An Explosive Clock Is Ticking on Iran and Its Nuclear Program

An Explosive Clock Is Ticking on Iran and Its Nuclear Program

Steven Erlanger

Talks between the United States and Iran, which President Trump said on Monday would begin on Saturday in Oman, face considerable problems of substance and well-earned mistrust.

But time is short for what is likely to be a complicated negotiation.

“We’re at a fork in the road, heading toward a crisis,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.

While Mr. Trump has recently threatened Iran with “bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” he has also made it clear that he prefers a diplomatic deal. That reassurance — made in the Oval Office sitting next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has pressed for military action — will be welcomed widely in the Arab world.

Even if the target is the Islamic Republic of Iran, with all of its ambitions for regional hegemony, Arab countries from Egypt through the Gulf fear the economic and social consequences of an American and Israeli war, especially as the killing in Gaza continues.

But Mr. Trump’s public demands — that Iran stop nuclear enrichment, hand over its large supply of enriched uranium and destroy its existing nuclear facilities — will almost surely be rejected by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, as an unacceptable humiliation and surrender. How far both sides are willing to compromise is unclear, but Mr. Trump is well known for making ultimate demands at the start and then searching for a deal.

This weekend’s talks are expected to be at a high level and include Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and reportedly Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Russia and much else. While the two sides disagree on whether these initial talks will be “direct,” as Mr. Trump said, or “indirect” through intermediaries, as Iran said, it will not matter very much, given the importance of the two men.

But even if war can be avoided, the space for talking is narrow, European officials and analysts say, because by the end of July, the Europeans must signal whether they will reimpose punishing United Nations sanctions against Iran. The option to reimpose those sanctions, which were lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, will expire on Oct. 18.

Iran is already under significant sanctions, especially those imposed by Mr. Trump in his first term, and other U.N. sanctions stemming from its ballistic missile program to its human rights record. But the reimposition of these further sweeping sanctions would do significant additional damage to Iran’s already shaky economy.

So they are considered important leverage to push Iran toward compliance with the old deal or to negotiate a new one. The Europeans — Britain, France and Germany — remain signatories of the deal and can chose to reimpose the U.N. sanctions, with a notification period included. But their ability to do so, and the leverage it provides, expire in October.

If these additional sanctions are reimposed, Iran says it will pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty altogether.

And that might cause Israel, with American help, to engage in an extensive military campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Both Israel and the United States have vowed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

The Europeans want to decide before Russia, increasingly an ally of Iran, takes over the presidency of the Security Council for the month of October.

The West and Israel are concerned that Tehran has been secretly planning a faster, cruder approach to building a weapon; it already has enough near weapons-grade uranium to build at least six bombs, according to I.A.E.A. data.

A bombing campaign would most likely prompt serious Iranian counterattacks on American and Israeli targets and Gulf infrastructure, like Saudi oil facilities, which no Arab nation in the region wants to see. It could also prompt Iran to weaponize its nuclear program and build a bomb.

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