Iran U.S. Talks

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Iran is approaching weekend talks with the United States over its nuclear program warily with little confidence in progress and deep suspicions of US intentions, Iranian officials said on Tuesday, with one official saying Washington’s demands are “unacceptable” to Tehran.

The talks were announced on Monday by US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military action if it does not agree to a deal since his return to the White House in January.

Iranian officials said that many of Trump’s demands would be non-starters.

“Trump wants a new deal: end Iran’s regional influence, dismantle its nuclear program, and halt its missile work. These are unacceptable to Tehran. Our nuclear program cannot be dismantled,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters.

“Our defense is non-negotiable. How can Tehran disarm when Israel has nuclear warheads? Who protects us if Israel or others strike?” said another official.

Trump has said the talks on Saturday in Oman will be direct, but Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi repeated on Tuesday Tehran’s position that they should be indirect, citing what he called US pressure and threats.

AFP)
“Indirect negotiations can guarantee a genuine and effective dialogue,” he told Iranian state news agency IRNA.

Araghchi said the talks would be led by him and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, mediated by Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi.

In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post, Araghchi reiterated that a deal would be possible if the US showed goodwill while also warning against a military strike, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday would be “inevitable” if US-Iran talks drag on.

“To move forward today, we first need to agree that there can be no ‘military option,’ let alone a ‘military solution,'” Araghchi wrote. “The proud Iranian nation, whose strength my government relies on for real deterrence, will never accept coercion and imposition.”

Pointing to the US leader’s push to end the Ukraine conflict, Araghchi said: “We cannot imagine President Trump wanting to become another US president mired in a catastrophic war in the Middle East — a conflict that would quickly extend across the region and cost exponentially more than the trillions of taxpayer dollars that his predecessors burned in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Tehran would want to see concrete gestures from the United States before any face-to-face talks between Iranian and US officials, Iranian and regional sources said.

“The Iranians told us that direct talks are possible, but there has to be a goodwill gesture. Lift some sanctions or unfreeze some money,” a regional diplomat said.

Russia backs either direct or indirect talks between Iran and the US as a chance to de-escalate tensions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, adding: “We know that certain contacts, direct and indirect, are planned in Oman.”

Russia’s lower house of parliament also ratified on Tuesday a 20-year strategic partnership with Iran, a sign of the deepening military ties between the two countries.

Efforts to settle the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, which it claims is purely for civilian use but which Western countries see as a precursor to an atomic bomb, have ebbed and flowed for more than 20 years without resolution.

There is a real danger that US President Donald Trump could agree to a mediocre nuclear deal with Iran, multiple top Israeli sources have told The Jerusalem Post.

If Trump does agree to such a deal, some of the sources are deeply concerned that the president may circumscribe the IDF’s current unique opportunity to strike the Islamic Republic.

Israel had a 'special window' to strike Iran's nuclear program
Top Israeli officials have said since October 26 that there was a special window for the air force to strike Tehran’s nuclear program since Israeli fighter jets had eliminated all of its S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems.

While Iran still has weaker anti-aircraft systems, they are presumed to be no match for the air force’s advanced fighter jets, which, in any event, bested the S-300 systems in October.

In addition, Israeli officials have noted that, currently, neither Hezbollah nor Hamas are serious retaliatory threats for Iran against Israel, given that both adversaries are themselves severely weakened.

For months, there have been high hopes from top Israeli officials that Trump would green-light a major Israeli airstrike on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, potentially even in the earlier months of 2025 that have already passed.

Given the Iranians’ known negotiating positions and Trump’s own mixed statements ranging from opening the gates of hell on Tehran to pushing hard for a deal, some Israeli sources believe that Trump’s readiness to negotiate now makes a mediocre deal more likely.

Other sources are still optimistic that, behind the scenes, Trump understands that a deal will not solve the Iran nuclear problem and that an Israeli attack will eventually be necessary or that somehow he will intimidate the Iranians into a much better nuclear deal than the 2015 version.

Virtually all sources agree that there will be major developments over the course of April on the nuclear file, though it is possible that having a final understanding of the direction of Trump’s Iran policy could extend into the summer.

England, Germany, and France have given Tehran a June deadline for progress on the nuclear standoff before they would be ready to invoke global snapback sanctions under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Trump has not been discussing that possibility as much, but it is known that he likes sanctions as a coercive tool, given that much of his first-term Iran policy was based on sanctions.

