The leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei (left) and the president of the United States, Donald Trump (right). Photo: WFIW Radio.
By Max BlumenthalĀ –Ā May 21, 2025
In Tehran, bewildered diplomats told me they suspect the Trump administration is exploiting nuclear negotiations as a instrument for generating instability to weaken Iranās economy and foment social strife.
With nuclear negotiations between the Trump administration and Iranās Reformist government at a standstill, I held two separate, lengthy background conversations in Tehran this past week with a pair of seasoned Iranian diplomats with detailed knowledge of the talks in Muscat, Oman.
Like most Iranians, the diplomats were eager for a durable deal that would provide sanctions relief. But they said their side could not seem to break through to a Trump team they described as dithering, divided, distracted by other conflicts, and incapable of holding to a consistent position. Worse, as the negotiations drag on, the Trump administration is defaulting toward the hardline Israeli position which rejects all uranium enrichment, even for civilian purposes, violating a right Tehran considers sacrosanct.
The Iranian diplomats have now begun to suspect the Trump administration held an ulterior motive for engaging in talks, and is exploiting the meetings in Oman as a instrument for generating instability to weaken Iranās economy and foment social strife.
Their comments to me echoed a warning issued by the Leader of Iranās Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khamenei, as Tehran considered a request from Trump for nuclear talks last March. āNegotiating with this US administration wonāt result in the sanctions being removed,ā KhameneiĀ declared. āIt will cause the knot of sanctions to become tighter and pressure to increase.ā
Following two months of political confusion and a significant escalation of US financial warfare, the Ayatollahās words have proven prescient. Iranās Reformist government now risks repeating the folly of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, or JCPOA, which failed to deliver meaningful sanctions relief in the brief period before Trump shredded the deal, and ultimately led to a regime of āmaximum pressureā culminating with the US assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
Iranās government entered the latest round of talks under heavy pressure, with Trump dispatching a B-2 bomber strike force to the Diego Garcia Airbase to enforce his demands.Ā The negotiations also took place in the shadow of the post-October 7 wars, in which Iranās regional allies had suffered serious setbacks and with the last retaliation it vowed against Israel, True Promise III, still unfulfilled. Iranian public opinion researcher Ebrahim Moehseni told me his polling at the time showed that a majority of Iranians from all social sectors supported the talks.
According to the two diplomats I spoke to in Tehran, Iranās negotiating team arrived in Oman with a sense of pessimism, but quickly grew more positive as they realized the Americans were not introducing demands for Iran to sever relations with its allies in Lebanon and Yemen, scrap its long range ballistic missiles, or destroy its reactors in Natanz and Fordow. But after each encouraging exchange, they watched key Trump negotiators issue bellicose statements to media immediately after returning to Washington, essentially reversing the positions they had taken in Muscat. The Iranians suspected Trumpās team, led by real estate lawyer Steve Witkoff, was kowtowing to Israeli assets like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and its top donor, Miriam Adelson.
During each round of talks, the Iranian team introduced concrete proposals to bridge disagreements and maintain momentum. But according to the diplomats I spoke to, they found themselves waiting for a week or more to receive a reply from the Americans. They described Witkoff as distracted by other diplomatic assignments and said he often put Iran on the back burner while he tended to Ukraine-Russia negotiations or the Gaza war.
The diplomats were especially concerned by theĀ apparent power struggleĀ between Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. They suspected that Rubio was exploiting US media appearances to project control over the negotiations, and worried that his apparent rivalry with Witkoff would prevent Trumpās team from reaching a consensus on the nuclear issue.
One Iranian diplomat referenced historian Robert Dallekās book, The American Style of Foreign Policy, to elucidate his view that the Trump administrationās counter-productive approach reflected a deeper crisis in the US establishment. The 1983 book argued that domestic pressures and social shifts at home have placed US foreign policy makers on a persistently irrational trajectory. The diplomat pointed to former Secretary of State Tony Blinken as a case study in Dallekās thesis, recalling how Blinken routinely moved the goalposts on previous agreements with Iran in order to prevent negotiations from taking concrete form during the Biden years. His implication, as I read it, was the preponderance of pressure from the Israel lobby and military industry had been too overwhelming to allow either the Biden or Trump administration to execute a lasting deal.
Both diplomats I spoke to brought upĀ recent reportsĀ revealing that Witkoff had promised Hamas he would force Israel to lift the starvation siege on the Gaza Strip if they released the US-Israeli captive Edan Alexander. They were dismayed that Witkoff had reneged on his promise and allowed Israel to slaughter hundreds of civilians in an apocalyptic frenzy throughout the week. Trumpās bad faith tactics with Hamas have cast a pall over the negotiations in Oman, fueling Iranian pessimism about a workable deal.
But perhaps no statement was more damaging to the prospect of a deal than WitkoffāsĀ proclamation on ABCās This Week: āWe have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability.ā
The comments fit the pattern of Trump negotiators sabotaging progress in Oman by issuing onerous demands and threats immediately after returning to Washington. And few issues are more central to the Islamic Republicās sense of independence than its civilian nuclear program.
