For all of Iran’s fierce verbal response to fresh US threats of tougher sanctions, some senior officials in Tehran believe the door to diplomacy should stay open.
On Monday last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presented a list of sweeping demands on Iran, including abandoning nuclear enrichment, its ballistic missile program and its role in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, or facing “the strongest sanctions in history.”
Four senior Iranian officials contacted by reporters interpreted Pompeo’s remarks as a “bargaining strategy,” similar to Washington’s approach to North Korea.
Last year, US officials were pressing for tougher sanctions against Pyongyang and sent an aircraft carrier to the region in a show of strength before relations eased to a point where US President Donald Trump might hold talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
“America does not want to get involved in another war in the region. Iran also cannot afford more economic hardship ... always there is a way to reach a compromise,” said one of the Iranian officials, who was involved in Iran’s nuclear talks with major powers for two years.
“The era of military confrontations is over,” the official said.
Like others giving their views on relations with the US, the official asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
However, it will be difficult for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to back any diplomatic solution because doing so could undermine his credibility among his hardline power base, which rejects any detente with the West.
“They [Americans] are lying. Even if Iran accepts all these demands, they will continue to demand more. Their aim is changing Iran’s regime,” said one official, who is close to Khamenei’s camp.
“Americans can never be trusted. We don’t give a damn to their threats and sanctions,” he said, echoing Khamenei’s public statements.
Pompeo’s speech did not explicitly call for a change in leadership in Iran, but he urged the Iranian people to reject their clerical rulers.
Earlier this month, the US withdrew from the multinational 2015 Iran nuclear deal framework, which restricted Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions that crippled the economy.
Tehran has said that its right to nuclear capabilities and its defensive missile program are non-negotiable.
However, with Iran’s economy so fragile, weakened by decades of sanctions, corruption and mismanagement, Khamenei might yet consider diplomacy over confrontation with the US.
Some insiders said that, although difficult, Khamenei might drink “the cup of poison,” as his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini described it when he reluctantly agreed to a UN-mediated truce that ended the 1980-to-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
“For most Iranians, the economy is the main issue, not what Iran does in the region or the country’s nuclear program,” a senior Western diplomat in Tehran said. “That is why Iranian leaders will show some flexibility, despite the harsh rhetoric.”
It was Iran’s weak economy that forced Khamenei to give tentative backing for the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers. The deal, engineered by pragmatic Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ended the country’s economic and political isolation.
The establishment’s core support comes from lower-income Iranians, who joined anti-government protests in January. The unrest was a reminder to authorities that they were vulnerable to popular anger fueled by economic hardship.
“If they fail to manage the economy, then the regime will not be able to resist the pressure,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born expert on Iran at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. “It does not mean it will fall apart, but the economy could reach its worst ever breaking point.”
European parties to the nuclear deal are trying to rescue it after Washington’s exit by keeping Iranian oil trade and investment flowing, but they have conceded that it would be difficult.
A third Iranian official said that he expected that the US would eventually have to accept some level of Iranian uranium enrichment activity and ballistic missile work because “these are Iran’s red lines.”
In his speech, Pompeo tried to quash talk of war by saying that Washington would lift punishing sanctions it is now moving to impose, restore diplomatic and commercial ties, and allow Iran to have access to advanced technology if Washington saw tangible shifts in Iran’s policies.
Several Iranian officials told reporters that the hardline elite, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, viewed Pompeo’s demands as a “declaration of war” against Iran.
Analysts said that the risk of a broader conflict could not be ruled out, despite running counter to Trump’s own stated desire to disentangle the US from a generation of costly conflicts in the Middle East.
“If Americans push Iran to the corner ... then Iran will have no other option but to react harshly,” Tehran-based analyst Saeed Leylaz said. “This is what hawks want.”
While Tehran has said that it would respond to any military aggression by targeting US interests in the region and Israel, some experts said that the country would struggle to defend itself against a direct, multifronted attack.
“Iran has done well in proxy wars, but they cannot confront Israel or the US in a direct war,” the Western diplomat said. “They don’t have modern weapons.”
Majority-Shiite Muslim Iran backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war, Shiite militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in the ongoing Yemeni Civil War and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.
Washington’s regional allies, Sunni-ruled Arab states in the Persian Gulf and Israel — staunch foes of Tehran — have all praised the US’ toughening stance on Iran.
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