Negotiations between Iran, US due to start Saturday
Negotiations between Iran and the US are due to start Saturday in Oman, though the sides are still fighting over whether the negotiators will be direct or indirect with Oman as a mediator.

The last serious nuclear negotiations between Iran, the US, and any mediators took place in late 2023 before Hamas’s October 7 invasion.

After the massacre, the Biden administration did not view negotiations as politically viable.

Upon entering office, the Biden administration had said it was committed to renewing the 2015 nuclear deal that Trump had helped unravel during his first term after a 2018 Mossad operation revealed a variety of Iranian lies regarding its nuclear program.

There were multiple times when it seemed that the Biden administration was close to a new deal with Iran, including in the summer of 2022, but each time, either the Iranians refused to sign at the last second or some external event, such as Iran providing drones to Russia against Ukraine and NATO, derailed the talks.

Last month, Donald Trump sat at his desk in the Oval Office and personally edited the final draft of a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose government allegedly plotted to kill Trump last year.

Trump scratched out lines and phrases in a back-and-forth with aides over a missive that expressed his desire to hold direct talks with Tehran over its advancing nuclear program. The letter was then shared with diplomatic intermediaries from the United Arab Emirates, who ferried it to Tehran.

Trump’s overture to Khamenei, an 85-year-old Shi’ite cleric, also came with a warning, senior administration officials told The Free Press.

In the letter, Trump offered just a two-month window through which to enter a serious negotiation, beginning in March. Otherwise, the U.S. could support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, or potentially do it alone. “By the end of May, we could either have serious talks with Iran or the possibility of military action,” said a Trump administration official briefed on the letter.

Trump’s direct role in the letter is a dramatic evolution since his first term, when he killed an Obama-era deal aimed at restraining Iran’s nuclear program and rehabilitating its economy.

Trump 1.0 was staffed with former generals and military officers who were hawks on Iran. That team backed one of the boldest actions ever taken against the Islamic Republic: the 2020 drone strike that killed top general Qasem Soleimani at a Baghdad airport.

Trump’s new White House is singing a more dovish tune. The president and his top aides have repeatedly stressed in recent weeks their desire to avoid a direct military conflict with Iran, particularly while financial markets are whipsawing. Strikes on Iran could lead to a sharp spike in global oil prices.

Yet there is an increasingly tense divide inside Trump’s second administration on national security and foreign policy issues, officials told The Free Press.

On one side are restrainers who are deeply wary of U.S. military action. These include Vice President J.D. Vance and Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff. They are bolstered by outside MAGA figureheads, such as Tucker Carlson, who are publicly rallying against a possible Iran strike.

“Thousands of Americans would die,” Carlson wrote on X this week. “We’d lose the war that follows. Nothing would be more destructive to our country.”

On the other side are Trump cabinet officials like National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who have track records as Iran hawks. Waltz publicly pushed in recent weeks for a draconian disarmament of Iran as part of any negotiated solution.

Administration officials said that Trump’s letter expresses these two poles: reconciliation and war. And his personal involvement shows how he wants to directly manage the Iran debate and its factions.

We are likely to know more about which approach is winning after a scheduled meeting this weekend in Oman between Witkoff and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, a veteran of previous nuclear negotiations with Washington. This encounter will essentially start the clock on the president’s two-month deadline.

Details of the talks are still being hammered out, but White House officials are threatening Tehran with force if this diplomacy stalls. Iran “can strike a deal with the president,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday, “or there will be hell to pay.”

battle over Trump’s Iran policy began almost immediately after his reelection. First-term national security strategists such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook were widely expected to return. Then Trump humiliated them on social media, telling them they wouldn’t be getting jobs. Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. were among those close to Trump who pushed against Pompeo and Hook, officials told The Free Press. Pompeo and Hook had supported the Soleimani assassination, which fueled a retaliation by Tehran against U.S. military bases in Iraq. This year, Trump revoked Pompeo and Hook’s government security clearance, a move praised by Iranian state media.

Last week, Trump fired four National Security Council staffers, apparently at the advice of conspiracy theorist and MAGA influencer Laura Loomer. Three of them had worked for Waltz, Rubio, and Pompeo. “They did it to weaken” Waltz, a senior Republican staffer told The Free Press.