Uranium Enrichment Is Iranās āRed Lineā in Talks With US, Says Deputy Foreign Minister
A tour of Tehranās nuclear reactor illustrates the ābattle of willsā
While in Tehran, Iranās Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) invited me and a small group of journalists and academics to tour the cityās Nuclear Research Center, an active reactor originally constructed with US assistance under the Shah.
Once inside the vast facility (without our phones, as recording devices were strictly forbidden), we were treated to an exhibition touting the many lifesaving products of Iranās nuclear program, from advancements in radiotherapy to the production of anti-cancer drugs to the sterilization of medical devices and protection of agriculture.
The visit was clearly designed to illustrate the importance of nuclear energy to Iranās national development, and the absolute commitment of its leadership to continuing the project despite the continuous threat of assassination, sabotage and all-out war.
Following our tour, we met with Beyrouz Kamalvandi, a veteran Iranian diplomat now serving as spokesman for the AEOI. Like the other Iranian diplomats I spoke to, Kamalvandi volunteered his countryās desire to abide by all its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But he viewed Iranās civilian nuclear program as the key to consolidating its technological edge, and an absolute right under international law.
āThey want to do with us what they did with Gaza, where the entire society is besieged,ā Kamalvandi proclaimed. āBut we have a great civilization, and itās only a matter of time before they realize we wonāt submit. This is not just a battle over enrichment, itās a battle of wills.ā
At one point during the meeting, Kamalvandi pointed to a young man seated in the back row of the conference room, asked him to stand, and identified him as the son of the Iranian quantum field theorist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, who was assassinated by a Mossad asset in 2010. Ten years later, Iran lost the godfather of its nuclear program, Mohsen Fakrizadeh, when the Mossad smuggled a machine gun drone into the country and stationed it along a road to attack Fakrizadehās convoy. Kamalvandi, for his part, wasĀ injured and hospitalizedĀ in 2021 while inspecting a part of the Natanz reactor that had been damaged by an Israeli attack.
In the eyes of Iranās leadership, Witkoffās demand to end enrichment was not only a recipe for squandering decades of technological advancement, it was an insult to the top tier scientists cut down by Israeli assassins. If this is the new baseline for a deal, negotiations are an exercise in futility. And yet the show goes on.
Economic sabotage behind the guise of negotiations
Since negotiations began, the value of the Iranian rial has fluctuated wildly against the dollar, improving in value after the first round of positive exchanges, then depreciating following each wave of bellicose threats from Trump and his team. I personally witnessed Iranās financial chaos each time I attempted to exchange dollars for rials, as business owners consulted their phones for the new rate, which seemed to shift from day to day depending on the US presidentās rhetoric. A friend joked that I would have paid a substantially lower rate to book a hotel room for my family if negotiations were not currently taking place.
Trumpās statements about the negotiations have also roiled oil markets. On May 16, when Trump claimed he was āgetting close to maybe a dealā with Iran, theĀ price of oil plummetedĀ by 3.4%. Then came Witkoffās call to cease enrichment, and on May 20, US intelligence leaked a warning that Israel was planning to attack Iranās oil facilities, causing aĀ sudden surgeĀ in oil prices.
The American presidentās ability to manipulate financial markets both inside and outside Iran with his bluster has contributed to a sense that entering the negotiations have weakened Iranās political position. Meanwhile, Trumpās crude insults to Iranās sense of national honor and sovereignty have disrupted whatever goodwill existed when talks began.
The US presidentās announcement on May 7 that he was considering renaming the Persian Gulf to āthe Arabian Gulfā fueled outrage across Iranāuniting everyone from pro-government principlists, to reformists, to pro-regime change monarchists in opposition to the insult to their national pride. Tehran responded with a billboard campaign condemning the change and a lawsuitĀ against Google for abiding by the name change on its Maps applications.
Signs of outrage in Tehran over Trump renaming the Persian Gulf
Now it looks like Trump is walking it back pic.twitter.com/LmAZt69Uq1
ā Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) May 14, 2025
TrumpāsĀ speech in RiyadhĀ deepened the enmity, as he attempted to pit the Iranian public against its leadership, praising his unelected, monarchic hosts for supposedly having āturned dry deserts into fertile farmland,ā while accusing Iranās leaders of āturn[ing] green farmland into dry deserts, as their corrupt water mafiaā¦causes droughts and empty riverbeds. They get rich, but they donāt let the people have any of it.ā
Two days after Trumpās address in Riyadh, dust storms from the growing deserts of Saudi ArabiaĀ gusted into Iran, clouding the skies over Tehran and keeping many residents indoors. The irony did not escape those who heard Trumpās praise for the House of Saudās supposed green miracle. Meanwhile, there is a growing sense that war clouds are gathering as well.
One well-connected Iranian academic in Tehran told me he expected his country to be on the receiving end of Israeli sabotage and confrontation throughout the summer. Both diplomats I spoke to insisted that in such a scenario, True Promise III was an option on the table.
Max Blumenthal
Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-sellingĀ Republican Gomorrah,Ā Goliath,The Fifty One Day War, andĀ The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, includingĀ Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on Americaās state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.
