Iran’s Supreme Leader Imam Khamenei (R) met with Iran Air Force and Air Defense Force commanders, Tehran, February 7, 2025
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, made a memorable speech to the stormy Labour Party annual conference in 2016, while per forma congratulating Jeremy Corbyn for winning the leadership election with an increased mandate but remaining sceptical that the party would be “trusted to govern again”.
He began the speech saying: “Labour in power. Not just talking the talk, but walking the walk too. Never sacrificing or selling out on our ideals, but putting them in action every single day.”
Khan forecast that Corbyn was “extremely unlikely” to lead Labour back into No 10. He proved right.
A whiff of wariness bordering on pessimism about the prospect of reaching an enduring nuclear deal with the US permeated the remarks by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 7 in Tehran in an address to the top military officials.
It was an unusual speech, coming just three days after the US president Donald Trump signed the National Security Presidential Memorandum imposing “maximum pressure” on Iran to deny it “all paths to a nuclear weapon” on February 4. (See my blog Trump revives ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran but adds a message on US-Iran deal, Indian Punchline, Feb. 7, 2025)
Succinctly put, the Supreme Leader made the following observations:
- A nuclear deal per se is not panacea for Iran’s problems.
- The JCPOA experience shows the US cannot be trusted. While President Barack Obama didn’t follow up that 2015 deal, President Donald Trump simply tore it up.
- In retrospect, all the negotiations and all the concessions and compromises that Iran made turned out to be futile.
- Negotiating with the US, therefore, is neither a wise nor intelligent thing to do or even an honourable thing.
Indeed, there is no substantive change in the US attitude toward Iran since 2015 when the Obama administration negotiated the JCPOA. Therefore, Khamenei’s remarks principally addressed the polarised domestic public opinion within Iran regarding the efficacy and purpose of renewed negotiations with the US, and implicitly urged national unity. This is the main thing.
As for the future course of action, it is for the government to decide. President Masoud Pezeshkian who has prided himself on being a follower of the Leader since his time as lawmaker, is yet to react to Trump’s stated willingness to meet him.
Instead he echoed Khamenei’s sentiments tangentially: “We and our children are capable of creating a better future with what we have. We just need to believe in ourself and realise that we can. When we develop a deep and long-term vision, we can achieve and undertake the actions we desire.”
The government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani also took a tangential line in her post on X that the government will do its best to abide by the Leader’s directive and resonate a unified voice from Iran. “While everyone is aware of the problems, today we need more unity and solidarity than yesterday to overcome these issues”, she wrote, adding at the same time, “Negotiations with European countries will continue, and everyone knows well that Iran will not engage in negotiations if they are dishonourable.”
Interestingly, Mohajerani also avoided making any direct reference to the Trump administration.
Evidently, the elites in Tehran are circling the wagons in anticipation of negotiations. Iran’s hardline Majlis Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf too affirmed Ayatollah Khamenei’s stance, asking his colleagues in the legislative body and other government branches to refrain from creating divisions.
“There should not be any duality here. The nature of the Leader’s remarks was firm, definitive, and different from the past.” [Emphasis added.]
The bottom line is that the diplomatic track led by the astute former career diplomat and ambassador, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (a former IRGC official, by the way), is what needs to be watched closely. Araghchi is a veteran nuclear negotiator himself who had a key role in the talks leading to the JCPOA when he was Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister during the administration of Hassan Rouhani..
What is most striking is that there is remarkable consistency in what Araghchi had said in a recent Sky News in an interview with its International Editor Dominic Waghorn some ten days ago and what he said today, two days after Khamenei spoke.
Indeed, the interview was conducted in the foreign ministry building in Tehran — an unusual gesture extended to a western editor. Waghorn is been one of the most experienced foreign correspondents in the West today, leading coverage in China, the Middle East and the US, who has interviewed Trump amongst other world leaders.
When Waghorn drew Araghchi’s attention to Trump’s recent hints that he would prefer a diplomatic solution — even saying a new deal with Iran would be “nice” — the top Iranian diplomat stated that although he was prepared to listen to the US President, it would take a lot more than that for Iran to be convinced it should begin negotiations for a new deal.
As he put it, “The situation is different and much more difficult than the previous time. Lots of things should be done by the other side to buy our confidence… We haven’t heard anything but the ‘nice’ word, and this is obviously not enough.”
In sum, there is a trust deficit which first needs to be overcome and that initiative has to come from the White House. Nice words cannot be the basis of serious negotiations between to intractable adversaries.
Waghorn himself had commented, “Iranians we spoke to on the streets of Tehran said they hoped a deal could be done with the West if it could lead to a lifting of sanctions and an improvement in Iran’s dire economic fortunes… Trust between Iran and America is also at rock bottom levels. Making progress towards any agreement and lifting sanctions will be enormously challenging.”
Now, fast forward. On Saturday evening in Tehran, the day after Khamenei spoke, Araghchi underscored, while addressing a gathering that included top officials and members of parliament, that the US sanctions currently in place against the Iranian people are “cruel”, and they are a big obstacle in the way of Iran’s economic development, which needs to be lifted, but that has to be through negotiations and not the “maximum pressure” policies announced by Trump in his presidential memo on February 7.
Araghchi said there are two tasks to be accomplished. The first one is to lift the sanctions through “negotiations and interaction with others.” The second one is to “nullify” the negative impact of the sanctions, which requires self-reliance, and is “prioritised” by the government and is also being regarded as a public duty.
Araghchi stressed: “Lifting the sanctions requires negotiations, but not under the maximum pressure policy. Negotiation cannot be carried out from a weak stance, as it will no longer be considered negotiation, but will be a kind of surrender. We never go to the negotiating table this way.”
That is to say, negotiations with the US and the advancement of Iran’s agenda of “self-reliance” to mitigate the negative impact of the sanctions are not mutually exclusive or is not a binary issue, as some observers of Khamenei’s remarks might misconstrue, but can be mutually reinforcing.
However, the big question remains: Is Trump who is walking the talk, also willing to walk the walk? It needs a subtlety of mind and creative thinking to do that. The crux of the matter is that the Trump administration is packed with one-dimensional men — hawks and super hawks on Iran.