Which way will Trump go on Iran?

The next seven days are “make or break” for avoiding conflict between Iran and the US, said Sky News international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn. “Fingers are on the trigger and one misstep could lead to repercussions which will be felt beyond the Middle East.”

The US and Iran are set for diplomatic talks over a nuclear deal in Istanbul on Friday, along with counterparts from the Middle East including Turkey, Qatar and Egypt. Amid ongoing internal protests in Iran, and Donald Trump’s “massive armada” amassing off the coast, “the region is heading for a crunchpoint” if a deal cannot be reached.

What did the commentators say?

Middle Eastern diplomats are making “strenuous efforts” to “narrow the gaps” between Tehran and Washington, said The Washington Post. Previous talks have been frosty and “indirect”. If the proposed talks go ahead, the presence of many of the region’s foreign ministers “may help pave the way to direct negotiations between the US and Iranian envoys”.

The Iranian regime is confronting a “strategic reality it has never faced before”, said Sanam Vakil, director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme, in The Guardian. Its survival can no longer be taken for granted, with a “simultaneous crisis of domestic legitimacy and a credible threat of external attack” leaving it more vulnerable than ever before. Internally, it has suffered “economic decline, corruption, currency collapse and mass emigration”, and internationally its “regional projection of power has crumbled”. “And its revolutionary ideology, once a tool for mobilisation, now leaves it increasingly isolated in a region that has grown tired of ideological conflict.”

Even though Trump’s intentions towards Iran may be “muddied”, “clearly the momentum is heading for war”, said Chris Hughes in The Mirror. The president will consider only limited strikes, or no attack at all, if he forces Iran to “abandon its nuclear ambitions”. As his rhetoric has escalated, he has “backed himself into having to make a big decision”, and now has dwindling room to “ramp up pressure”. For spectators, it is a “nail-biting” time, but ultimately “it is hard to imagine so many hundreds of billions of pounds worth of killer machinery and personnel being sent to the Middle East without an offensive happening.”

Despite Trump’s “familiar language of escalation”, we should view recent developments as “brinkmanship”, rather than “preparation for war”, said Bamo Nouri in The Conversation. A war with Iran “would not be swift, cheap or decisive”, and any major attack could “backfire politically” at home, seen as breaking his campaign promise to scale back US intervention overseas and end the “forever wars”.

What next?

A breakdown of negotiations would have “terrible ramifications for both countries, the region and the world”, said Amin Saikal, an emeritus professor of Middle Eastern Studies, on The Conversation. Trump’s end goal may indeed be regime change, but the regime has so far always “found a way to work through challenges and threats to their existence”, and its security forces remain “loyal and solidly behind the leadership”.

There are three possible outcomes, all of which are “dangerous for the Iranian people”, said Vakil in The Guardian. A “forced compromise”, which would appear to Iran’s people as a “bargain for the sake of the regime’s survival”; a “controlled war” resulting in “prolonged instability”; and most concerningly, a total breakdown.

An “uncontrolled collapse”, could turn Iran into a “long-term source of instability”, and pave the way for a regime “more perilous” than the one it replaces. If Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian fail to find common ground, “there are no real diplomatic brakes left”.