US, Iran holding make-or-break talks: ANALYSIS

High -level delegations from the United States and Iran meet over the weekend in Oman to discuss Tehran’s advanced nuclear program, doing what the White House says will be direct conversations for the first time in seven years.

The meeting comes as the experts are widely agreed that Iran’s breakthrough time for the accumulation of sufficiently dividing material to obtain a nuclear warhead, decreased to only one to two weeks – and that Tehran can produce a supply nuclear weapon for less than a year.

Despite the opening of a communication line with Iran, the Trump administration has played hardball, and the president himself has repeatedly clarified in the past week that the alternative version of Iran to conclude a deal is under a military attack, staging the stage for diplomatic diplomatic shooting with high bets.

Already in contradiction?

Before the planned meeting, both sides presented different ideas on how the conversations would climb.

From a time when President Donald Trump made the surprising message that his administration would soon be committed to Iran during a meeting at the Oval Office with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, he was adamant that the two countries would not rely on a mediator.

“We have direct conversations with Iran and they started. This will go on Saturday,” Trump said. “We have a very big meeting and we’ll see what can happen.”

But employees in Tehran quickly rejected this when Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araragchi said the April 12th meeting would be “indirect high -level negotiations.”

“It’s as an opportunity as a test,” he wrote in a social media publication of X.

“Well, I talked to both the President and his National Security Team, who will deal with these discussions.

“The ultimate goal is to ensure that Iran can never get nuclear weapons. The president believes in diplomacy, direct conversations, talking directly in the same room to achieve this,” she continued.

If the White House vision is realized, the talks will mark the first time when delegations from Iran and the United States have met face -to -face from 2018, when Trump came out with a nuclear transaction with Iran, the joint comprehensive action plan (JCPOA), which was intermediated during the Obama administration.

New approaches that take time

As for receiving an idea of ​​the Trump Administration Strategy, the format of conversations may not be as important as the fact that conversations will happen first.

Doreen Horchig, an associate of the project on nuclear Affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Research, and Bailey Schiff, a program coordinator and research associate on the program, have argued that the president’s approach to Iran has advanced.

“The Iranian Trump Administration Strategy has evolved from an approach from the primary plan, focused on maximum economic pressure on the Second March Strategy, which combines diplomacy, military threats and sanctions,” they said, adding that now the game plan relies on “diplomatic scope, military position and maintenance.”

“The important thing is that they talk,” writes Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Institute for Responsible Statecraft, writes in Op-Ed for Time.

Parsi also claims the weather is crucial to Iran and the US

“Despite his aggressive conversations and military posing, Trump cannot afford another major war in the Middle East,” he said. “He has long been a candidate who promises to return us troops – don’t entangle them to a new war.”

In the meantime, Pars noted that Iran is facing potentially deteriorating economic prospects.

Already restricted by extensive US sanctions, Tehran must also fight JCPOA’s “click Mechanism” – a type of emergency brake embedded in the transaction that allows the sanctions to be automatically revised by the United Nations if Iran violates the deal conditions.

European countries that have still participated in JCPOA have until October 18 to trigger the Snapback function of the agreement and seem increasingly motivated to do so before the deadline.

But given the rapidly tracked time line of nuclear breakthrough in Iran, USA-and other countries that do not want to see nuclear technique-also feel crispy.

There are currently no indications that the Iranian regime has given the orders to go to the next level when it comes to developing a nuclear warhead, but many US officials estimate that it is under increasing pressure to make it from hard lines because of the perceived Iran’s security threats and the wider Middle East.

Carrots and sticks

Despite the desire to engage in the Trump administration and the economic pressure, which insists the Iranian regime, negotiators can fight for a deal that can stimulate all countries, according to former US Ambassador to Israel, Daniel B. Shapiro, an excellent Atlantean Soviets Assistant.

“If and when the talks become serious, the two countries will face major gaps,” said Shapiro, a former deputy defense secretary for the Middle East and senior councilor at the State Department of Eastern Eastern Bureau.

Shapiro noted that Trump, like Biden’s administration before him, is looking for a stronger consent than JCPOA.

“Its goals include completely dismantling Tehran’s nuclear program,” Shapiro said. “Based on all Iranian behavior in previous negotiations circles, there is no reason to believe that Tehran would agree to these conditions.”

Even if Iran admit, Shapiro claims that Tehran will probably expect a huge relief for the sanction – something that Congress is unlikely to give up.

Trump said that if a transaction could not be reached, combined hostilities with Israel against Iran were the next option.

“If this requires military, we will have a military,” Trump said Wednesday. “Israel will obviously participate a lot in this. They will be the leader of this.”

“He and his team certainly know that within a relatively short time he will probably face the point of decision whether to pursue or not a war strike or not,” Shapiro said. “Time, need and opportunity can never be more compelling.”