Amid heightened U.S. military buildup, Tehran signals possible talks. The author argues Trump hasn’t retreated—pressure and diplomacy move together, while Iran negotiates from unprecedented weakness.
In days when the U.S. military posture around Iran has reached its broadest level in recent years, signs of diplomatic movement between Tehran and Washington have appeared at the same time—signs that have once again brought a key question to the center of political and media debate: Has Donald Trump backed away from the option of a military strike on the Islamic Republic, or are these moves merely part of a maximum-pressure strategy designed to impose a security agreement?
The first serious spark for these speculations was Ali Larijani’s post on X last Friday. Larijani said, after traveling to Moscow and meeting Vladimir Putin, that the frameworks for negotiating with the United States had been set. He wrote this in response to reports that were announcing the start of a U.S. military attack “this hour or the next.”
But the second report suggesting this diplomatic track was real came from a source that is usually the last place one would expect such news: Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC. On Monday, 13 Bahman 1404 (February 2, 2026), citing “an informed source,” Tasnim wrote that negotiations between Iran and the United States—at the level of senior officials—might begin in the coming days. According to the source, while the time and place have not been finalized, the potential talks would be held between Abbas Araghchi and Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy.
Almost simultaneously, Esmail Baghaei, the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, spoke—more cautiously than Tasnim—of reviewing “various diplomatic paths.” He said Tehran is examining the details of messages exchanged through regional countries and hopes these channels will “reach concrete results in the coming days.”
Araghchi also said on Sunday, in an interview with CNN, that “rebuilding trust” is necessary, emphasizing that for meaningful negotiations Iran must first move beyond a state of deep distrust.
On the other side, Donald Trump, responding to journalists, said Iran is “seriously talking to us.”
Negotiation Under the Shadow of an Aircraft Carrier
These diplomatic signals, however, are not unfolding in a vacuum. Over the past weeks, Washington has reinforced its forces in the Middle East in an unusually expansive way. The dispatch of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, the deployment of fighter jets, refueling aircraft, air-defense systems, and Israel’s heightened state of readiness all paint a clear picture of the level of tension.
Trump himself has repeatedly stressed that “time is running out” and that if no agreement is reached, the military option will be used. Even after Ali Khamenei’s stark warning on Sunday, 12 Bahman 1404 (February 1, 2026)—that any attack on Iran would lead to a regional war—Trump said: “I hope we reach a deal. If not, we’ll see what happens.”
This simultaneity of negotiation and threat is not unusual. It is diplomacy under the shadow of force.
America’s Conditions: Negotiation or Surrender?
In recent days, various outlets have reported four core U.S. conditions for any negotiation or agreement with the Islamic Republic—conditions repeatedly raised after the 12-day war:
First: the complete handover of the stockpile of 60%-enriched uranium;
Second: dismantling the enrichment program, or at least a total halt;
Third: reducing range and limiting the number of ballistic missiles;
Fourth: ending support for proxy groups in the region.
Some outlets and political figures have also spoken of a fifth condition: recognizing Israel. Yet under current circumstances this seems so far-fetched that it appears more like an additional pressure lever—meant to guarantee the realization of the four main conditions.
From Washington’s vantage point, the message is clear: Tehran is not in a position to bargain, nor can it demand meaningful reciprocal concessions. Put simply, it has no option but to accept the conditions or face military consequences. Even if there is no strike, time is not on the Islamic Republic’s side. The economic and security crisis—in all its dimensions—has tightened around the regime’s throat so severely that, absent a remedy and a fundamental shift, even the “possibility of war” could have consequences on the scale of war itself. What consequence? The collapse of the Islamic Republic.
In this dire situation, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, and Russia have begun efforts to open a diplomatic channel between Tehran and Washington. Turkey has even proposed hosting direct Iran–U.S. talks in Ankara, and media close to the IRGC have written about the possibility of such a meeting taking place.
That IRGC-affiliated outlets are now leading the way in publishing news of a meeting reflects how profoundly conditions have changed. Until a few months ago, these media and IRGC-linked figures either treated “negotiating with the Great Satan” as a taboo, or—at best—insisted that any talks must be “indirect,” framed as a way to prove to “West-worshippers” that America is not negotiable. But tensions have risen so high that even defenders of confrontation have acknowledged the need to test the negotiating track.
Iran, More Empty-Handed Than Ever
But the main question is: what does the negotiating table look like for the Islamic Republic? The short answer: disastrous.
Iran’s nuclear program has effectively been halted after U.S. and Israeli attacks in the 12-day war of Khordad and Tir 1404 (May 22–July 22, 2025), even though Tehran has not officially accepted its shutdown. The Islamic Republic’s proxy forces in Iraq and Lebanon are in their weakest position in recent years. Syria is no longer in Tehran’s hands, and the ring of military and political pressure around Yemen’s Houthis tightens day by day.
