Transcript: Iran’s nuclear talks could reshape the Middle East

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Iran’s nuclear talks could reshape the Middle East’

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Gideon Rachman
Hello, and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times.

This week’s podcast is about Iran’s nuclear programme and the threat of another war in the Middle East. My guest is Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East Programme at Chatham House here in London.

Nuclear talks between the US and Iran began in Oman last weekend and are set to continue soon. President Trump’s repeatedly warned that if the talks fail, military action is the alternative. So, is Iran heading for a new nuclear deal or for war?

Donald Trump voice clip
With Iran, yeah, if it requires military, we’re gonna have military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that. He’ll be the leader of that. But nobody leads us. We do what we wanna do.

Gideon Rachman
That was, of course, President Trump with an unambiguous threat towards Iran. It all sounds very alarming, but talk of a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear programme has been around for decades, and there have been previous rounds of talks and deals reached and then broken. So, I began my conversation with Sanam Vakil by asking her what’s different this time.

Sanam Vakil
Well, 10 years on from the Iran nuclear agreement, the landscape has changed geopolitically, regionally, within Iran, and of course, considering Iran’s nuclear programme. Looking bottom up, Iran’s nuclear programme has advanced significantly since the US withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018.

Gideon Rachman
That’s the one known as the JCPOA.

Sanam Vakil
Yes, yes, that’s right. And Iran took to advancing its programme to pressure the international community to come back to the negotiating table. There were efforts at renegotiating under the Biden administration that didn’t result in any new arrangement. But basically, Iran has increased enrichment, increased its centrifuge production, and it is closer today to a nuclear weapon or is seen by experts as a threshold state.

Regionally, since October 7th, the landscape has very much changed. Israel has taken a very direct military approach to set back the axis of resistance. Iran backed proxies in the region and has certainly weakened Hamas and Hizbollah, and Bashar al-Assad’s defeat in Syria has damaged Iran’s defence posture across the region. There have also been direct strikes between Israel and Iran in 2024. And so, Iran certainly is backfooted. And then, you know, more broadly, there is the geopolitical angle to consider.

Iran has become closer to China and Russia. Europe has been trying to save the Iran nuclear agreement but is increasingly frustrated by Iran’s nuclear activities, support for Russia and the war in Ukraine, but also for Iran’s detainment of European nationals and dual nationals as well.

So, in this climate, we have an advanced nuclear programme, a threat of a military campaign against Iran, but also an opportunity between Tehran and Washington in a very short time period to kind of bridge these tensions and arrive at a potential new nuclear agreement, unclear if it’s gonna be bigger or better.

Gideon Rachman
So, you said in a very short time period. Why is that? Because people are saying they’ve got to do this in months, and normally, these negotiations can go on for literally years.

Sanam Vakil
The time sensitivity is connected to the original Iran nuclear agreement that had sunset clauses or expiration dates and one of the expiration dates, even though the agreement is basically non-operational, is October 18th of this year, where European countries that were signatories — Germany, France and the UK — have said that if there is no new arrangement, they will impose snapback sanctions against Iran. And that would lead to more multilateral alignment between Europe and the United States and potentially take Iran’s file to the UN Security Council again. So, we are racing against that clock. And that clock is actually not really October 2025, but somewhere this summer, because that process needs reportedly 90 days to start and they’ve suggested that this process needs to begin by July. So that’s the clock we’re racing against.

Gideon Rachman
And we’re also racing against, as you say, the clock of a potential war. And that’s interesting, the way you put it. I mean, the Israelis are very open now that they would like to attack Iran, yeah?

Sanam Vakil
Yes, they are. They see Iran as set back. They have hit Iran twice in 2024, in April and in October. And the October strike targeted Iran’s air defences. So they really see this as a historic once-in-a-generation opportunity to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and try and extend the sunsets, if you will, by taking out as much of Iran’s capabilities as possible. By doing that though, of course, there’s some very clear risks.

First of all, over the past year, as Iran has seen the axis of resistance and its defence posture collapsed, it has begun to openly discuss the possibility of weaponising its nuclear programme. This could very much be about pressure and leverage building as well, but that open discussion is certainly alarming.

