President Trump, in what might be a Hail Mary attempt to salvage diplomacy over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, is drafting a Tehran ally, President Putin, to help end the mullahs’ “slowwalking” and as an agreement increasingly seems elusive. Moscow has long supplied arms and diplomatic cover for Tehran. It is expected to push back against a brewing European proposal to trigger the “snapback” option at the United Nations Security Council, following a damning report from the nuclear watchdog. A UN resolution could undo the 2015 nuclear deal from which Mr. Trump bolted in 2019. It would resume all global sanctions on Iran that existed before that pact. “Widening the diplomatic front to include Iran’s lawyers on the international stage, the Russians, would be a mistake,” an Islamic Republic watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. “This would allow Putin the opportunity to feign goodwill by using Iran’s nuclear program to bargain over Ukraine.”On Wednesday, Messrs. Trump and Putin spoke on the phone for an hour and 15 minutes. It was a “good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace” in Ukraine, Mr. Trump writes on Truth Social. Yet, he adds, Moscow could help accelerate Iran diplomacy. “President Putin suggested that he will participate in the discussions with Iran and that he could, perhaps, be helpful in getting this brought to a rapid conclusion,” Mr. Trump writes. “It is my opinion that Iran has been slowwalking their decision in this very important matter, and we will need a definitive answer in a very short time.”In negotiations, “Tehran knows only two speeds, slow and slower,” the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, writes on X. Iranian diplomats seem to use haggling over details of complex agreements to extend the talks and prevent a military attack on its nuclear facilities or a return to a true “maximum pressure” campaign.A delay could postpone a censure resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of directors, which could prompt a referral of Iran’s recent violations to the UN Security Council. The snapback option is due to expire in October, and triggering it is a long process, which means that this summer is the last opportunity to reimpose global sanctions on Iran. Mr. Trump “should hold the line with the Europeans against Iran, be it at the IAEA over its comprehensive report and potential censure, as well as with snapback at the UNSC,” Mr. Ben Taleblu says.Publicly, Iranian and American officials seem to present diametrically opposed positions on the Islamic Republic’s uranium enrichment program. “Under our potential Agreement — WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM!” Mr. Trump wrote on Tuesday.“Who are you to tell Tehran whether we should have a nuclear program or not?” the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, said in a Wednesday speech summarized on X. “The U.S. nuclear proposal is 100% against the principle of our power. U.S. will not be able to weaken our nuclear programme. Tehran will not abandon its uranium enrichment work.”Compromise ideas reportedly include a temporary license for Iran to enrich uranium to up to 3.65 percent, which is below bomb grade, and to later create a regional consortium that would supply enriched uranium to Iran for its nuclear energy needs.Rather than speeding the diplomacy process, though, Mr. Trump’s new idea of involving Mr. Putin in the talks could have the opposite effect. In the past, Moscow has served as Tehran’s most effective defender in international bodies. Russia’s incentive, like Iran’s, is to prevent the conclusion of the diplomacy efforts as other options dissipate.
