New Report Lays Out Guidelines for Trump to Engage in Nuclear Talks With Iran

A new report by the Jewish Institute for the National Security of America urges the incoming Trump administration to pursue nuclear talks with Iran — but only under strict conditions and paired with a serious U.S. military threat to the regime’s nuclear program.

The JINSA report begins with a stark warning: “From the day President-elect [Donald] Trump takes office, he will have almost zero time or margin for error to prevent a nuclear Iran,” arguing that efforts to re-implement a maximum-pressure campaign “including credible threats of force” must begin before Trump is sworn into office.

The report urges Trump to “at least consider Iran’s offer of talks seriously if only to build support” for stronger sanctions if the talks fall through. It also notes that Iran is already weakened, and the regime could use talks, if not handled correctly, as a delaying tactic to harden its nuclear infrastructure and ultimately run out the clock on snapback sanctions, which expire in October.

Negotiations, the report argues, should be aggressive and coercive, not conciliatory, and Trump should stick to a strict set of conditions.

“To seize this unique but fleeting opportunity, President-elect Trump should join Israel in giving Iran an ultimatum at the outset of his presidency: agree fully and immediately to verifiably dismantle its nuclear weapons program, or invite its imminent and utter destruction,” the report continues, adding that a military strike on Iran now appears to be a credible possibility.

Elliott Abrams, who served as a special representative for Iran in the first Trump administration, said in a briefing about the report on Tuesday that any diplomacy with Iran must be backed up with military force. And he said that the U.S. should make clear that it may participate directly in strikes on Iran’s nuclear program.

Eric Edelman, a former undersecretary of defense for policy and a co-chair of the Commission on National Defense Strategy, said that the U.S. should participate in joint exercises with Israel and move key munitions into position to send “strong signals of a willingness to use military force if we can’t get a diplomatic resolution.”

John Hannah, a senior fellow at JINSA who served as national security advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney, said that the October snapback deadline should be the deadline for implementing a deal with verifiable compliance and execution by Iran, leaving mere months for talks. He said the U.S. should pursue direct negotiations, rather than mediated talks as the Biden administration did.

Hannah said that, as preconditions for talks, the U.S. should demand Iran freeze its production of uranium above 20% purity, comply with outstanding inspection requests from the International Atomic Energy Agency and halt attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea.

He said the U.S. should demand in talks that Iran dismantle its enrichment program and provide full transparency on the military aspects of its nuclear weapons program. And he said the deal should include no sunset provisions.

Hannah also acknowledged that there’s a “low-probability risk” that Trump’s “transactional nature” and zeal for dealmaking might lead him to accept a lightly renegotiated version of the 2015 deal that would not mandate significant progress toward ending Iran’s nuclear program. But he said that such a theory probably does not give Trump “enough credit because I do think nuclear things are in a special category for him.”

The report urges full enforcement of existing and newly passed U.S. sanctions laws, the resumption of bounties for smuggling ships and boosting domestic oil production.

It further calls on the U.S. to publicly signal its willingness to attack Iran and treat Iranian proxy attacks on U.S. personnel and ships as attacks by Iran itself, update plans for strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and move assets necessary to carry out such a strike and handle its aftermath to the region. The authors suggest this could include setting a concrete public or private red line regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

It urges the incoming administration to offer clear support for Israeli military action against the Iranian nuclear program, expedite the transfer of refueling aircraft to Israel, position U.S. tankers in the country, ensure Israel has sufficient weapons and missile defense stockpiles, end all holds on weapons transfers to Israel, engage in planning and joint exercises with Israel, ensure proper protection for U.S. troops in the region and take an aggressive approach to Iranian proxy groups to reassure Arab allies.

It also urges the U.S to begin talks early with European partners about implementing snapback sanctions, urge expanded oil production by Gulf allies to undercut Iranian oil revenues, work to end Iraq’s use of Iranian energy supplies, including ending sanctions waivers, and work to bring European partners onboard with U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“We should have a goal of something that would have seemed impossible a few months ago, but now is obviously halfway done, if not more, which is to end this proxy network that does so much damage to Iraq and Syria and Lebanon and Israel and Yemen and to the Palestinians,” Abrams said.

Hannah argued that the Iranian regime is more vulnerable than ever, and its ability to spark a major regional war in retaliation for an attack on its nuclear program is at a low point. But its incentive to sprint to a nuclear weapon, he added, is at an all-time high.

“So it’s a moment in time that may pass fairly quickly where we and the Israelis together can do something quite dramatic with the risks of the blowback being lower than it’s been in a very long time, in terms of a broader war in the region,” Hannah said.

He acknowledged that a strike on Iran will likely not be top priority for the incoming administration, given its focus on issues like the border, a tax bill and the Russia-Ukraine war, but he said that the new administration needs to, at minimum, ensure it has the necessary intelligence collection to facilitate such a strike.

Hannah said that while the U.S. might be less interested in a strike on Iran’s nuclear program, the Israelis might be more eager to execute such an operation. He predicted that Trump would be “quite a bit more sympathetic” to such an Israeli approach and urged the U.S. to expedite transfers of key weapons systems and support platforms to Israel to support a potential unilateral Israeli strike.

He argued that such assets aren’t currently needed as urgently in East Asia for a potential invasion of Taiwan — seen as several years away. “As close as [Iran is] to getting the bomb, it might be worth taking a little additional risk in the Pacific in order to give Israel those capabilities now, as a sign of our commitment to them and the credibility of an Israeli strike,” Hannah said.

The report further suggests that the U.S. exploit domestic political unrest in Iran through human rights sanctions and messaging campaigns, ensure citizens’ internet access and potentially seek to instigate a workers’ strike.

Originally published in Jewish Insider.