Reuters: Iran is deliberately dragging out negotiations until the midterm elections

Iran is deliberately prolonging negotiations with the United States in order to politically weaken Donald Trump ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, G4Media reported, citing Reuters, which in turn cited three senior Iranian officials and an additional Iranian source. “The clerical leadership is determined not to give Trump a political victory,” the news agency quoted one of the anonymous officials as saying, adding that Tehran is not preparing for a deal that would end the conflict, but for further Israeli and American strikes. Iran's leadership calculates that Trump will ultimately try to break the stalemate by resuming strikes, which is why it does not expect a breakthrough before the election.

The talks have stalled over sequencing. Iran insists that the conditions set out in its seven-point plan be met before it will discuss its nuclear program, while Washington wants the nuclear program on the table right from the start of the process. According to a Wall Street Journal report from late September, Tehran offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume nuclear talks if the United States lifted the naval blockade, eased oil sanctions, and released part of Iran's frozen assets. Trump rejected this and refuses to lift the blockade, believing that economic pressure will eventually force Iran into a more favorable agreement. According to American officials, in private conversations he has suggested that bombing of Iran will resume after the election, while publicly he has claimed that Iran is negotiating “from its last reserves” and that the midterm elections are not pressuring him into a deal, saying back in May that he could outlast the waiting game.

If the Reuters report is accurate - and it is hard to doubt, since the strategy practically suggests itself - then the Iranians have played their hand very skillfully. Last February, in the Oval Office, Trump told Zelensky to his face that he “doesn't have the cards.” Tehran doesn't have them either, yet it seems close to delivering checkmate to the American president. While Trump has been thinking in terms of golf - and “thinking” is a strong word in his case - the Iranians have been playing chess. All they had to do was endure the American blockade until the November election, and for a people living under an oppressive dictatorship, that is not even particularly difficult. Tehran's leadership has no need to fear voters, and the hardship is borne by a population that the regime has accustomed to it for decades. Trump, on the other hand, is being judged at the gas pump: the fuel prices that have soared because of the closed Strait of Hormuz have become one of the main issues of the November election. Tehran therefore knows full well that time is on its side - and working against the American president.

Ugar