Trump Kickstarts Iran-US Talks: Grand Regional Settlement for Peace is Coming

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Trump Kickstarts Iran-US Talks: Grand Regional Settlement for Peace is Coming

- A Radical Dispatch

President Trump has been in historic negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran in Oman. This is the first time the two nations are in direct dialogue, albeit with Omani mediation, since Trump withdrew from the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Al-Arabiya reports 13th April 2025:

Al-Arabiya reports 13th April 2025:

“Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held talks Saturday in Muscat, marking the highest-level Iran-US nuclear negotiations since the collapse of a 2015 accord. They agreed to meet again in seven days. He said the talks would only focus on ‘the nuclear issue and the lifting of sanctions,’ and that Iran ‘will not have any talks with the American side on any other issue.’ Analysts had said the US would push to include on the agenda discussions over Iran’s ballistic missile program along with Tehran’s support for the ‘axis of resistance’ – a network of militant groups opposed to Israel. Tehran has, however, maintained it will talk only about its nuclear program….Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah.”

Putting aside unrealistic proclamations by the Iranian side that these talks be restricted to considering only the nuclear issue and not any of the remaining regional tensions, Trump did seem to be cautiously optimistic about progress after round one.

Click to play:

President Trump: “I think they’re going okay. Well, that I can't tell you, because nothing matters until you get it done. So I don't like talking about it, but it's going okay. The Iran situation is going pretty good…I think”

A similar balanced encouragement to continue the talks has come from the Iranian side.

Sky News reports 15th April 2025:

Click to play:

Sky News: “Some breaking news to bring you now from Iran, these are quotes from the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said that the first steps in the talks between the United States and Iran regarding a nuclear agreement were carried out in a good way, adding though that he was neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic regarding the nuclear talks between Iran and the US, but remains pessimistic towards Washington itself. This is comments made by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the student news network in Iran, and it's worth noting as well that the Ayatollah is the deciding individual in Iran. It's not the politicians or the diplomats that hold the strings of power. It is that man, Ali Khamenei, who is the one that makes the overall decisions in the country. The two sides met in Muscat over the weekend. Delegations in separate rooms. The foreign minister of Oman acting as the host and go-between. Short, but it was an opening dialogue and conversation between the two sides. Donald Trump threatening Iran that if decisions and an agreement weren't made that they should expect repercussions. Well, the Ayatollah says he is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but we'll bring you more on that as we get it.”

Here is a translation of the longer statement made by the Ayatollah:

Though, Iranian state owned Press TV did report with some disappointment on Trump’s follow up comments stipulating his red line. Trump has reemphasised that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. In doing so Trump also repeated his threat that the US will strike at any Iranian nuclear facilities if a deal cannot be reached.

Press TV reports 15th April 2025:

These are the remarks in question:

Click to play:

Correspondent: “You said yesterday that you were making a decision on Iran, very quickly, what do you mean by that, is that a decision to strike Iran?”

President Trump: “…Iran wants to deal with us but they don't know how.. we had a meeting with them on Saturday we have another meeting scheduled next Saturday I said that's a long time. You know, that's a long time. So I think that might be tapping us along. But Iran has to get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. He can't have a nuclear weapon. Nobody can have. We can't have anybody having nuclear weapons. You know, can't have nuclear weapons. And I think they're tapping us along because they were so used to dealing with stupid people in this country. And I had Iran perfect. You had no attacks. You would have never had October 7 in Israel, the attack by Hamas, because Iran was broke. It was stone cold broke when I was president. And I don't want to do it. I want them to be a rich, great nation. The only thing is, one thing, simple. It’s really simple. They can't have a nuclear weapon, and they got to go fast, because they're fairly close to having one and they're not going to have one. And if we have to do something very harsh, we'll do it. And I'm not doing it for us. I'm doing it for the world. And these are radicalized people. And they cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Correspondent: “Does that include a..strike on Iranian nuclear facilities?”

Trump: “Of course it does.”

This condition of Trump’s should not be too hard to meet for the Iranians. They had, after all, already agreed to this - at least publicly - with the Obama-era JCPOA deal. If it is any consolation to the Iranians, Trump’s opposition to nuclear proliferation extends to US and Russian nukes too, as explained later in this Radical Dispatch.

The Iranian demands also appear realistically acceptable for the Americans.

So far so good.

As stated above, it is not realistic for Iran to expect these talks to not involve the other regional issues, such as Iranian support for armed militia across the region.

