The Iran Negotiations

Iran's foreign minister and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff will sit down on Friday in Istanbul, ostensibly to "negotiate."

But what will be the subject of the negotiation?

The Iranians clearly want the U.S. to back off the intensifying military, political, economic, and diplomatic pressure on their regime. I would be stunned if they didn't claim victory after meeting with Witkoff, that the president had agreed to back down.

But what does President Trump want?

He has said two things, both of them intriguing, but neither one really analyzed by media commentators.

First, he has said he wants an end to Iran's nuclear program. Second, that he wants the regime to stop killing its own people.

Wait a minute, I thought Operation Midnight Hammer "obliterated" Iran's nuclear weapons facilities last June. What's up?

Over the past week, satellite photographs have emerged on social media showing that the Iranians have put new roofs on buildings at Fordo, the enrichment facility that was hit by U.S. bunker buster bombs on June 22.

The roofs may be just temporary covers, aimed primarily at keeping prying eyes (and satellites) from chronicling the excavation work underneath.

Still, it would take many months for the Iranians to burrow down the 300 feet of rubble caused by the bombs. And once they reached the underground enrichment hall, it's unlikely they would find anything other than twisted metal.

So my guess is that the apparent excavation work at Fordo is just a mirage.

Instead, I believe the U.S. now has definitive intelligence that the regime succeeded in spiriting away its stockpile of highly-enriched uranium shortly before the June 22 attack on Fordo.

Remember how quickly both the president and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth were to brush off questions relating to the HEU stockpile? And then how quickly the subject just seemed to vanish from the airwaves and the press briefings?

The 450 kg of 60% HEU Iran was known to possess before the June attacks is enough to produce at least ten nuclear weapons, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency's own assessment. That is not just a one-off bomb, but a nuclear weapons arsenal.

My Iranian sources believe the regime removed it long before the June attacks and is keeping it in a convoy of nearly two dozen container trucks where it can be further enriched -- a kind of rolling shell game, if you will.

That would make a tempting target for Pentagon war-planners, who have shown remarkable expertise at spiriting away highly-protected targets -- including a foreign president -- from very hostile environments.

It would certainly explain why the regime has been putting pressure on U.S. allies in the region in recent days, with the Supreme Leader warning that any U.S. attack would spark a "regional war."

One IRGC pundit, speaking on Iranian television, said the regime planned to strike at the heart of Dubai's financial hub, the Dubai Airport freezone, the Internet exchange center, and the Jebal Ali Free Trade zone. That would do tremendous damage not just physically, but to Dubai's image as a peaceful safe haven for innovative business and high-tech development.

But how serious is President Trump about his second demand that the regime stop killing protesters?

It's hard to know, and much more difficult to quantify. Trump claimed last month, before the full extent of the regime's slaughter of innocent protesters became known, that his threats of retaliation had stopped the execution of 800 political prisoners.

But by now it's pretty clear that Trump's words have not deterred the Iranian regime, which has justified the killings by claiming the protests were the work of external "plots."

In a letter reportedly signed by the President to an Iranian-American family in California whose nephew was killed by the regime during protests on January 10, the President said that his administration "will always stand with the people of Iran in their demand for freedom and democracy." He added: "We are working with great determination to ensure that the Ayatollah and his criminal regime are brought to justice."

Those are serious words that go well beyond official statements so far.

Retired Israeli Brigadier General Amir Avivi, founder and chairman of the nonprofit Israel's Defense and Security Forum, said this week it was time for the president to put up or shut up.

“This operation is not a limited strike on military or nuclear facilities. We are facing a highly complex attack aimed at regime change in Iran…  broad and multi‑layered, directly targeting the regime’s leadership," he said in a video statement.

According to Avivi, by striking communications centers and state broadcasting, the regime’s command links with its forces across Iran would be severed. He added that all IRGC bases would be targeted and, ultimately, the public would be armed.

That goes way beyond anything the Trump administration has suggested publicly. But then again, they didn't say much about capturing Nicolás Maduro, either.

For all his public verbosity and bombast, this president has shown a remarkable ability to play his cards close to his vest. Tehran's carpet merchants have finally met their match.

Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior fellow at the America First Policy Institute who was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize in 2006 for his work on Iran. His 14th book of non-fiction, The Iran House: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, is available from Post Hill Press.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/02/the_iran_negotiations.html