In the Media

Lens (Monash University) – 13 March 2025

Iran and the US have been reaching out to one another to see if they can begin talks about a new agreement regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

US President Donald Trump revealed on 7 March that he has sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, urging him to negotiate, or face dire consequences.

“There are two ways Iran can be handled,” said Trump about his message to the Iranian leader, “militarily or you make a deal. I would prefer to make a deal.”

Iran denied that such a letter was received, only to have it delivered later (12 March) to Teheran by an Emirati official.

In any case, Khamenei openly rejected the idea of new talks, defining the US as one of the “… bully governments [which] insist on negotiations … but their negotiations are not aimed at solving issues, but to dominate and impose their own expectations.”

At the same time, it turns out Teheran recently attempted to initiate contact with the Trump administration by conveying messages through Switzerland (whose embassy represents US interests in Iran since the revolution in 1979).

In addition, the Iranian mission to the UN responded to a UN meeting on Iran (11 March) by stating that:

“If the objective of negotiations is to address concerns vis-à-vis any potential militarisation of Iran’s nuclear program, such discussions may be subject to consideration.”

Yet, while there are signs a possible diplomatic route towards a new nuclear agreement may be on the cards, there have been increasing indications in recent months that Teheran is accelerating the completion of its atomic weapons program.

The ayatollahs’ apparent decision to push forward with the completion of its nuclear weapons project is based on a matrix of internal considerations, alongside an incoherent US policy.

The latter may actually inadvertently end up strengthening Teheran’s position, should negotiations resume.

In fact, Washington’s two-vector approach – wooing and threatening Iran at the same time – could end up solidifying both the regime’s grip on power and its intentions to advance its nuclear weapons project.

Accelerating warhead development

The primary driver behind Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons has always been regime survival. However, the recent regional power shifts in favour of Israel – Iran’s biggest adversary in the Middle East – following Hamas’ 7 October mass-terror attack have led to heightened anxiety levels in Teheran.

In Lebanon, Israel has significantly weakened Hezbollah, Teheran’s most powerful proxy. Meanwhile, Iran has effectively “lost” Syria, after a Turkish-backed anti-Iranian jihadist leader, al-Shar’aa, ousted Iran’s close ally, Bashar al-Assad.

The return of Donald Trump to the Oval Office in late January created serious concerns for the Iranian leadership. Following Israel’s retaliatory attack on 26 October last year, which took out all the regime’s key air defences, Iran’s strategic facilities were left exposed and vulnerable (“essentially naked”).

The regime now fears that, with US backing, Israel may launch an attack on its nuclear infrastructure – an assessment shared by US intelligence agencies.

Iran has concluded that time is running out to secure its most valuable strategic asset – the nuclear bomb project. The objective is to reach a point where Teheran can declare itself a nuclear weapons state shortly after making the decision to proceed in that direction. To achieve this goal, the regime is pursuing a coordinated strategy involving several parallel strands.

The first is expediting efforts to create a functional nuclear warhead. As of today, Teheran can efficiently produce the quantities of fissile material needed for the core of a warhead almost at will.

The regime now has the infrastructure (thousands of basic and advanced centrifuges set in cascades) and knowledge to quickly turn the huge stocks of enriched uranium in its possession into weapons-grade uranium (WGU, requiring above 90% purity).

As expert analysis of the February 2025 report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shows Iran now stocks enough enriched uranium in various purities (20% to 60%) that it can produce a single atomic warhead’s worth of WGU in as little as a week, seven warheads in three weeks, and 17 in four months.

However, estimates suggest that Iran would need a year to complete building and testing the mechanisms of the atomic warhead itself (such an Iranian project did exist in the early 2000s but was stopped before completion).

However, US intelligence cautioned in late 2024 that a clandestine team of Iranian scientists is examining methods to reduce this process to only months by producing a more “crude” device.

In addition, regime opposition groups revealed in January that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) experts at Shahrud is secretly testing how to fit a nuclear warhead on the Ghaem-100 solid-fuel rocket, with a range of 3000km (an advanced Ghaem-105 missile is also expected soon).

Meanwhile, at a site near Semnan, the Simorgh missile (based on North Korean technology) is being developed for the same purpose.

All this is occurring while the international community is almost completely in the dark over what is truly happening in the nuclear program.

Since February 2021, Teheran has stopped implementing both the Additional Protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the monitoring aspects in the now defunct 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) – meaning almost all international monitoring of Iranian enrichment work has ceased.

