President Trump Gives Iran Two Weeks To Talk As U.S. Forces Move Into Position, But Does Tehran Care?

By Robert Romano

“Based on the fact that there is a substantial chance of negotiation that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.”

That was a brief statement issued by President Donald Trump via Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on June 19, offering a couple more weeks for diplomacy while he contemplates whether to get further involved in Israel’s war against Iran’s nuclear program and capabilities. Israel has been carrying out air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, ballistic missiles and military leadership for a week now since the war began on June 13.

The U.S. for its part has been participating by shooting down Iranian missiles shot at Israel and presumably providing intelligence as targets of opportunity emerge and had been in direct discussions with Tehran to peacefully give up its uranium enrichment activities and instead accept nuclear fuel shipments under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision to power its civilian nuclear program, a deal Iran has thus far rejected.

Israel’s attack followed a June 12 resolution by the IAEA that “despite repeated calls from the Board and many opportunities offered, Iran has failed to co-operate fully with the Agency, as required by its Safeguards Agreement…”

The inspections are mandated under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, to which the U.S. and Iran are both signatories, which prohibits non-nuclear-weapon states from “manufactur[ing] or otherwise acquir[ing] nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices…”

To that end, the treaty requires “Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes to accept safeguards, as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agency’s safeguards system, for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfilment of its obligations assumed under this Treaty with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”

Instead, per the June 12 resolution, “Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran… constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with the Agency” and “the Agency is not able to verify that there has been no diversion of nuclear material required to be safeguarded under the Agreement to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices…” because it has not provided “technically credible explanations for the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin in two undeclared locations in Iran…”

Critically, the IAEA accused Iran of “impeding Agency verification activities, sanitizing locations, and repeatedly failing to provide the Agency with technically credible explanations for the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at several undeclared locations in Iran or information on the current location(s) of nuclear material and/or of contaminated equipment…”

If this all sounds familiar, it should, it was the same problem that the IAEA had with Iraq in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq war. Nothing, neither the inspections nor threat of military force by Congress and the President was enough to persuade Saddam Hussein to allow unimpeded weapons inspections throughout Iraq.

Hussein knew the U.S. was coming and he didn’t care. Maintaining power via strategic ambiguity was deemed more important and so Iraq refused to cooperate with inspectors.

When the war came, the U.S. simply could not find Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The intelligence was wrong.

Instead, in 2004, the Iraq Survey Group found, based on an on-the-ground assessment and interviews with former regime officials, that almost all of the weapons were destroyed in the 1990s and yet that Hussein’s goal was to preserve the capability to reconstitute its weapons programs following the lifting of sanctions, retaining the intent to restart the program: “Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized… [including] to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.”

In the meantime, Hussein perceived that maintaining the WMD capability had saved his regime: “In Saddam’s view, WMD helped to the save the Regime multiple times. He believed that during the Iran-Iraq war chemical weapons had halted Iranian ground offensives and that ballistic missile attacks on Tehran had broken its political will. Similarly, during Desert Storm, Saddam believed WMD had deterred Coalition Forces from pressing their attack beyond the goal of freeing Kuwait. WMD had even played a role in crushing the Shi’a revolt in the south following the 1991 cease-fire. “

In other words, WMD or even the perception retaining WMD, were worth the risk as a deterrent to preserve Hussein’s regime in power.

So too might be the case with Iran. Right now, Iran is getting hit militarily, its air defenses decimated, its nuclear programs being degraded and its military leadership being eliminated, and so the threat of force is entirely real. Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently spoken on June 13 of regime change by the Iranians themselves — presumably with help from the West — to overthrow the Supreme Leader. President Trump on June 17 has also stated that the U.S. knows where the Iranian Ayatollah Khamenei is housed. He also called for “unconditional surrender”.

And yet the Iranian government might rather die than surrender.

Meaning the threat of force is not enough and the prospect of regime change could be counterproductive if the goal is to avert war since the perception could be that the nuclear program is what preserves the regime.

Is there any view to alternative inducements? While it might stand to reason that potentially losing power via force can compel dismantlement of the program, it also might not.

Under the NPT, states like Iran can develop nuclear power but must agree to submit to transparent IAEA inspections to ensure nuclear materials are not used for weaponization.

The IAEA said they were not complying, and so Israel, facing continued missile and terrorist proxy threats from Iran, finally attacked after decades of warnings by Israel and the U.S. that it would not accept a nuclear-armed Iran.

One question facing President Trump is whether to use bunker buster bombs to destroy the nuclear facilities at Fordow and other locations. But another is whether diplomacy still has a chance to succeed. Trump needs some carrots. Short of sanctions and force — those are already being used — what is Iran’s incentive to give up its uranium enrichment? What do they get? What do we have that they need or cannot do without?

This is where Trump’s art of the deal can come into play.

Yes, the threat of force must be credible — and it is. If somehow war is averted, it will in part be because the President was willing to use force. If America is not feared, we will find war more than we can bear. But so too must the benefits of peace be clear and undeniable if a wider war is to be averted and lives saved. As Trump has said, it’s not too late.

Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.  

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