The friction over what to do about Iran has spread to Israel. Caroline Glick, the international affairs adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, went after Carlson on social media to counter his claims that Israel wants to drag American forces into a war with Iran. “I want to remind you that Israel has never, and will never ask, for American boots on the ground,” she wrote.

Witkoff, who will negotiate on behalf of the U.S. this weekend, hasn’t been specific about his vision. So far, he seems focused on greater inspections of Iran’s nuclear installations rather than the dismantling championed by Waltz and Netanyahu. Witkoff’s initial framing of a deal has sounded similar to the nuclear agreement Obama forged with Tehran, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia have privately voiced their concerns—if not outright opposition—to potential military strikes on Iran. This is partly because of Iranian threats to attack any country that supports a U.S. mission. The three countries also need regional stability to attract foreign investment and companies.

Facing resistance from its allies in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon deployed at least a half-dozen B-2 bombers in the past month at the joint U.S.-British military base on Diego Garcia, an island in the British Indian Ocean Territory. The presence of these bombers is significant because they have the capacity to carry the massive bunker buster bombs that would be required in any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. United States and Israeli officials said Iran’s nuclear facilities are more vulnerable following a string of attacks by the Israel Defense Forces on Iran last year.

A U.S. official told The Free Press that these bombers serve as a clear warning to Iran about the military threat to Tehran if diplomacy stalls.

battle over Trump’s Iran policy began almost immediately after his reelection. First-term national security strategists such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook were widely expected to return. Then Trump humiliated them on social media, telling them they wouldn’t be getting jobs. Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. were among those close to Trump who pushed against Pompeo and Hook, officials told The Free Press. Pompeo and Hook had supported the Soleimani assassination, which fueled a retaliation by Tehran against U.S. military bases in Iraq. This year, Trump revoked Pompeo and Hook’s government security clearance, a move praised by Iranian state media.

Last week, Trump fired four National Security Council staffers, apparently at the advice of conspiracy theorist and MAGA influencer Laura Loomer. Three of them had worked for Waltz, Rubio, and Pompeo. “They did it to weaken” Waltz, a senior Republican staffer told The Free Press.

The friction over what to do about Iran has spread to Israel. Caroline Glick, the international affairs adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, went after Carlson on social media to counter his claims that Israel wants to drag American forces into a war with Iran. “I want to remind you that Israel has never, and will never ask, for American boots on the ground,” she wrote.

Witkoff, who will negotiate on behalf of the U.S. this weekend, hasn’t been specific about his vision. So far, he seems focused on greater inspections of Iran’s nuclear installations rather than the dismantling championed by Waltz and Netanyahu. Witkoff’s initial framing of a deal has sounded similar to the nuclear agreement Obama forged with Tehran, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia have privately voiced their concerns—if not outright opposition—to potential military strikes on Iran. This is partly because of Iranian threats to attack any country that supports a U.S. mission. The three countries also need regional stability to attract foreign investment and companies.

Facing resistance from its allies in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon deployed at least a half-dozen B-2 bombers in the past month at the joint U.S.-British military base on Diego Garcia, an island in the British Indian Ocean Territory. The presence of these bombers is significant because they have the capacity to carry the massive bunker buster bombs that would be required in any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. United States and Israeli officials said Iran’s nuclear facilities are more vulnerable following a string of attacks by the Israel Defense Forces on Iran last year.

A U.S. official told The Free Press that these bombers serve as a clear warning to Iran about the military threat to Tehran if diplomacy stalls.

battle over Trump’s Iran policy began almost immediately after his reelection. First-term national security strategists such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook were widely expected to return. Then Trump humiliated them on social media, telling them they wouldn’t be getting jobs. Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. were among those close to Trump who pushed against Pompeo and Hook, officials told The Free Press. Pompeo and Hook had supported the Soleimani assassination, which fueled a retaliation by Tehran against U.S. military bases in Iraq. This year, Trump revoked Pompeo and Hook’s government security clearance, a move praised by Iranian state media.

Last week, Trump fired four National Security Council staffers, apparently at the advice of conspiracy theorist and MAGA influencer Laura Loomer. Three of them had worked for Waltz, Rubio, and Pompeo. “They did it to weaken” Waltz, a senior Republican staffer told The Free Press.