Secondly, of course, Israel could and has shown that it can hit Iran and come home, but obviously the bigger risk is what happens the day after. And this isn’t going to be a one-and-done-type strike. It would be multiple strikes that would be needed. And that wouldn’t really eradicate Iranian knowhow. The knowledge that Iran has built cannot be eliminated.

And thirdly, I think the important risk to bear out is that it isn’t necessarily going to collapse the programme, but could actually spill over into a broader regional war where Iran has very clearly threatened to attack infrastructure around the region, if not US bases, US personnel. And that could just lead to a conflict that would be devastating, not just for Iranians, but for a region that has seen so much conflict over the past 18 months.

There is an expectation or a hope that a weakened Iran and strikes on Iran would lead to the final collapse of the weakened Islamic republic. And I think that is a misinterpretation of the regime in Tehran, its institutions and also the intent of the people to uprise. This could have a blowback and build back legitimacy for the Islamic republic, maybe not in a meaningful way, but Iranians are very nationalistic. And it’s important to not underestimate the power of that nationalism under a military strike.

Gideon Rachman
And how do you think Trump is approaching this? Because on the one hand, he likes to portray himself as a tough guy, but also as a peacemaker. He’s also very pro-Israel, but Israel at the moment is pushing for war, and he is pushing from negotiations. I mean, he’s so unpredictable, but how do we see him handling this? What would the Americans actually want?

Sanam Vakil
I think the president is trying to compartmentalise the very active and dangerous Middle East files. He clearly has seen Prime Minister Netanyahu twice in the White House. On both occasions, it appears that he’s given Netanyahu a very long runway to get the job done in Gaza. But I think in tandem to that, President Trump has tried to segregate the Iran file and take it away from Netanyahu, effectively. President Trump signed an executive order on February 4th, imposing maximum pressure sanctions against Iran, but at the same time, said very clearly that he would prefer to make a deal and he’d prefer to resolve tensions with Iran in a peaceful way, which clearly goes against what policymakers and what the prime minister in Israel is pushing for.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, and we saw during the Biden administration that at times, the Israelis were quite prepared to ignore what the White House was saying. I mean, most obviously they attacked Lebanon when the White House, as far as we know, was saying, don’t do this. Do you think they would defy Trump in the same way they defied Biden?

Sanam Vakil
As of right now, it appears Netanyahu has a free rein of action on and around its borders, but not beyond that. And I think the prime minister and the US president don’t seem to have as close relations as, let’s say, the Israelis would like to. And so he, I think, will be quite careful in pushing for a military attack, but he also has to be quite careful in not spoiling the negotiations. And that’s something we have to watch out for in the coming months, should negotiations continue and gain momentum.

Gideon Rachman
Because the negotiations are being handled by the extremely busy Steve Witkoff, who is also simultaneously trying to negotiate and enter the Russia-Ukraine war, and I think has been involved with Gaza as well. So, what do we know of Witkoff’s approach to Iran? When we say a deal, as I understand it, you could either be talking about, like, dismantling the Iranian nuclear programme, or you could be talking about sort of mothballing it. Where do you think he stands on that?

Sanam Vakil
Well, I think that’s what the Iranians were trying to get a sense of in these last meetings that were held just last weekend in Oman. And I think they came away understanding that the dismantling, or what is known as the Libya model, which is what Israel is pushing for, is not what the US is really seeking, but in fact is looking to blend down, scale down Iran’s nuclear programme and perhaps extend the sunsets or timelines of the nuclear deal and create a sort of similar deal to the JCPOA with some add-ons perhaps.

Gideon Rachman
Which is the one that Trump said was a terrible deal that he ripped out.

Sanam Vakil
Exactly.

Gideon Rachman
But in a way, they’re in a worse position than at the time they negotiated the JCPOA, because Iran is very close to a bomb, isn’t it? I mean, they would really have to scale it back quite a lot because from what I read, they could . . . Is it weeks or months?

Sanam Vakil
Well, there are certain debates about weeks or months, but Iran is a threshold state. It has the capabilities. It has the knowhow. It would take a number of weeks at which, I think, the intelligence community would be aware of what Iran was trying to do. It’s important to note that the National Intelligence Council and Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s appointee, has recently said that Iran has not yet decided to weaponise its programme.

