On the eve of Saturday’s talks at Oman that are being hailed by President Trump as “very important,” Israel is skeptical that they will end the Islamic Republic’s nuclear threat, while Tehran is adamant that it will refuse to dismantle the infrastructure that puts it on the doorstep of a nuclear bomb.

Inside the Trump administration there is a debate over the goal of the upcoming talks. Will they result in merely freezing the Iranian nuclear program at its current level or will they significantly reverse Tehran’s accumulating advances? According to the International Atomic Energy Agency and other sources, Iran is now in a position to quickly manufacture a nuclear weapon — within weeks after deciding to do so.  

“Any deal that doesn’t lead to dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure “would not be worth the paper it’s written on,” an Iran watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. With such a pact, he adds, Mr. Trump “might be replicating the same series of mistakes that led to Obama’s flawed 2015 accord.”

Key elements of the Obama-era deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, will expire by October. All restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will end within five years. As President Biden attempted to negotiate an extension of the JCPOA, Tehran negotiators led him by the nose. No deal was reached. 

“The Iranians are master negotiators,” the head of the Iran desk at Middle East Media Research Institute, Ayelet Savion, tells Kann News. With Mr. Biden, “they achieved all their goals, and they will likely achieve them now too.” Like many in Israel, she said Mr. Trump’s announcement of “direct” talks with Tehran was a setback to the goals of his guest, Prime Minister Netanyahu. 

Israel and America “agree that Iran must never obtain nuclear weapons,” Mr. Netanyahu countered in a Hebrew-language video posted on Tuesday. “That can be achieved through a deal, but only one modeled after Libya’s, where the U.S. goes in, dismantles the facilities, and destroys the equipment under its own supervision.” If Iran attempts to use its delay tactics, he added, “the alternative is military action, and everyone knows it.”

Even as Mr. Trump announced on Monday the launch of negotiations, the Carl Vinson strike group was on its way to the Gulf to join the USS Harry S. Truman. An undisclosed number of F-35 fighter jets were also dispatched to the region. B-2 Spirit stealth bombers are stationed nearby at the Diego Garcia air base in the Indian Ocean.

While some of this growing firepower in the region is directed at the Tehran-backed Houthis, it gives the Islamic Republic an extra incentive to negotiate. Until now, the supreme leader, Ali Khamanei, insisted there was no use in talking to Mr. Trump. Now the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, says there will be “indirect” talks.  

The talks will be direct, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, insisted Tuesday. Mr. Trump, she said, “has re-imposed crippling sanctions on the Iranian regime and he’s made it very clear to Iran they have a choice to make: You can strike a deal with the president, you can negotiate, or there will be hell to pay.”

Yet, what kind of a deal? For now Tehran is adamant that reversing its nuclear program’s gains is out of the question. “Our nuclear program cannot be dismantled,” an unidentified senior Tehran official told Reuters. In a tacit admission of Iran’s long-denied pursuit of a nuclear weapon, another official added, “How can Tehran disarm when Israel has nuclear warheads? Who protects us if Israel or others strike?”

Mr. Araghchi will reportedly be the Tehran point-man to the Oman talks, while Mr. Trump’s top negotiator, Steven Witkoff, will represent America. “We should create a verification program, so that nobody worries about weaponization of your nuclear material,” Mr. Witkoff told podcaster Tucker Carlson in March. The statement was widely interpreted as an agreement to freeze the nuclear program as is, rather than dismantle it. 

Administration hawks say the goal is more ambitious. Mr. Trump “has made very clear that what we’re not going to do is get into the Biden trap, where you do indirect talks that last for years, and the Iranians just string us along,” the Department of State’s deputy Mideast envoy, Morgan Ortagus, told Al Arabiya Tuesday. Talks “need to be quick. They need to be serious about dismantling their nuclear weapons program.” Tehran officials, though, are making clear that dismantlement is out of the question.