The friction over what to do about Iran has spread to Israel. Caroline Glick, the international affairs adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, went after Carlson on social media to counter his claims that Israel wants to drag American forces into a war with Iran. “I want to remind you that Israel has never, and will never ask, for American boots on the ground,” she wrote.

Witkoff, who will negotiate on behalf of the U.S. this weekend, hasn’t been specific about his vision. So far, he seems focused on greater inspections of Iran’s nuclear installations rather than the dismantling championed by Waltz and Netanyahu. Witkoff’s initial framing of a deal has sounded similar to the nuclear agreement Obama forged with Tehran, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia have privately voiced their concerns—if not outright opposition—to potential military strikes on Iran. This is partly because of Iranian threats to attack any country that supports a U.S. mission. The three countries also need regional stability to attract foreign investment and companies.

Facing resistance from its allies in the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon deployed at least a half-dozen B-2 bombers in the past month at the joint U.S.-British military base on Diego Garcia, an island in the British Indian Ocean Territory. The presence of these bombers is significant because they have the capacity to carry the massive bunker buster bombs that would be required in any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. United States and Israeli officials said Iran’s nuclear facilities are more vulnerable following a string of attacks by the Israel Defense Forces on Iran last year.

A U.S. official told The Free Press that these bombers serve as a clear warning to Iran about the military threat to Tehran if diplomacy stalls.

Trump’s administration has already started discussing potential targets inside Iran, either for Israel or the U.S., according to U.S. officials. Potential targets include Iran’s main nuclear facilities and enrichment sites as well as its ballistic missile- and drone-production facilities, according to current and former U.S. administration officials.

The deeper strategic question is whether the Trump administration would try to hit targets that could threaten the stability of the Iranian regime.

Iran has been roiled by protests in recent years, driven by everything from economic issues to the treatment of women. An American attack on the IRGC, these current and former officials said, could fuel even more unrest, as everyday Iranians see the pillars of the regime under threat.

Ahead of this weekend’s meeting in Oman, Iranian officials seem intent to reach out to the dovish side of the Trump team and to play to the president’s desire to do business. Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said any agreement with the U.S. would be as much about economics as nuclear weapons.

In a rare intervention, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was urged by his top officials to allow negotiations with the United States on the regime’s nuclear program or risk the fall of the Islamic Republic, The New York Times reported Friday.

According to The New York Times report, which cited two senior Iranian officials who are familiar with the details, Khamenei held a meeting last month attended by heads of the judiciary and parliament. Those officials, in what the sources described as an unusual, coordinated effort, pressured Khamenei into accepting talks with Washington, even direct ones.

They told Khamenei that the threat of military action by the US and Israel against its nuclear sites was serious.

“If Iran refused talks or if the negotiations failed, the officials told Mr. Khamenei, military strikes on Iran’s two main nuclear sites, Natanz and Fordow, would be inevitable,” the sources said, as reported by the Times.

The country, already in economic shambles, would be forced to respond, but then would also likely be plunged into domestic unrest if it were to go to war, they said.

The combination of such events would amount to an existential threat to the Islamic Republic, the officials reportedly told Khamenei.

The sources said that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, an ex-Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps chief and current conservative head of Parliament, told Khamenei that a war combined with a domestic economic implosion could quickly get out of control.

They also quoted President Masoud Pezeshkian as telling Khamenei that managing the country through its current crises was not tenable. The report points to power cuts that threaten to shutter factories and water shortages in the central city of Yazd, which saw schools and government offices closed this week.

Iran previously rejected talks but has since relented amid US President Donald Trump’s threats.

Hossein Mousavian, a former diplomat who served on Iran’s nuclear negotiating team on a 2015 deal and is now a visiting fellow at Princeton University, told The New York Times that the change illustrated that preserving the regime was Khamenei’s main priority.

“Mr. Khamenei’s turnaround demonstrates his long-held core principle that ‘preserving the regime is the most necessary of the necessities,’” Mousavian said.

While Khamenei relented and agreed to talks, he also imposed his own conditions, the report said.