The most effective inspection and verification equipment (such as the IAEA’s cameras and sensors) have been confiscated by Iran, which also blocks access to its nuclear sites, especially by experienced IAEA professionals.

Teheran also persists in failing to cooperate with the UN agency’s fruitless efforts to investigate Iran’s past nuclear weapon-related activities at both declared and covert sites (such as Varamin and Turquzabad).

Meanwhile, regime officials are gradually preparing international public opinion for the possibility of declaring Iran a nuclear threshold state.

Khamenei himself warned that:

“If we wanted to build nuclear weapons, the US would not be able to stop it. We ourselves do not want it.”

Toeing the Supreme Leader’s line, Ebrahim Rezaei, a member of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, recently stated that Iran now possesses the “technical capacity” to produce a nuclear bomb at will.

Furthermore, in what appears to be a deliberate leak, Iranian officials disclosed to Western media on 9 February that senior IRGC commanders have urged Khamenei to reverse his (never publicly released) religious decree (fatwa) allegedly prohibiting weapons of mass destruction in Islam.

“We have never been this vulnerable, and it may be our last chance to obtain [a nuclear device] before it’s too late,” an Iranian official reportedly told the UK’s Telegraph.

Washington wants it both ways

A surprising twist came from Washington in early February when Trump signalled his preference for nuclear negotiations with Teheran, rather than pursuing possible military action.

In addition to the aforementioned Trump letter to Khamenei, the US administration has already begun discussions with IAEA officials about how to move forward with diplomacy.

Most tellingly, Trump then asked Russia in early March to mediate nuclear talks with Iran. Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly accepted, seeing an opportunity to bolster his international standing and portray Russia as a peacemaker and international powerbroker.

This development is particularly striking given that just three years ago, the US condemned Russia for its brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Now, Washington is turning to Moscow for help while ignoring Russia’s extensive military cooperation with Teheran, including the Russian experts sent to Iran to aid the country’s missile program, which is directly tied to its nuclear ambitions, and Moscow’s increasing use of Iranian-produced drones and missiles in Ukraine.

Yet at the same time, the US administration has reintroduced the “Maximum Pressure” policy on Iran that Trump instituted during his first term in 2018. This approach includes, for example, projecting military power through prominent exercises involving joint US-Israeli bomber and fighter jet patrols in the Middle East, while also tightening economic sanctions, particularly on Iran’s illicit oil exports – the regime’s financial lifeline.

The US can also choose to trigger the “snapback” mechanism in UN Security Council Resolutions until the end of the year. This would reinstate all the mandatory UN sanctions and restrictions on Iran that were removed following the JCPOA – a development Iran fears.

The White House may believe that a dual strategy of pressure and implied threats on one hand and diplomacy and carrots on the other will allow it to enter negotiations with Iran from a position of strength. However, Teheran appears to interpret the mixed signals as an opportunity to play “hard to get” and resist negotiations, at least for now.

Meanwhile, the heated live televised exchange between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on 28 February has further reinforced Iran’s scepticism about the reliability of the US when it comes to compliance with agreements – especially after Trump previously unilaterally withdrew the US from the JCPOA in 2018.

“We negotiated for years, reached a complete and signed agreement, and then this individual tore it up,” Khamenei said in response to Trump’s letter.

“How can one negotiate under such circumstances? … When we know they won’t, what is the point of negotiating?”

For IRGC-affiliated regime hardliners, what must be done in the current situation is clear – Iran must push forward with nuclear weapons development to ensure the survival of the regime.

Critical weeks ahead

The next few weeks could prove to be decisive. Even if Iran agrees to negotiations mediated by Russia, the likelihood of reaching a robust agreement – including very strict inspections and a rollback of Iran’s recent nuclear advances – remains low.

More likely, prolonged and fruitless diplomacy (similar to the US-Iran talks under the Biden administration between 2021 and 2023) would give Iran cover to continue its nuclear progress even as Western desire to continue “engagement” protects the regime from any serious consequences.

The first indication of this dangerous scenario was Russia’s stated position that the JCPOA should be the basis of any upcoming negotiations, ignoring the facts on the ground that Iran has breached every aspect of that agreement many times over and is much closer to military capabilities than even before.

Australia can play a constructive role by joining US efforts to strengthen sanctions against Iran to help provide a serious strategic counterbalance in the region to Teheran’s dangerously destabilising ambitions and plans.