More important than all of this, the Islamic Republic—through the killing of protesters in Dey 1404 (December 22, 2025–January 20, 2026)—has also lost the last remnants of any possibility of even a relative coexistence with Iranian society. For a large part of society, the system of guardianship (velayat) has neither the capacity to govern the country, nor moral and political legitimacy, nor even a minimal potential for reform. A widespread perception has formed that the Islamic Republic, to survive, will resort to any level of violence and crime.
This profound shift in society’s outlook has had major political consequences. Regardless of what you and I think about a military strike, we face a complex situation: some things have become as clear as day, yet disagreements over the route out are deep.
A segment of Iranians—inside the country and in the diaspora—have concluded that a foreign military strike, despite all the catastrophes it would bring, may be the only way to end the cycle of crime. Another segment has fallen silent, but is certain that the Islamic Republic’s continuation will produce catastrophes greater than January massacre. A large portion of those opposed to a military strike also describe the Islamic Republic as a criminal regime that must be dismantled—though by relying on the internal capacities of Iran’s transformation-seeking society.
In contrast, a group of supporters of the Islamic Republic—both in religious form and in the non-religious “Axis of Resistance” form—defend the regime with an apocalyptic outlook. They argue that if this regime and Ali Khamenei are gone, the world will end. One claims Iran will be partitioned and imperialism will tear out the throat of the entire world after the defeat of Khamenei and his regime; another claims that satanic forces will dominate the property and honor of Iranians.
Negotiation—for What?
Under these conditions, what is negotiation supposed to achieve for the Islamic Republic, other than the common saying that “moving from one pillar to another brings relief”?
Negotiating with empty hands—over the very components that constitute the foundations of the security power of a system facing an existential crisis—what outcome can it have? If, to avert war, the Islamic Republic makes its missile, nuclear, and proxy capabilities “negotiable,” what will remain so that a few months later it will not once again face a military buildup around it?
From Trump’s perspective, the answer is clear: Tehran is not in a position to ask for anything beyond “not being attacked.” We do not know exactly what assessment Khamenei has of himself and his system. But there is one big “if”: if, given the intensity of current crises, Tehran has accepted Trump’s narrative of events, then negotiation might temporarily alter the war equation.
There is also an “empirical if”: if Khamenei—as we know him—insists on his own reading, he may still hold a view similar to what he expressed in Dey 1396 (December 22, 2017–January 20, 2018) about the United States and Donald Trump:
Reagan was more of an actor than this current individual (Trump)—stronger and, of course, more rational—and he in fact acted against the Iranian people and shot down our passenger aircraft. Yet now he is being questioned at the gate of divine punishment, while the Islamic Republic continues to grow and advance with greater authority. This path will continue under the current U.S. president (Donald Trump) as well, and their longing to see the Islamic Republic removed or weakened will remain unfulfilled. Some American officials, with outward flexibility—covering their iron hand with a velvet glove—managed at one point to distract some of us, but they were quickly exposed, and today the reality of America’s corrupt intentions toward Islam and the Islamic Republic has become fully clear.
The “Islamic Republic of 2017” was in a fundamentally different situation from the “Islamic Republic of 2026,” but its leader is known for not acknowledging error and not backing down in moments of crisis. Have the blows of recent years and the decline of the Islamic Republic’s power transformed Khamenei? Unlikely.
If Khamenei’s view has not changed, then the arrangement on the Islamic Republic’s side is clear.
This leaves the American side—and the question: has Trump backed off? The evidence suggests no. What we see today is not retreat, but the simultaneous use of two classic tools of U.S. foreign policy: maximum military pressure and the opening of a narrow diplomatic window.
On the Islamic Republic’s side, even this level of tactical backing down (if it can be called that at all) has had no precedent under Ali Khamenei’s leadership. Perhaps the Supreme Leader’s reading of the current position could make the impossible possible. But even then, the riddle of “the day after” remains unanswered: If we give these things and a few weeks or months later they come after us again, then what? If we trade these things but remain trapped under sanctions and economic suffocation, then what? If we surrender these things but the people pour back into the streets, then what?
The Islamic Republic today is in a situation where its choices have been reduced to two options: hard confrontation or unconditional surrender. Is there a third way? For now, no sign of such a third way is visible on the horizon.
Negotiation may buy time, but it does not appear capable of solving, in any fundamental way, the multi-variable equation of “legitimacy, security, and survival” for the “Islamic Republic of Khamenei.” From this perspective, it seems Trump has not backed off—he has simply not pulled the trigger yet.