Citing three Iranian officials, the NYT said that Khamenei agreed to discuss strict monitoring for the nuclear program and a significant reduction of the enrichment of uranium. However, he has said that Iran’s missile program is off limits, regarding it as being part of Iran’s defenses. The sources said that was a “deal breaker.”

However, the report also said that Iran was “open to discussing its regional policies” and support for its terror proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen.

Hamas and Hezbollah have been severely weakened by Israel in the conflicts since Hamas’s Oct. 7 2023 assault on southern Israel, and the US is currently carrying out massive strikes on the Houthis.

The US has vowed not to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, and Trump has repeatedly threatened “bombing” and a “very bad day for Iran” if no agreement is reached to prevent it.

Iran, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, denies seeking a nuclear weapon, but it has ramped up its enrichment of uranium to 60 percent purity, which has no application beyond nuclear weapons, and has obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities.

Iranian officials said Friday that the Islamic Republic is giving the talks “a genuine chance,” and that, if there are not further “threats and intimidation from the American side, there is a good possibility of reaching an accord.”

Araghchi was heading to Oman “with full authority for indirect negotiations with America.”

“Tehran seeks a real, just deal—away from media show and rhetoric. Key proposals are ready. If Washington shows determination for a deal, the path to agreement will be clear,” he wrote, in a message posted separately in Farsi, English, Arabic, Russian, and Hebrew.

The Iranian foreign ministry said on Friday the US should value the Islamic Republic’s decision to engage in talks despite what it called Washington’s “prevailing confrontational hoopla.”

The ministry’s spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, said Iran was “giving diplomacy a genuine chance in good faith and full vigilance,” adding, “America should appreciate this decision, which was made despite their hostile rhetoric.”

Araghchi was heading to Oman “with full authority for indirect negotiations with America.”

“Tehran seeks a real, just deal—away from media show and rhetoric. Key proposals are ready. If Washington shows determination for a deal, the path to agreement will be clear,” he wrote, in a message posted separately in Farsi, English, Arabic, Russian, and Hebrew.

The Iranian foreign ministry said on Friday the US should value the Islamic Republic’s decision to engage in talks despite what it called Washington’s “prevailing confrontational hoopla.”

The ministry’s spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, said Iran was “giving diplomacy a genuine chance in good faith and full vigilance,” adding, “America should appreciate this decision, which was made despite their hostile rhetoric.”

Hardline media in Iran voiced skepticism on the talks.

For example, the Kayhan newspaper ran editorials warning that new sanctions imposed this week showed the United States was “an enemy of Iran and its people” and dismissed negotiations to lift sanctions as a “failed strategy.”

Reformist media outlets struck a more optimistic tone, emphasizing the potential economic and investment opportunities talks could create.

Iran and the United States will hold more negotiations next week over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program, Iranian state television reported Saturday at the end of the first round of talks between the two countries since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Iran’s state-run broadcaster revealed that U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi “briefly spoke” together — the first time the two nations have done that since the Obama administration.

Tehran’s declaration that the two sides spoke face-to-face — even if briefly — suggests the negotiations went well even to Iranian state TV, which long has been controlled by hard-liners.

In a statement released Saturday afternoon, the White House described the discussions as “very positive and constructive,” while conceding the issues that need to be resolved “are very complicated.”

“Special Envoy Witkoff’s direct communication today was a step forward in achieving a mutually beneficial outcome,” the White House said.

The next round of talks will take place Saturday, April 19, according to the Iranian and American statements.

US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff appears to use a key component of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal signed during the Obama administration as a reference point for the current talks he’s holding with Tehran.

That deal, which US President Donald Trump abandoned in 2015 and has long criticized, barred Iran from enriching its uranium beyond 3.67%.

Iran “do[es] not need to enrich past 3.67%. In some circumstances. They’re at 60%, in other circumstances 20%. That cannot be,” Witkoff tells Fox News. “You do not need to run — as they claim — a civil nuclear program where you’re enriching past 3.67%.”

The comments indicate that the US is looking to limit Iran’s uranium enrichment rather than dismantle its nuclear program altogether as Israel has demanded.

Witkoff says the next round of talks with Iran will focus on “verification on the enrichment program and then ultimately verification on weaponization.”

“That includes missiles — the type of missiles that they have stockpiled there. And it includes the trigger for a bomb,” he adds.

