In a day when the the US dollar reached IRR 925,800, marking a new record high against the Iranian rial, after the value of the dollar increased dramatically over the last few weeks (data below, from bne IntelliNews – Trump threats push Iran’s currency to historic low) – the nuclear talks with Trump are still the main topic of discussions among the various factions and groups, after the last speech of SL Khamenei.
Some iranian analysts commented the content of the memorandum signed on 4 february (Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Restores Maximum Pressure on Iran – The White House) restoring maximum pressure on Iran.
Mostafa Najafi, in the headline of one of his analysis, writes: “Agreement in exchange for not being bombed”. He highlights that with the Memorandum Trump has gone a step further by announcing that in the deal he will not give Teheran anything in exchange except not bombing it. In particular, he quotes the US President saying “I can not say anything about what I am going to offer Iran in exchange for this agreement because it is too unpleasant. I am not going to bomb them”.
According to the prevalent opinion of analysts and commentators, the words used by US President Trump in the recent interviews and the contents of the memo are considered by Iran as deeply humiliating and this assessment is shared by almost all the political groups. Pezeshkian and the reformists are embarrassed and under fire from the hardliners and the ultraconservatives for having supported the dialogue with US.
Conservative and principalist politician Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, member of the Expediency Council, whose daughter married Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of SL Khamenei, asks “if the problem is Trump or America”, adding that those people who argues for negotiation “should be asked whether Trump has changed and become better than before” He adds: “do not you see his bullying positions towards China, Russia, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, South Africa and especially Gaza, Palestine and Iran?” It would be good for these people, he asks, “to say what they want to give him in a deal to lift sanctions so that he will be satisfied”.
So far, the best image presented to describe how Teheran sees the “maximum pressure strategy” has been presented by Abdolreza Davari, once media advisor of Ahmadinedjad, today supporter of Ghalibaf and later Pezeshkian.
In one comment he argues: “Suppose your bully neighbour has usurped your parking space, blocked your hot water pipes, and removed your electricity meter. Now he has sent a message that if we negotiate and agree, he will not give you back the parking space and the electricity meter, nor will he open the hot water pipe, but in return he will not break the windows of your house”.
Davari believes that talks are inevitable, especially if they can contribute to solve the problems of the Country, and he says this is also the thinking of SL Khamenei. He argues that “talks for talks” are useless, mentioning as an example the talks which took place during Jalili’s era, when any progress was achieved.
IRGC linked media, like Javan, offer similar arguments against the talks while attacking the reformist camp and the Government.
I report here the full translation of the article written by Mohammad Javad Akhavan with the headline:
“read Trump’s memo at least once”
”It seems that people in Tehran may have Alzheimer’s and have completely forgotten about Trump and the realities of the American political structure, and are acting as if they have just encountered Donald Trump and his ideas. Although Trump’s executive memo is apparently not a command or order with a guarantee of execution, it makes clear what Trump is after and in fact specifies his expectations from the path of confronting Iran:
1- Although the public has heard from Trump that “Iran should not have nuclear weapons,” a study of the executive memo shows that he is not satisfied with this and has high expectations. Including “not obtaining an intercontinental ballistic missile,” which is actually a reference to shutting down Iran’s space program. It then refers to the need to “neutralize” what has been called the “Iranian terrorist network,” which we know is what the Americans mean by such phrases, the “axis of resistance.” What is even more strange is that he went further and wrote: “We must confront the development of missiles, as well as other unconventional and conventional weapons and capabilities.” In other words, stopping the development of the country’s defense and deterrence power is Trump’s declared goal.
2- The memo further specifies tasks for the Secretary of the Treasury to exert maximum economic pressure on the Iranian government, including sanctions and implementing enforcement mechanisms against those who circumvent the sanctions, as well as issuing warnings to related business sectors, including shipping, insurance, and ports, about the risks of violating sanctions against Iran and its friends. The Secretary of State is also tasked with amending or restoring existing sanctions exemptions and, in cooperation with the Secretary of the Treasury, reducing Iran’s oil exports to zero, and the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations is also tasked with working with the Europeans to activate the trigger mechanism.
3- Trump has tasked the US Attorney General’s Office to deal with financial and logistical networks, agents or front organisations based in the US supported by Iran and its friends, as well as prosecuting leaders and members of “so-called terrorist groups” supported by Iran. It is further claimed that Trump “will not tolerate their continued support for ‘terrorism’, especially against US interests,” and also claims that he will “fulfil Trump’s 2020 promise to counter Iran’s dangerous influence around the world.
In fact, this memo is nothing more than a directive to weaken the components of Iran’s national authority: the defense, scientific and economic power, the regional influence and all the great assets that have been a deterrent for the Iranian nation and, in Trump’s words, have forced the US to tolerate Iran “since 1979.”
Of course, Trump’s team, who drafted this memo for him, probably did not ask themselves why Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Biden, and also Trump himself in the previous term, who made the same promises, failed to fulfill them and were forced to endure these 46 years of this independent nation.
It is clear that Trump’s threats will not change anything in practice, but he, in the tradition of his predecessors, repeated them. Perhaps because he hopes that there are those in Tehran who, due to old age or something else, have become amnesiac and have forgotten that the US has made these threats before.
In fact, this executive memo has no content, except the “psychological pressure” and the maximum pressure that Trump tried once and repeated again, is nothing more than a structure to influence the calculations of the Iranians (both the elites and the general public). The goal is for Iran to sit at the negotiating table in a state of weakness and powerlessness and make concessions. For Trump, who once tore up the JCPOA and was not held accountable, even bringing the loser (i.e. Iran) to the negotiating table is an achievement. That is, the position of the oppressor and the oppressed is reversed, and the oppressed still makes concessions to satisfy the oppressor.
Negotiations under Trump’s psychological stick (which is of course really empty, but simple-minded people are afraid of it) not only have no benefits, but the existence of such simple-minded people will probably cause the components of Iran’s national power to be weakened and we will not get any benefits in return. To these people, we must say, even if you have forgotten the nature of America and Trump that you have experienced, read his executive memo once.”
While there are other comments along this line in many other outlets and platforms I would like to quote the renowned iranian journalist Fereshteh Sadeghi, who, today, published a tweet saying “By just reading this note (the memo), one can easily understand why Ayatollah Khamenei banned talks with the US”.
Nothing is compromised at the moment.
As analysts and commentators argue, it remains to be seen if the US strategy endorsed by Trump will also affect the “hidden channels” activated since before the official inauguration of the Trump administration. Even though positive signals emerged from Trump recently, it was to be expected, iranian commentators argue, that at least at the beginning the US President would choose the maximalist way, even in the context of the increased pressure and influence from Tel Aviv. If progress will be achieved in the future on the nuclear file, it is argued, it will not be done in public through public statements by both Khamenei and Trump.
At the end of the day, the JCPOA was reached following the secret talks between Iran and US held in Oman.