But assuming fairly that these talks will eventually result in a deal, Iran then joins Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine as yet more evidence for our view that a grand regional settlement for peace is coming, between the US and her Nato allies and Russia with China and their Brics allies. The real solution to Middle East wars must address the regional riddle. It cannot come in isolation.

We recently made this point as a guest on Neil Oliver’s GB news show.

Click to play:

Maajid Nawaz for Neil Oliver show on GB News: “…though it is very important that Trump does start negotiations directly with Iran. And the reason that is, if I can preempt perhaps where this conversation is going, the reason why it's so important for the the Americans to have bilateral conversation directly with Iran, is because the conflict with Iran isn't just a conflict between Israel and Iran, it's a regional conflict between Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, over not just whether or not there should be a Palestinian state, because of course, the Saudis and the Iranians agree on that element of it, Netanyahu is the obstacle there, but where the Saudis and the Iranians disagree is over things like Yemen. Now, Yemen, keep in mind, is next door to Saudi Arabia, in the Arabian Peninsula. And so it's pretty crucial, a bit like Mexico is to the US, Northern Ireland is to the UK, Yemen is pretty crucial to Saudi Arabia's national security. It sits within the same peninsula as the greater, bigger country, Saudi Arabia. And of course, Iran via the Houthi militia has a presence in Yemen. That country's been through a terrible civil war. Saudi and Iran on either end of that proxy war in Yemen, so…despite them agreeing on Palestine, Iran and Saudi Arabia disagree on Yemen, and they disagree quite viciously, not just on Yemen, prior to that on Syria. Of course Assad was allied with Iran, and the Saudis were backing the insurgents. That situation has come to a head now, and the Iranian-allied Putin-allied regime of Assad has had to flee, and he is now in Moscow. So you can see there are areas of contention between Saudi Arabia and Iran that in some instances are equal to the areas of contention that exist between Iran and Israel. So it's a very complicated geopolitical mosaic, and that's why the bilateral talks between America and Iran are important. Because if it were just an Israel-Iran dynamic, it wouldn't actually address the real problem, which is there's a wider regional struggle going on here. Of course, sectarianism, Sunni versus Shia Islamic factions, is an element, but that's insofar as because they are being exacerbated on purpose by geopolitical powers. The real problem is geo-strategic. Of course, as is always the case, people that play divide and conquer games, they will... put salt into the wounds to exacerbate existing sectarian differences, but only to achieve their political aims. So the sectarian issue is relevant, but actually what's more relevant is things like Red Sea ports, which of course the Houthis have been very, very sort of jealous over guarding, and preventing access to British and other shipping, due to the Israel conflict, but Red Sea ports and other such strategic access to both ports and water supply, which is a crucial issue in the Middle East, and then on top of that of course land such as Gaza and on a broader level Palestine, all of these become issues that become crucial to resolve. And I'll say lastly that the bilateral conversations have some precedent, Neil. If you remember, the US via Qatar had bilateral conversations with the Taliban in Afghanistan, leading to a similar exclusionary process for..Karzai's old Afghanistan regime that wasn't involved in those bilateral talks and it in the end led to the collapse of Karzai’s regime and to the coming to power of the Taliban, and I think these talks are headed in a direction where normalisation with Iran is definitely on the table.”

Our full recent interview with Neil Oliver for his GB news show on the US, Iran negotiations is found on youtube here:

The fact that the Iranian talks remain a regional issue helps to explain why the US has not let up on the pressure against Iranian interests in Yemen, while simultaneously continuing the negotiations.

Keeping the regional picture in mind also helps to explain why the US has sent an additional carrier to the Middle East while these talks continue.

New York Post reports 15th April 2025:

New York Post reports 15th April 2025:

“A second US aircraft carrier is operating in Mideast waters ahead of the next round of talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program…The operation of the USS Carl Vinson and its strike group in the Arabian Sea comes as suspected US airstrikes pounded parts of Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels overnight into Tuesday. American officials repeatedly have linked the US’ monthlong campaign against the Houthis under President Donald Trump as a means to pressure Iran in the negotiations.”

War is, after all, diplomacy by another name.

Once a bilateral deal between the US and Iran is reached, the situation in Yemen with the Houthis is expected to stabilise, as will the wider Israeli, Saudi, Iranian proxy war in the Greater Middle East.

There is cause for optimism. The Saudis had already begun similar and successful bilateral talks with Iran, brokered by the CCP two years ago.

Become a premium member of Radical Media to continue reading about how these US talks with Iran form part of an upcoming regional settlement for peace…