As Iran and the IAEA managed to solve the few remaining continuous factors in ongoing nuclear talks and the prospect for a renewed nuclear deal began to look bright, Russia’s sudden demand for sanctions exemptions has dampened hope the a deal can be reached any time soon.
Linking its support for the deal to a guaranteed right to “free and fully-fledged trade and economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with Iran” in spite of the newly imposed sanctions on it, Iranian officials have been quick to criticize the last minute change especially after that the U.S. government has refused Russia’s demand as irrelevant. So what explains Russia’s change of heart and what does it mean for Tehran?
There are a number of explanations ranging from the effects of the deal on energy prices to the more long term prospect of Iran moving away from Moscow. To be able to avoid further deterioration of its economy and maintain its war efforts, Russia’s interest squarely lies in higher oil prices, and thus any development that could lower prices, however meagre, is to be prevented. A renewed nuclear deal with Iran would do just that. While Iranian oil will not replace that of Russia nor will it, in the short to medium term, reduce the EU’s dependency on the Russian energy, the addition of Iranian resources and Tehran’s ability to sell its oil on the global market freely will certainly reduce prices.
Equally important is Moscow’s fear of losing access to Iran’s lucrative market and the prospect of Tehran’s drifting away from its strategic orbit. Given its dire economic and military needs, Tehran is in no position to be picky about who it trades with or where it sources its needs from. Hence, and in the light of current sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, it is safe to speculate that Russian officials are worried that Iran can be easily dissuaded from working with Russian entities by relatively generous offers of cooperation and investment from Europe.
Added to this is Iran’s wariness of sanctions reimposition on its banking system and its companies should they engage in commercial interactions with their Russian counterparts. This, in turn, will serve a severe blow to Moscow’s attempt at carving an exclusive commercial role for itself in Iran and might even dampen Iranian enthusiasm for the signing of a long term strategic pact.
War in Ukraine, it appears, has provided Iran with an unexpected and indeed unique geopolitical opportunity to reduce its over-reliance on Moscow and accelerate its integration into the global economy by banking on increased Western appetite for isolating Russia, curbing its influence, and, perhaps most importantly, reducing their own reliance on it. Such sentiments are best evidenced in Denmark’s resumption of pipeline construction connecting Poland to Norway, the EU’s courting of Azerbaijan for increased supply of gas to Europe, and the United States’ sudden engagement with Venezuela.
To grasp this opportunity, Tehran needs to prioritize pragmatism over idealism and push for a deal with or without Russia. Surely, such undertaking will neither be cost free nor easy. Given Moscow’s direct access to key centers of power, including the Supreme Leader’s office in Tehran, its critical role as operator in chief of Iran’s nuclear facilities, and its influence as the dominant player in Syria, Russia has the means and resources to not just avert pragmatic decision making but also punish Iran for pursuing its interests in defiance of Moscow.
Also at play is Ali Khamenei’s own deeply ingrained suspicious of the West as a reliable partner. However, the point remains that Iranian elites have been presented with a random, yet unique, historical opportunity to put national interests above factional politics and ideological sentiments. Whether or not they will seize it and give up on being “a cause” remains to be seen.
Nima Khorrami is a Research Associate at The Arctic Institute. His areas of interest and expertise lie at the intersection of geopolitics, infrastructure and technology. At The Arctic Institute, his research is mainly focused on Sweden’s Arctic policy, (digital) connectivity, and potential links between China, Russia, and US’s Arctic and Middle East policies.He is an alumni of Nottingham University and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Sept 7, 2018 (photo via khamenei.ir).
Top photo credit: US President Donald J. Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2025. (Reuters)
From his days as a scrappy 2016 candidate in the wake of the 9/11 "forever wars" Trump has been pretty adamant that the United States should not be in the business of "nation building" or putting our men and women in uniform in harm's way to solve other countries' problems. Until now, it seems.
"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too," he said, with a smiling Benjamin Netanyahu next to him.
"We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job, do something different."
He claimed that leaders all over the Middle East think it's a great idea and that it won't be a rebuilt place for "a specific group of people" but for people "all over the Middle East."
Trump won in 2016 and in part in 2024 because he railed against the status quo military adventuring of the past 25 years and especially nation building. His efforts to withdraw from the Afghanistan War were born out of a conviction that the 20 years spent there trying to remake the society while fighting the Taliban was a sheer waste of American blood and treasure. The contradiction was not lost on shocked observers on Tuesday night.
In comments on X early Wednesday morning, Senator Rand Paul made it clear this was not. "The pursuit for peace should be that of the Israelis and the Palestinians. I thought we voted for America First. We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldiers blood," he wrote.
"I’d like to ask Trump how this magical, unicorn Gaza vision jives with his 'we need to get out of the Middle East' messaging,“ blasted Daniel DePetris of Defense Priorities.
