Berlin resident and expert on Middle Eastern and Iranian affairs, in which he said that as an agreement to end the war between the United States and Iran is about to be signed, the Donald Trump administration is facing a country ready to withstand pressure.
He said that the regime's leaders had survived the worst American and Israeli strikes, and appeared willing to take risks.
He said that the United States and Israel had entered into a war with Iran seeking regime change. About four months later, a change did occur, but it was not the desired change. The “Islamic Republic 3.0,” as some call it, is now closer to a military junta dominated by the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps than to a religious state.
The “Islamic Republic 3.0,” as some call it, has become more like a military council dominated by the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps than a religious state.
While Washington and Israel have gone to war to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and end the threat it poses, this has only resulted in a weakened Iran, more willing to take risks, and more determined to pursue its goal of developing its nuclear program.
He added that the United States and Iran had traded blows over the past week in an attempt to find a way to end the war. By Friday, despite mutual accusations of hypocrisy, officials in Tehran and Washington said they were nearing a preliminary agreement, which they called a memorandum of understanding.
On Saturday, President Trump announced that the signing would take place on Sunday, although the Iranian Foreign Ministry downplayed his remarks, saying the timeline could take longer.
Erlanger commented that agreeing on the memorandum of understanding would give Tehran some leverage, as the two sides engage in serious negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program and its future role in the Strait of Hormuz, and many details will be left to the sixty-day period of negotiations that may succeed or fail.
He also says that Iran, which emerged through the war, is not a helpless regime trying only to defend itself and survive, but one that retains significant military and nuclear capabilities.
It appears that Iran’s vast security apparatus has a firm grip on all aspects of life, from government and society to foreign policy.
The writer quoted Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House in London, as saying that Iran is now led by “a younger and bolder generation of rulers.”
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat at the Carnegie Endowment for World Peace, commented that it was “a transition from religious to military power.”
These new leaders believe they can hold out even if fighting resumes significantly, without fundamentally changing their negotiating positions or their broader regional goals.
The new leaders believe they can hold out even if fighting resumes significantly, without fundamentally changing their negotiating positions or their broader regional goals.
These objectives include restoring their deterrent capability so that they are not subjected to another attack like the one in late February.
They also want to preserve their right to enrich uranium, even at low levels after a suspension period, and will retain the scientific knowledge and equipment that would enable them, if they so wished, to once again become a threshold nuclear state—that is, a state that possesses all the elements of a nuclear weapon without having manufactured it.
Erlanger adds that the new Iranian government has shown itself to be a strong negotiator willing to take maximum losses to preserve its core interests, saying that this stance is completely different from the hesitant and cautious position taken by the former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated on the first day of the war, February 28.
For years he prevented the production of nuclear weapons and always worked to prevent a joint Israeli-American attack on Iran.
But, having survived the attack, Iran's new leaders showed that they were not bound by those constraints.
Meanwhile, analysts believe that President Donald Trump is unwilling to engage in a full-scale war and has placed constraints on Israel's desire for one. This partly explains why Iran, for the first time this week, dared to attack Israel directly after Israel bombed Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut, Lebanon, something Israel has been doing regularly for months.
Erlanger believes that Iran’s strikes on Israel were another attempt by Iran to link negotiations with America to end the war with a ceasefire in Lebanon, even though Israel tried to separate the two fronts.
Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said that with the new regime, the goals that the United States and Israel failed to achieve in the war will not be achieved, but rather through more coercion.
He added that the Iranians believe the worst is over, and that they will work to maintain their basic demands, such as their right to uranium enrichment, their ballistic missile program, and their support for their proxies, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
Experts say that under any agreement, Iran is likely to agree to a limited suspension of enrichment, exporting half of its current stockpile of highly enriched uranium, while the other half is diluted to a lower enrichment level.
But Iran will retain its nuclear knowledge and infrastructure, including advanced centrifuges.
This, coupled with the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz again at will, would give Iran “a trump card to deter Israel and the United States from launching another attack,” according to Danny Citrinovitch, a retired Israeli military intelligence officer specializing in Iranian affairs. It would also grant Iran renewed influence in the region.
He said: “A war aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons would be a war that pushes it to the brink of disaster.”
Before the war, Iran offered Trump's envoys in Geneva a better deal than it is currently offering in the nuclear negotiations with the United States.
He and others point out that Iran, before the war, offered Trump's envoys in Geneva a better deal than it is currently offering in the nuclear negotiations with the United States.
Iran, whose influence has grown, is likely to escalate its other demands, for example, demanding the immediate release of about $12 billion of its frozen assets, with another $12 billion to be paid later in exchange for progress in implementing any agreement.
The Iranians want to test how willing Trump is to face strong opposition from some Republicans and Israel regarding the transfer of funds to Iran.
As for the main nuclear issues, with the exception of Iran’s commitment not to make a nuclear bomb, these issues have been largely left to more detailed negotiations over the next 60 days.
Meanwhile, it maintains its demands to impose fees on ships for using the Strait of Hormuz.
But the writer believes that the new Iranian leadership’s sense of risk also intersects with its pursuit of an agreement to alleviate the country’s growing economic pressure and allow it to sell the oil it extracts and stores during the US blockade of the Strait.
In particular, the Iranian economy is facing the risk of total collapse, and this could lead to more anti-regime protests once the war is over.
But Iran believes President Trump is in a hurry, and therefore has not made the concessions that Washington wants, according to Wakil, an analyst at Chatham House.
She stressed that Iran’s long-term goals have not changed, and include preventing any future attack, stirring up division among Arab Gulf states over the extent of tolerance for it, pushing for Israel’s isolation among Arab states, and reducing the American military presence in the region.
She added that the danger lies in Iran overestimating its strength and miscalculating, as it has done in the past.
Even if an early agreement is reached, analysts doubt that more complex issues, such as a detailed nuclear agreement, will be addressed, similar to what happened with the stalled Gaza agreement negotiated by Mr. Trump.
Susan Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution, commented that “we will likely remain in a state of anticipation for a long time, which is in Iran’s interest.”
She added: “Neither war nor peace is comfortable for Iran,” because it will only increase the pressure on Trump to accept any kind of agreement to open the Strait and try to restore balance in the energy, fertilizer, aluminum and many other markets.
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