(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Trump on Monday suggested that Iran was slow-walking talks with the US and repeated his threat of military action if a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program isn’t reached.
The US and Iran held indirect negotiations in Oman over the weekend and are set to hold another round in Rome this coming Saturday.
“Iran wants to deal with us, but they don’t know how. They really don’t know how. We had a meeting with them on Saturday. We have another meeting scheduled next Saturday, I said, ‘that’s a long time,’ so I think they might be tapping us along,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office while meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.
Trump said that Iran has to “get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon, they cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Iran has made clear that it’s willing to reaffirm its pledge that it doesn’t seek nuclear weapons, and US intelligence agencies recently said in their annual threat assessment there’s no evidence that Tehran is building a nuclear bomb or that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has reversed his 2003 fatwah that banned the production of weapons of mass destruction.
Despite the conclusion from US intelligence agencies, Trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if a deal isn’t reached on its nuclear program. “If we have to do something very harsh, we’ll do it,” he said. “And I’m not doing it for us. I’m doing it for the world. These are radicalized people, and they cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
When asked if the options include a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the president said, “Of course.”
Trita Parsi, an Iran expert and Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute, believes that a deal could be reached if it is narrow and the US doesn’t demand the total dismantlement of Iran’s civilian nuclear program. Iran hawks in the US and Israel could try to sabotage the process, and there’s a chance the US could add more demands related to Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support for its allies in the region, issues Iran doesn’t want to include in any deal with the US.