“We’re here to see if we can solve this situation diplomatically and with dialogue. The first meeting was positive, constructive, compelling,” Witkoff says.

Pressed on whether US inspectors — rather than ones from the UN — would be the one to verify that Iran is adhering to any deal that is reached, Witkoff declines to answer directly.

Israel was preparing to launch military strikes against multiple nuclear targets in Iran—until U.S. President Donald Trump intervened, according to a New York Times report citing administration officials and other briefed on the discussions.

The Context
Israel's reported decision to call off the strikes comes as tensions between Israel, Iran and its proxies continue to escalate and Iran recently flat-out rejected U.S. demands to curb its uranium enrichment.

What To Know
The Times reported that Israel was planning to strike Iran as soon as May, but Trump stepped in because the White House was leaning toward taking a diplomatic approach toward Tehran as opposed to a military one.

According to the Times, Trump decided to negotiate with Iran after months of internal debate among administration officials who favored a stronger military stance against the rogue state and those who were wary of launching a wider war in the Middle East when tensions in the region are already at a tipping point.

According to the Times, Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the beginning of the month that Washington wouldn't support military strikes against Iran, scuttling Israel's optimism about securing American backing.

Trump said earlier this week said that he plans to make a decision regarding Iran "very quickly," following what officials said were positive nuclear talks in Oman.

But the negotiations hit a snag when Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration's special envoy to the Middle East, said Iran "must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program."

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected Witkoff's demand, saying Wednesday that Iran's uranium enrichment "is not subject to negotiation."

The absence of U.S. support—which would have ensured Israel's attack was successful and provided Israel protection from Iranian retaliation—likely pushed Israel to call off its plans to launch military strikes against Iranian targets, according to the Times.

The report added that the goal of Israel's strikes was to set Iran back at least a year in its nuclear ambitions.

Trump's decision to pursue diplomacy with Tehran stands in sharp contrast to his first term, when he voided the Iran nuclear deal that former President Barack Obama had negotiated and authorized a military strike that killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani.

What People Are Saying
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters this week: "The maximum pressure campaign on Iran continues, but as you know the President has made it clear he wants to see dialogue and discussion with Iran, while making his directive about Iran never being able to obtain nuclear weapons quite clear."

Netanyahu said in a statement delivered in Hebrew after his Oval Office meeting with Trump: A new nuclear deal with Iran will only work if Tehran allowed signatories to "go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision with American execution."

Trump called out Iran last month when he warned Houthi rebels in Yemen to stop attacking ships in the Red Sea, writing on Truth Social: "Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN."

He added: "IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!"

What Happens Next
A second round of U.S.-Iran talks is scheduled for Saturday. According to Reuters, Trump on Tuesday convened a Situation Room meeting with top national security officials to discuss Iran's nuclear program ahead of the talks.

Israel has seriously considered attacking Iran’s nuclear program multiple times since October 2024,The Jerusalem Post can reveal on Thursday, following The New York Times report.

Early Thursday, the Times reported on Israel’s hope to attack Iran’s nuclear program this May, with direct support from the US.

However, the Post understands that right after the Islamic Republic’s attack with around 200 ballistic missiles on Israel on October 1, and following the Shaldag special forces’ success against an underground clandestine facility in Syria on September 8, Jerusalem had seriously considered taking out Tehran’s nuclear program at the time.

In real time, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump even called on Israel to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program.

Multiple top Israeli officials were theoretically open to the idea, and the air force was more confident than ever that it could pull off such an operation following a successful attack on Iran in April 2024 and successful attacks on Yemen, which is even farther away from Israel than the Islamic Republic.

But top Israeli officials were not ready to carry out such an operation without US approval, including American protection from an anticipated even larger ballistic missile retaliation by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Given opposition by the Biden administration, Israel opted to eliminate Iran’s S-300 air defenses and much of its ballistic missile production capabilities.

The air force’s operation was so successful and so completely wiped out Iran’s advanced air defenses that, along with the success of the ground operation in Syria, suddenly some top Israeli officials shifted their understanding that eliminating Iran’s nuclear facilities was possible in a best case scenario, but with lots of question marks, to the idea that it was doable with very high confidence.

However, once again, Biden officials put up a stop sign, and Israeli officials decided that, given Trump’s electoral victory, they would wait for him to enter office and then try to sell him on an attack in his opening months.