"President Trump has long prioritized lowering the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East and encouraging peace deals. This is the opposite of that,” charged Adam Weinstein, Middle East fellow at the Quincy Institute, also a veteran of the Afghanistan War.
“The president’s proposal of occupying Gaza hits the trifecta of bad ideas," he added. "It’s simultaneously illegal, unethical, and terrible for U.S. interests. Whether said in earnest or as some perverse form of leverage, it’s already damaging and should be reversed.”
Trump's Democratic critics came out reliably swinging. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.): "He’s totally lost it. A U.S. invasion of Gaza would lead to the slaughter of thousands of U.S. troops and decades of war in the Middle East."
But as reports started rolling it was clear that Republicans were baffled by the turn of events, too. It takes a lot, as they say, to show Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) a war he doesn't want (your sons and daughters) to fight. "I think that would be an interesting proposal," he said carefully. "We’ll see what our Arab friends say about that. I think most South Carolinians would not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza."
“I think that might be problematic. But I’ll keep an open mind,” he added. “That would be a tough place to be stationed as an American, would be Gaza."
Trump's other supporters tip-toed a bit but their confusion was palpable.
Sen. Josh Hawley, (R-MO) "I don’t know that I think it’s the best use of United States resources to spend a bunch of money in Gaza. I think maybe I prefer that to be spent in the United States first, but let’s see what happens.”
For the record, Sen. Jon Fetterman, (D-Penn), big Israel supporter throughout the conflict, doesn't think it would be a bad idea to throw American soldiers into a Middle East furnace.
“I don’t know what the role [of U.S. forces] is, but they’re obviously a part of it, and I fully support,” he declared.
Remember that when you have to wave a bunch of 21-year-olds off to provide security in the Gaza "security vacuum." Remember how certain politicians said it would never happen again, under their watch.
For his part, Trump says, "everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know." This is his version of "government in a box" and "being greeted with flowers and candy," and even "cake walk." Let's hope he — we — don't have to learn, again, how this ends.
This story has been updated.
keep readingShow less
US President Donald J. Trump during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2025. via REUTERS
Trump said what you're not allowed to say about Iran
Most headlines today will rightfully focus on Donald Trump’s shocking declaration that the United States is going to take over Gaza. America has committed countless mistakes in the Middle East, some of which Trump has been far more willing to acknowledge than other American presidents. But none will be as cataclysmic — and as contrary to U.S. interest — as committing American troops to taking over Gaza while pushing 1.7 million Palestinians from their land into Jordan and Egypt.
Trump’s declaration is an example of a rejection of conventional thinking gone wrong. But only an hour earlier, Trump did it the right way.
While signing a new presidential memorandum calling for maximum pressure sanctions on Iran, Trump poured cold water on it and openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the policy.
“So this is one that I am torn about,” he said during Tuesday’s signing ceremony. “I am signing this, but I am unhappy to do it.”
Yet, this was the least stunning moment of his comments about Iran during a gaggle with journalists in the Oval Office.
Even more remarkable was what he said about the intent — or lack thereof — of decision-makers in Iran.
“There are many people at the top ranks of Iran that do not want to have a nuclear weapon,” he declared.
I cannot recall any U.S. president ever deviating from the quasi-official American line that Tehran is dead set on getting nukes. U.S. officials rarely allow any nuance, or any shades of gray: Iranians always want a nuclear weapon and the only way to stop them from getting one is by preventing them from having access to the necessary material, know-how, or technology. If they have access, they will invariably build a bomb. It’s an unchallengeable certainty.
The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran caused a major controversy for simply assessing that Iran did not have an active nuclear weapons program, even though it also concluded “with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.”
That is: Iran still wanted a bomb but appeared to have temporarily paused its pursuit of one.
But Trump went beyond that. He shattered one of the most essential assumptions of Washington’s conventional wisdom on Iran by declaring that some decision-makers at the top of the clerical regime do not want a bomb.
Presumably, he is only repeating what the intelligence community has told him. Also presumably, the intelligence community made similar assessments before and shared those with previous presidents. Yet, none of those presidents leveled with the American people regarding this crucial point of nuance. Instead, a black-and-white image of the clerical regime’s desires and motivations has been perpetuated — one that helped cement hawkish and confrontational policies toward Iran while preventing the exploration of a path toward resolving our differences with Iran diplomatically.
Shattering the assumption that Iran wants to build a bomb is particularly problematic for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who claims that Iran’s leaders are irrational and suicidal. Iran constitutes an existential threat to Israel because it seeks Israel’s destruction through a nuclear attack. Because Iranians are irrational and suicidal, in this narrative, they cannot be deterred as they do not care that their own regime and country will be destroyed if they foolishly wage total war on Israel. And because they invariably seek nuclear weapons, the only option, many argue, for Israel and the U.S. is to preemptively bomb Iran. This is what, unsurprisingly, Netanyahu has been advocating for the past 25 years.
