal.
Back in Washington, more people feel differently. Or, as Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai put it: “The positions expressed at the negotiation table often differ or even contradict what the American side says to the media.”
That was very true. It appears to reflect the fact that Trump could not decide what line he wanted to pursue in the talks. He seemed to agree with Witkoff that dismantlement was a deal killer. But others said that what Witkoff pushed was just a warmed-over version of the Obama Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that Trump spit on in 2018. To come out of the talks with JCPOA 2.0 would make Trump look ridiculous.
So, Trump waffled for a full month. And Witkoff did not talk about dismantlement with Araqchi.
On May 14, the dam broke when all but one Republican in the Senate and 177 of the 220 Republicans in the House signed a letter to Trump saying flatly that they would only support what came out of the talks if Iran “permanently give(s) up any capacity for enrichment.”
Trump caved.
An interview with Kristen Welker of NBC News went like this:
WELKER: Okay. Let me ask you about Iran. Your administration has had conversations with Iran. Is the goal of these talks limiting Iran’s nuclear program or total dismantlement?
TRUMP: Total dismantlement.
WELKER: That’s all you’ll accept?
TRUMP: Yeah, that’s all I’d accept.
As the Iran Times went to press, that was where things stood. The fifth session of nuclear talks was being scheduled, and the Islamic Republic was trying to figure out what to do next. It knows the Iranian public wants a settlement with the United States. And it fears that breaking off the talks will end with bombs raining down on Iran—and snapback.
The question is how to break this logjam.
Some “compromises” have been bruited about. One comes from Hossein Mousavian, who was on the Iranian nuclear negotiating team years ago and is now at Princeton University. He wrote an article in October 2023 proposing that Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and any other Arab states that want nuclear power join together to own an enrichment system located in Iran. The Americans could even join in that. Such a joint operation would involve non-Iranians intimately and thus demonstrably prevent any diversion of nuclear material to weaponry. This would give the Americans complete access to the enrichment operation.
One problem is that some versions of this idea discussed in Tehran say it would involve an entirely new enrichment system and would not include Iran’s existing enrichment system. That would negate everything justifying Mousavian’s idea and make it a non-starter. Spokesman Baqai said May 19 that the joint Arab-Iran enrichment industry would not replace Iran’s own existing enrichment industry.
Another question is why the Arabs would ever agree to it. Why would they want a supply system located in Iran and subject to being shut down by Iran? The Arabs have thus far been silent on the concept. Araqchi has embraced the idea of discussing the idea, but emphasizes that Iran is not proposing it.
Another “compromise” being bruited about is for Iran to continue enrichment for X number of years and then shut its enrichment plants down. That would likely be viewed as a defeat by the Iranian public. A variant on that is the exact reverse— Iran would cease all enrichment now, but could resume in X number of years.
Still another compromise would provide language endorsing Iran’s claim to have a right to enrich, but then have Iran voluntarily forgo that right in light of the world preferring that it stop enriching in order to end the Iran-US brawl.
All of these ideas would allow the Islamic Republic to continue to do whatever it wished to control the Iranian public and preserve state power.
It is important to note that there is no dispute over inspections to prove that Iran is adhering to an agreement. Araqchi has repeated multiple times that Iran is prepared to accept more intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) than it agreed to a decade ago when the issue was a major point of contention with the Obama Administration. He has also said enrichment could be limited to 3.75 percent.