With Iran Nuclear Talks at an Impasse, Trump and Netanyahu May Be Weighing an End to Diplomacy

As a 60-day deadline for an Iran deal expires Wednesday and negotiations with the Islamic Republic appear to be stuck, President Trump’s Monday phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu is raising speculation that options other than diplomacy are on the table. Mr. Trump’s special envoy, Steven Witkoff, is scheduled to meet Iranian counterparts on Thursday, the president told reporters after his 40-minute conversation with the Israeli leader. Mr. Trump said he had a “good conversation” with Mr. Netanyahu, adding that he is trying to prevent “destruction” and “death” in Iran but that a deal “might not” work out. “They seek enrichment, we can’t have enrichment,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Iranian uranium. “We want just the opposite. And so far, they’re not there. I hate to say that, because the alternative is a very, very dire one.” The Iranians “have given us their thoughts,” he added. “I said, you know, it’s just not acceptable.”As he launched the talks with Iran, Mr. Trump reportedly warned Israel to refrain from any military action while he is trying to reach a deal. Now, Israeli officials are skeptical that any deal is possible. After the phone call with the president, Mr. Netanyahu convened the Israeli security cabinet for a long meeting, during which military planners were reportedly told to prepare for a possible end of the talks. “You can bet that serious planning for strikes is in progress at the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, and Israeli Defense Forces headquarters,” a former supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, James Stavridis, writes in a Bloomberg column. “If Tehran blows this chance to negotiate with the U.S., it is headed to a very dark endgame.”Iran will respond in writing to Mr. Witkoff’s proposal on Tuesday, the government-controlled Tasnim news agency reports. Despite completely opposite views on enrichment, though, the Iranians are unlikely to completely turn their backs on diplomacy. “There is a Persian saying, ‘He pushes away with the hand and pulls toward with the foot,’” an Iran watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. “Tehran’s version of the art of the deal never involves saying no directly. It’s all about tempting Trump to stay at the table to buy time.”Mr. Trump vowed he would not allow Tehran to “slowwalk” diplomacy. Back in 2016 he criticized President Obama for not walking away from talks that led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Will he now lose his patience as Iranian diplomats play for time? As Tehran begs for an easing of economic pressure, Mr. Trump is imposing new sanctions almost daily. At Vienna Monday, the 35-member International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of directors heard a bleak new report, including the discovery by inspectors of three previously undeclared nuclear sites in Iran. Due to that and other “outstanding safeguard issues,” the IAEA “will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful,” its director general, Rafael Grossi, told the board in his Monday report. America and three European powers are preparing a censure resolution that will include the “finding that Iran has violated its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, tells the Sun.The resolution, Mr. Brodsky says, will likely allow Iran a small window of time to resolve the outstanding safeguard issues, after which the IAEA board will refer the file to the United Nation Security Council. By August, the council will likely pass a resolution to “snapback” the JCPOA, which will put back in place all previous global sanctions on Iran.Tehran, meanwhile, is warning Israel to refrain from attacking its nuclear sites. “In the event of aggression, the Israeli regime’s hidden nuclear facilities will be targeted,” the Islamic Republic’s Supreme National Security Council wrote in a statement Monday. Iranian news outlets are bragging about a theft of documents related to Israel’s nuclear program.The boast seemed to mirror a 2018 Mossad operation that secured the transfer to Israel of a trove of documents from an Iranian nuclear archive. This week’s alleged Iranian document theft, though, is likely mostly unclassified material not from Israel’s main nuclear plant at Dimona. It “seems to refer to Sorek, which is a research facility, which we inspect,” Mr. Grossi told an Iranian reporter Monday. The Islamic Republic’s top proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, have been significantly weakened by Israel, as Syria’s new regime is blocking Iranian attempts to rearm the Lebanese terror organization. The Houthis’ attacks on Israel are mostly ineffective, and Iran’s air defenses are yet to recover from a debilitating Israeli attack earlier this year. Israelis increasingly believe that now is the time for that “dire” alternative to endless negotiations.

With Iran Nuclear Talks at an Impasse, Trump and Netanyahu May Be Weighing an End to Diplomacy

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