So the focus is about taking back Iran’s programme and preventing weaponisation. And that would require this new agreement to limit Iran’s enrichment activities, blend down its stockpile, and set up a new inspections regime that was previously handled by the IAEA. They could perhaps continue that oversight. And Rafael Grossi is actually going to Tehran this week perhaps to kickstart that process.

Gideon Rachman
So it sounds like the Americans are adopting almost quite a conventional approach for Trump.

Sanam Vakil
For now, it appears so. Now, last week in Muscat, the discussions were very high-level. They didn’t get into the details. So what we’re going to see in the talks this weekend, and perhaps in the weeks ahead would be simultaneous working groups that are put together to look at how to scale down Iran’s nuclear programme in a timely manner while looking at how sanctions relief can be granted. The JCPOA, while it did constrain Iran’s nuclear programme, and there are important points here.

One, on the first page of the JCPOA, Iran did commit to never pursuing a nuclear weapon. But two, the agreement was repeatedly verified by the IAEA 14 times actually to confirm Iran’s verification. But what Iran was not happy about with the JCPOA is that it wasn’t obtaining the so-called sanctions relief that it was seeking because there were so many additional sanctions on Iran that were preventing western businesses from coming back into the country. So, the sanctions framework that is developed also requires a lot of work and Iran is gonna be looking for perpetual sanctions guarantees if it restrains this nuclear programme in a meaningful way.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t think you’d get anything perpetual from Donald Trump. I mean he seems to change his mind every week.

Sanam Vakil
You would think so. I think that the Iranians are looking at this situation and assessing that perhaps Donald Trump has the capability to muscle Congress to support sanctions relief for Iran. And this could be, from Tehran’s perspective, an equal opportunity to extract as many economic benefits as possible, knowing full well that it might not be a sustainable deal.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, I mean, give me a sense of how the Iranians are approaching this. I mean, you say they have a realistic hope of some kind of sanctions relief. We also discussed this Israeli perception that the Iranians are in a weaker position than they’ve been for a very long time with their proxies, you know, taken out to some extent and having been attacked. So, are they approaching this in a state of anxiety that they’ve got months to stave off an attack or do they see this as an opportunity? How do you think they’re thinking about this?

Sanam Vakil
I think this is both an opportunity and of course a serious challenge, but Iran has been preparing for these negotiations much earlier. It’s important to remember that last year, Iran held snap presidential elections after its previous president mysteriously died in a helicopter accident. The new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is relatively moderate and came into office promising sanctions relief. And sanctions relief can only really come to Iranians if there is a broader negotiation. So the system in Iran was relatively aligned in this way. And I think over the past months, although rhetoric has become heated and Iran’s supreme leader also got involved and said there should be no direct negotiations with Washington, they’re aware that without negotiations, of course, there will be mountains of further sanctions and oversight preventing Iran from exporting oil, and they’ve been able to continue to do so.

And at the same time, the military strikes very much loom, and that of course is not in their interest in tandem to thinking about the domestic climate where the economic impact of sanctions has really transferred to increasing levels of poverty, high degrees of inflation, massive depreciation of their currency. And ultimately, of course, they have seen rounds of very serious protests inside the country. So, it’s a triple threat, if you will. And so negotiations stave that off, and perhaps buy them the economic relief and time to build back economic resilience and popular legitimacy, if that’s even imaginable.

Gideon Rachman
You said that, obviously, they’re very scared of international isolation, but there was all this discussion, mainly actually before Trump came back to power, but from the Biden team of this idea of an axis of adversaries of where Iran was working quite closely with Russia, with China, with North Korea. How real was that, or is it?

Sanam Vakil
Well, it’s not just Washington that talks about the axis of adversaries or upheaval. Many countries do, including here in the UK. I think these countries have long had relationships, but they’re not operating as an axis. There are certain economic opportunities and there’s the necessity of isolation and sanctions that has led to increased co-operation, particularly between Iran and Russia, for example, since the war in Ukraine. There have been long-standing military contacts and engagement, but this has yet to really become a united adversarial axis. And the more that we talk about them as an axis, I think there is greater impetus and opportunity for them to become something that they are not yet.

Gideon Rachman
But has, over the course of the Russia-Ukraine war, Iran worked quite closely with the Russians and perhaps with the Chinese on oil and other things?