Various attempts to bring Washington into attack
As the NYT correctly reports, various attempts were made to not only have Israel attack Iran but also to bring Washington into the attack.

This ran into the opposition of portions of the Trump administration, who are generally anti-war and would highly prefer a deal with Iran, especially in a scenario where the US could be dragged into a war.

Israeli officials also hoped to carry out the attack while US Central Command (CENTCOM) Commanding Officer Michael E. Kurilla was still in power, given that he is stepping down soon.

However, Trump ultimately opted for nuclear diplomacy with Iran first, and even later sent Kurilla to deliver the message that Israel would need to stand down from attacking.

NYT reveals scenarios of Israel in a hybrid attack with the US, either a massive bombing campaign or a combined attack using airstrikes and commando raids, as Israel did to Syria’s underground facility.

Iran has a major underground nuclear facility at Fordow, is building a new facility at Natanz, and has other underground facilities as well that it has advertised through public videos.

The report from the NYT does not discuss the possibility of Israel attacking Iran alone, which top Israeli defense officials believe it could pull off, though they would highly prefer a US missile defense blanket and even some direct American involvement in the attack.

Some Israeli officials are concerned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put too much emphasis on Israel carrying out such an attack only with the direct involvement of the US – something which seems less necessary given that they view Iran’s remaining air defenses as negligible compared to Israel’s cutting-edge air power capabilities.

The leak of Israeli plans to the NYT appears to be an American attempt to send a message to Khamenei about how close he came to losing his nuclear program and how close he could come if the current nuclear talks do not succeed.

However, if US President Donald Trump does strike a deal with Khamenei, and if that deal is “mediocre” by Israeli standards, Jerusalem may need to act alone.

Trump recently sent CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Israel to meet with Netanyahu and Mossad Director David Barnea to discuss various such covert options, which would still fall short of an open major air strike.

The book Target Tehran describes Mossad operations and alleged Mossad operations from 2002 to 2023, destroying nuclear facilities at Natanz twice, at Karaj, Iranian drone facilities, assassinating Tehran’s nuclear chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and other operations.
Some of these attacks took place during Barnea’s era.

The Post understands that Barnea and Ratcliffe have an excellent relationship and have met multiple times already since the new CIA director took office, with many American intelligence officials entranced by Israel’s operations against Iran over the years and its beeper attacks against Hezbollah in September 2024.

Within Israel, the heated debate is ongoing about how long Israel can wait to attack Iran to see if Trump can get a sufficient nuclear deal to push back the Iranian nuclear threat, and whether it should still launch airstrikes or covert attacks in the event of a mediocre deal by Trump.

Iran’s nuclear program has been delayed by nearly a decade due to a series of overt and covert operations directed by Netanyahu, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement released Wednesday.

Netanyahu directed “countless overt and covert operations” that have been instrumental in preventing the Islamic Republic from acquiring a nuclear arsenal, the PMO claimed, efforts that have set back Iran’s nuclear program by nearly ten years.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has led the global campaign against Iran’s nuclear program for over a decade – even when others dismissed the threat, calling it a ‘political spin’ and labeling the prime minister ‘paranoid,’” the statement read.

Trump blocked a planned Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites in favor of negotiating a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing administration officials and others with information on the matter.

The PMO emphasized that the delay was made possible by Netanyahu’s insistence on maintaining a firm and often controversial stance on Iran despite facing considerable opposition both at home and abroad.

“As the prime minister has stated repeatedly: Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons,” the statement said.

Netanyahu has avoided denying that Trump had blocked the strike.

Trump’s decision came after discussions on whether to provide support to the Jewish state or follow a diplomatic course, with some in Washington favoring a more hawkish approach. In contrast, others were dubious that a strike could destroy the Islamic Republic’s nuclear capabilities.

However, an agreement was ultimately obtained, deciding against military action as Iran consented to talks.

The president told Israel of his decision earlier in April, according to the report, prompting Netanyahu’s Washington visit.

Israel had made plans, according to the report, to attack Iranian nuclear sites next month, with the IDF prepared to carry them out with US endorsement.

This endorsement would be key to the success of Israel’s plan, which would require US help, rendering Israel’s ally a key agent in the attack.