Hardly any of these assumptions have ever held up to scrutiny. Iran’s policies may counter vital Israeli interests, and the leadership in Tehran may be incompetent and prone to miscalculations, but they are hardly irrational. Nor are they suicidal, given the brutal lengths they have gone to survive for more than 40 years, despite their evident lack of support among a majority of the Iranian people.
And three former heads of the Mossad — Ephraim Halevi, Tamir Pardo, and Meir Dagan — as well as former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak are all on the record rejecting the idea that Iran constitutes an existential threat to Israel.
And now Trump — just minutes before he received Netanyahu at the White House — shattered the assumption that the clerical regime uniformly seeks nukes.
This adds intrigue to Trump’s half-hearted endorsement of maximum pressure sanctions. He likely knows that the messaging around sanctions, that is, the determination with which the president wants these sanctions implemented, is critical. By pouring cold water on these measures —“Hopefully, we are not going to use [the sanctions] very much” — Trump signals to Tehran, Beijing, and private actors that he is not going to go through hell and high water to implement them.
Rather than over-compliance with sanctions — which Trump sought in his first term — he is opening the door for under-compliance. And by that, Trump is essentially declaring that he is more interested in a deal than crushing Iran’s economy. His implication is that signing the memorandum was something he simply had to do for political reasons.
Tehran should take note. Despite his memorandum, Trump is keeping the door wide open for a major deal. That door won’t be open forever.
And Trump should take note: No deal he makes in the Middle East will make up for the disaster of getting the U.S. military bogged down in Gaza.
keep readingShow less
Top Photo: Pennsylvania National Guard Soldiers bound for Africa mission, Dec. 2023. (photo by Pennsylvania National Guard )
Pennsylvania National Guard Soldiers bound for Africa mission, Dec. 2023. (photo by Pennsylvania National Guard )
The Virginia House of Delegates passeda bill on Tuesday that bars the deployment of Virginia’s National Guard into active combat in a conflict that Congress has not explicitly authorized.
“I understand that war is sometimes necessary, but I expect Congress to display an ounce of the courage they expect out of the men and women they send overseas to fight those wars by fulfilling their constitutional obligation to declare war,” Del. Nicholas Freitas (R-62), a veteran and a primary sponsor of the bill, told RS.
The Virginia Senate will vote on the measure before sending it to Governor Youngkin’s desk for consideration. Del. Freitas said he didn’t know whether the bill would pass in the Senate but that he and other supporters have “put it on the best possible footing with strong bipartisan, even unanimous support.”
"Today is an incredible victory for both National Guardsmen and our Constitution,” said retired Sgt. Dan McKnight, chairman of Bring Our Troops Home, a “group of veterans and civilians on a mission to end the Forever Wars & restore the U.S. Constitution.” “H.B. 2193 does not interfere with Title 32 deployments or overseas training missions. Its only requirement is that before the Virginia National Guard goes into combat, Congress has to do its job and vote. I'm incredibly proud to see my organization's bill receive such overwhelming support in the Old Dominion.”
There is a national push for similar legislation, commonly referred to as the Defend the Guard Act, to be passed by other state houses across the country. Hunter DeRensis, Communications Director at Bring Our Troops Home, told RS that “the bill will be introduced in 27 states this year.”
Kentucky State Rep. T.J. Roberts (R-66) introduced a version in January this year, which is now in committee. The Arizona State Senate will likely pass it for a third time in 2025, as the State House voted it down twice prior. A Defend the Guard bill passed the New Hampshire State House in 2024, but the State Senate decided to “quiet kill” the legislation by not voting on it at all. The State House introduced a new bill for the 2025 session. The Republican Party of Maine encoded Defend the Guard language into its state platform, and a bipartisan group of state representatives there introduced a new bill for the 2025 session.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth endorsed Defend the Guard legislation when it was presented in New Hampshire last year. “To me, it makes a lot of sense. I spent most of my career as a National Guardsman, deployed multiple times with the National Guard to foreign wars,” said Hegseth in 2024. “We got used to the idea that state National Guard are part of expeditionary forces, which is not traditionally the use of a National Guard.”
He continued: “This is New Hampshire saying we don’t trust how the federal government is going to use our troops, so we’re willing to commit them when the American people, through their elected branch in Congress, commits those troops to a foreign war, then you can. I love this idea.”
“An American-first foreign policy is about understanding that issues within our own borders should be prioritized,” said Del. Freitas. “In so far as foreign military operations are necessary, there should be clear and compelling reasons and adherence to the constitution.”
Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.