Sanam Vakil
Well, the Chinese have been certainly purchasing Iranian oil and helping Iran survive sanctions, selling up to 1.5mn barrels a day. And Iran has built a shadow supply chain to circumvent sanctions. And it’s also helped the Russians do so. Iran has signed a treaty with the Russians just recently to increase economic and military co-operation, but there are equally frustrations on the Iranian side, where Iran would have liked to see greater Chinese investment inside the country, and the Chinese have been quite compliant with international sanctions. And on the Russian side, there’s a long-standing debate, if not a suspicion inside Iran as to Russia’s intentions, but it’s important to note that the Iranian foreign minister is travelling to Russia this Friday and will be, of course, conferring with the Russians that are simultaneously having negotiations with Steve Witkoff.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And we talked a bit about Israel and the Israel-US discussions on Iran, but Trump also has very close relations with the Gulf states, with Saudi Arabia, and I think he’s going there quite soon. So, what will they be saying, and what are their interests?

Sanam Vakil
Well, you know, the landscape in the Middle East has very much changed since the last Trump administration. The regional states are all dealing with Iran in a direct way. Iran and Saudi Arabia restored diplomatic ties in March of 2023. The UAE and Iran have also increased their relations. So it just shows you the landscape has changed, countries in the region want to directly deal with Iran rather than rely on the United States to manage security dynamics in the Middle East.

Iran has certainly threatened the Gulf states and made clear to them that if Iran is attacked or if Gulf states support or participate in an attack on Iran, that they will be in Iran’s line of immediate fire. And at the same time, Gulf states very much worry that an attack will not just lead to that Iranian counter response, but a broader spillover, similar to what we saw in the 2003 Iraq war. So they are working front channels and back channels and very supportive of this dialogue because they think, obviously, a de-escalation between Iran and Washington will also cool down tensions across the region.

Gideon Rachman
So the US is basically hearing completely opposite things from its two closest partners in the region.

Sanam Vakil
Absolutely. And that also includes the Qataris and the Omanis, as well as the Kuwaitis. So I think we are seeing a very different Middle East. And Turkey also has made it quite clear that it isn’t going to stand by and support a strike, even though tensions between Iran and Turkey have also increased recently, particularly in Syria and over differences in Azerbaijan and Armenia. They’re not gonna support what they would see a violation of Iranian sovereignty.

Gideon Rachman
And even my understanding of the dynamics within the Trump administration, I would think there’s a considerable group within Camp Trump, if I could call it that, who would regard an attack on Iran as precisely the opposite of what they’re trying to do. End forever wars, end involvement in the Middle East.

Sanam Vakil
Inside the administration, although there is greater unity and loyalty to President Trump this time around, there is still a group of hawks that have neocon sort of views and see an opportunity in striking Iran and support Israel’s agenda. But, many people around the president see the geopolitical tensions with Russia and China being most important, and that the Middle East is a landscape of conflict that just drags the United States in and bogs the United States down.

Gideon Rachman
So to finish, I mean, we were just chatting before we got going about how, I mean, you much more than me, because this is your specialist subject. But for 20 years, the Iran nuclear dossier has been one of the things that, you know, every time I’d go to a meeting where people talk about the five big issues, it was one of them, and it still is. Do you think we’re any closer to resolution or will we be still having this conversation in five, 10 years’ time?

Sanam Vakil
Well, I think 2025 was always going to be a year of the Iran crisis because of the timelines and sunsets of the Iranian nuclear agreement expiring. And it was inevitable that the international community would look to put further restraints on Iran. But I do think that we are in a weird moment of convergence, where Europe, most countries in the region, Russia, China and the United States are supportive of a new nuclear agreement and can perhaps leverage the changing geopolitical landscape of the Middle East in order to build a more sustainable deal. And that I think would be beneficial to cool down regional tensions.

More broadly, I think ordinary Iranians need to be given an opportunity to have a breathing space economically. And with that breathing space, of course, they’ll perhaps be able to play a more vocal role in the politics and the future of Iran. It’s a different way of thinking about agency and accountability. But I think, you know, should we be thinking about the transformation that will come in Iran as its ageing leadership eventually retire, that agency and accountability has to come from within.

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Gideon Rachman
That was Sanam Vakil of Chatham House ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Thanks for listening and please join me again next week.