Is Trump ignoring 47 years of failed outcomes?

(JNS) — The third round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program took place in Oman last Saturday as the United States hopes to restrain the Islamic Republic through negotiations. 

The talks have garnered mixed reactions from Israel supporters, with some calling for a wait-and-see approach and others, viewing past as prologue, warning that Iran will only use the talks to buy time, rebuild its capabilities and persist in its malign activities.

To Western thinking negotiation means compromise and reconciliation, but Iran’s ayatollahs see it as a way to recover from defeat and ready for renewed confrontation, according to Yoram Ettinger, a former Israeli ambassador and head of Second Thought: A US-Israel Initiative.

For over four decades, negotiations have constituted a stage for Iran to bolster capabilities for further assault on the “so-called infidel West,” he told JNS.

U.S. President Donald Trump, by adhering to the negotiation option despite 47 years of adverse outcomes, is ignoring the fact that America’s pursuit of negotiations has contributed to turning Iran into a hub of anti-American terrorism, crime and weapons proliferation, he said.

However, Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst with the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS it’s too soon to start sounding alarm bells, as talks would help legitimize any subsequent military action that proves necessary.

“We don’t know if the administration has played all its cards. Nothing’s been finalized yet and we don’t know exactly what the administration’s strategy is,” he told JNS.

What would raise his concern, he said, is if the administration starts issuing statements about permitting limited uranium enrichment rather than full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program. The latter would allow Iran to quickly build a nuclear bomb if it decided to exit the agreement, he told JNS.

“Ideally, we should utilize the leverage Trump has built up through his maximum pressure campaign to pursue full dismantlement,” he said.

A second worry, according to Sayeh, is Iran being allowed to drag out talks—in its interest as it wants to appear diplomatically engaged, calm its markets and reduce internal unrest as talks demoralize regime opponents within Iran.

“Time is of the essence” as the October 2025 “snapback” deadline approaches, when the United States and Europe must agree on whether to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic program. 

The true deadline may be earlier. A report issued on April 3 by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America argued that the snapback must be implemented no later than May 2025 due to the time the process requires, and other tactical reasons.

Ettinger dismissed the whole notion of talks as misguided, arguing that they play down the ideological nature of the Islamic regime. The Western belief that money and peaceful coexistence outweigh ideology doesn’t align with Middle Eastern realities — especially when it comes to the ayatollahs, he said.

The Iranian regime’s fanatical vision is rooted in a 1,400-year-old apocalyptic worldview, which translates in modern times as fulfilling a divine mission to defeat the “Great American Satan,” according to Ettinger. “Decades of negotiations have failed to change this stance, but only served to strengthen Iran’s anti-American posture,” he added.

Effective leadership means learning from past mistakes, he contended. That means recognizing that negotiation has not deterred the regime but enabled its hostile ambitions and regional influence to grow.

Even sanctions haven’t done the job, including “maximum-pressure” sanctions imposed by Trump. “While they may have constrained Iran, we know now that all economic sanctions are reversible. President Trump imposes sanctions, and along comes another president, in this case, [Joe] Biden, and suspends and softens economic sanctions,” he told JNS.

Iran has also become adept at evading sanctions through China, Russia, and European and South American countries, he noted.

“It’s time to resort to the only effective option for anyone who wants to minimize war and terrorism, and that is obliterating the main epicenter of global wars and terrorism and drug trafficking,” said Ettinger.

“It means regime change in Iran. And refraining from regime change obviously plays into the hands of the ayatollahs,” he continued.

It also harms the Iranian people, most of whom want to bring about an end to the ayatollahs’ rule, he noted. 

The regime’s internal opposition is “well aware” that change is impossible without outside military support, he said. Past uprisings by Iranians in 2009 and 2022 failed because U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and Biden offered no real backing. 

“They left them hanging high and dry.”