The NYT report said that multiple officials briefed on Israel’s plans and confidential discussions inside the Trump administration who spoke on condition of anonymity stated that Israel long planned to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, including “rehearsing bombing runs and calculating how much damage it could do with or without American help.”

This was escalated as support within the Israeli cabinet for a strike grew after Iran suffered a “string of setbacks” in 2024, such as the April 14 ballistic missile attack on Israel when most of their missiles were unable to penetrate American and Israeli defenses, as well as the attacks on Hezbollah, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s rule over Syria cutting off a prime weapons smuggling route for Iran, the destruction of air defense systems in Iran and Syria, and that of facilities that Iran uses to make fuel for its ballistic missiles.

Who leaked this story to the New York Times and why?
Former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, along with former defense minister Avigdor Liberman, who are rivals of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, all slammed him over the leaked story. They even alleged that Netanyahu leaked it in order to try to protect himself from political attacks for having talked tough but done little against Iran during this period.

Since October 2024, Bennett and Liberman have repeatedly called on Netanyahu to attack the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites, while Lapid previously called on Netanyahu to strike Tehran’s oil fields.

However, when looking over the reporters involved in the NYT article, there were five names listed, and the lead reporters were American – not Israeli reporter Ronen Bergman, who was listed fifth.

This suggests that most of the reports came from leaks from American officials, though Netanyahu occasionally leaks directly to American journalists.

A Netanyahu leak?
To the extent that parts of the story may have come from Netanyahu, this would be to explain why he has not attacked Iran’s nuclear program by putting the onus on US President Donald Trump.

Insofar as parts of the story came from American officials, this could be both to message the US public about the complex dilemmas of negotiating vs attacking Iran and to convey a message to Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Regarding Khamenei, the message may also be dual – between letting him know how close he came in the recent past to watching his nuclear program burst out in flames and to how close Israel may be to attacking that program in the near future if no deal is cut.

One fascinating piece of the article was the open discussion on the potential deployment of Israeli commandos on the ground in Iran to tackle the country’s underground nuclear facilities.

Israel’s capability for attacking Khamenei’s nuclear facilities underground only became familiar to the public on January 2 of this year. That was when the September 8, 2024, Israeli commando operation against Syria was revealed. Even after that revelation, dropping hints that something similar could be done in Iran was often seen as off-limits for Israeli journalists or could only be done with vague hints.

So, on the one hand, this article may be politically self-serving to Netanyahu and could be used to attack him for playing politics with potential classified war plans.

Alternatively, since Iran started to attack Israel directly in 2024, the Jewish state has been far more open about what it has done and can do to Iran in order to deter or intimidate Khamenei into nuclear concessions.

Whether these messages make a nuclear deal more or less likely and how much they may move Khamenei to make more significant nuclear concessions remains to be seen.

A second round of high-stakes talks between the United States and Iran concluded Saturday in Rome with "very good progress," a senior official in President Donald Trump's administration said.

Talks will continue next week, the official said in a statement.

“Today, in Rome over four hours in our second round of talks, we made very good progress in our direct and indirect discussions," the official said. "We agreed to meet again next week and are grateful to our Omani partners for facilitating these talks and to our Italian partners for hosting us today.”

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi both arrived late Saturday morning for the negotiations at the Omani Embassy in Rome. The talks took place as both sides sought to ease growing tensions over potential military action and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

At risk is a possible American or Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, or the Iranians following through on their threats to pursue a nuclear weapon.

Following the talks, Araghchi told Iranian state television they were "held in a constructive atmosphere" and "moving forward."

"There is no reason for too much optimism, we cannot say that we are really optimistic," he told the outlet. "We must be very cautious, but there is no reason for much pessimism either."

In a statement, Oman’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Witkoff and Araghchi agreed to enter the next phase of discussions “that aim to seal a fair, enduring and binding deal.” The statement said the deal will ensure Iran is free of nuclear weapons and lift sanctions against the country while continuing to allow it “to develop peaceful nuclear energy.”

The next round of discussions will take place in Oman’s capital, Muscat, “in the next few days,” according to the country’s foreign ministry.

The talks were mediated by Oman, which also hosted a first round of negotiations between the two men in Muscat last Saturday. That paved the way for another meeting as both countries move toward cautious diplomacy.

“I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said Friday. “I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”