As American and Iranian negotiators gather in Muscat on February 6, the familiar choreography of nuclear diplomacy resumes. From the Iranians, there will be cautious language, diplomatic platitudes, and earnest claims that progress is possible. But beneath the formalities lies an uncomfortable truth; the prospects for a meaningful resolution are slim, and the Islamic Republic has little intention of conceding on the issues that truly matter.
Donald Trump’s blunt warning that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei should be “very worried” is not mere rhetoric. It reflects a shift in the balance of pressure. The United States has deployed an aircraft carrier, destroyers, and combat aircraft to the region, and has made clear that further military action remains on the table following strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during Israel’s June war. This is leverage of a kind Iran has not faced in years. Yet leverage alone does not guarantee success when dealing with a regime whose ideology prizes defiance over compromise and survival over prosperity.
Tehran enters the Oman talks insisting that discussions be “exclusively” limited to its nuclear program and the lifting of sanctions. This is not a negotiating position; it is a demand for selective amnesia. Iran wants the economic rewards of compliance without addressing the behaviors that have made it a pariah state, such as its ballistic missile program, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its network of regional proxies that have destabilized the Middle East for decades, but most of all, its barbaric and relentless crushing of dissent and the slaughter of the Iranian people. The mullahs know full well that any serious agreement would require limits not just on centrifuges, but on missiles and militias. And they will not accept those limits. To do so would be seen internally as surrender, as a repudiation of the Islamic Republic’s claim to revolutionary sovereignty and regional power. The regime’s legitimacy rests not on popular consent but on resistance to Israel, to the West, and above all to the United States.
This is why the oft-repeated Iranian claim that uranium enrichment is solely for peaceful energy purposes rings hollow. Enrichment to 60 percent purity is not a civilian necessity, it is a strategic choice. It brings Iran within weeks of weapons-grade material and serves as a constant threat, like a loaded gun placed on the negotiating table. Trump is therefore right to demand an end to all enrichment and nuclear activity. Half-measures have failed before and will fail again.
We have been here before. In 2015, Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), promising limits on enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. Billions flowed into Tehran’s coffers, and the regime did not invest in schools, hospitals, or infrastructure. Instead, it doubled down on repression at home and terror abroad, funding Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up Bashar al-Assad in Syria, arming militias in Iraq and Yemen, and expanding its missile arsenal. The JCPOA did not moderate Iran, it emboldened it. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal in 2018 was controversial, but it reflected a fundamental flaw in Western thinking; the belief that economic incentives can tame an ideological dictatorship. They cannot.
Today, Iran is under unprecedented strain. Internally, it has been rocked by nationwide protests in December and January, met with the most brutal violence in decades. The regime survives through fear, not consent. Externally, it faces military pressure, diplomatic isolation, and a collapsing regional strategy as its proxies suffer setbacks. This combination makes Tehran dangerous, not conciliatory. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s defiant tone is not posturing, it is necessity. To compromise on missiles or proxies would be to admit failure, to acknowledge that 45 years of revolutionary sacrifice have led not to strength, but to vulnerability. That is a concession he is unlikely to make while he still controls the instruments of repression.
What, then, are the likely outcomes of the Oman talks? At best, there may be a temporary, cosmetic agreement, a pause, a promise, a partial rollback that allows Iran to claim victory at home and the West to claim diplomacy is alive. At worst, the talks will collapse, reinforcing the regime’s narrative that the United States cannot be trusted, and that confrontation is inevitable. What must be avoided is the most dangerous outcome of all, a weak deal that repeats the mistakes of the past. Any agreement that allows continued enrichment, ignores missile development, or turns a blind eye to Iran’s regional terrorism will only postpone the crisis while making it more lethal.
The West must also remember that the greatest pressure on the regime does not come from aircraft carriers, but from its own people, above all, the younger generation, whose bravery under the withering fire of IRGC machine-guns won admiration worldwide. The Iranian population has made clear, time and again, that it rejects both the crown and the turban. It wants neither the return of monarchy nor the perpetuation of clerical tyranny. It wants freedom, accountability and a normal place in the world. Engaging the regime while ignoring the Iranian people is not pragmatism, it is moral blindness. Sanctions relief without fundamental change will strengthen the oppressors, not the oppressed.
The Oman talks will test whether Washington has learned from history or is doomed to repeat it. Strength, clarity and resolve, not wishful thinking, are required. Iran understands power, not persuasion. If the regime believes it can stall, deceive and outlast the West, it will do so without hesitation.
Khamenei may indeed be “very worried.” But worry alone will not produce compromise. Only sustained pressure, coupled with unwavering support for the Iranian people, offers any hope of a different future. The question is whether the West has the courage to see this through, or whether, once again, it will settle for an illusion of progress while the centrifuges keep spinning.
Struan Stevenson was president of the European Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14), the Coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change (CiC). He was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) representing Scotland (1999-2014). He is an author and international lecturer on the Middle East.