“They want to reach an agreement. I know it. They have called many times. They want to talk,” is how the American president explained the situation. Donald Trump in an interview with the journalist Axios and analyst CNN, Barak Ravid.
Iran is in the middle of a terrible social crisis, after the brutal repression of the demonstrations at the beginning of the year and with an economy in full collapse, which makes US intelligence consider that the regime “is at its weakest moment since 1979”, when the ayatollahs came to power.
It is not clear exactly what the Tehran regime can offer the United States to prevent a second attack, following the “twelve-day war” of June last year.
It is also unclear what Trump is seeking. In principle, Iran should abandon any attempt to resume its nuclear program for material or civilian purposes.
It is not likely that he will enter into the issue of human rights, since it is a topic that has not interested him in Venezuela and that should not interest him now.
As the United States continues to inform and consult its allies—Adm. Brad Cooperthe head of Central Command (CENTCOM), visited Syria, Israel and Iraq this weekend to estimate the consequences of an attack -, Iran has turned to the Saudi crown prince, Mohamed bin Salmanas a mediator, something really surprising. Masud Pezeshkian He called MBS on Tuesday to inform him that he was willing to find a solution to prevent war.
Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been historically terrible since the ayatollahs came to power.
Saudi Arabia is the religious reference of the Muslim world and its religion – Wahhabism – is a derivative of the Sunni cult. Iran, however, has always claimed to be the military and political reference of that same world from a Shiite perspective.
In September 2019, Iran attacked refineries in Saudi territory with missiles, although it blamed its militia in Yemen, the Houthis.
Deployment of nuclear aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
Archive (US Navy)
Trump’s “army” ready
The reasons for not attacking Iran have to do with the willingness of the Persians to negotiate in a position of weakness, with the risk that would be assumed if Iran decided to avenge the attack on US bases in Middle Eastern countries and with the fact that it would engulf Iran’s ally. Vladimir Putin in something very similar to a civil war.
None of their neighbors feel comfortable with the ayatollahs… but perhaps they prefer a diminished regime to the instability that a changing of the guard would entail if the option of Reza Pahlavi dirty evil.
All of this works in favor of Ali Jamenei and Pezeshkian… what works against him is Trump’s basic instinct.
It seems that the American president is at a moment in his life and his mandate in which what he wants is action. He has been sending ships to the Persian Gulf area for weeks and the USS Lincoln, the most powerful of all, is already there, which has arrived with an escort of three other warships armed with Tomahawk missiles.
In addition, it has sent several F15 and F35 fighters and additional air defense systems.
“We have sent a large armada,” Trump said, using the term in Spanish. “It is more powerful than that of Venezuela,” he added, which, on the other hand, is not very complicated either because in Venezuela it did not require much naval deployment, but rather aerial deployment to destroy the land military objectives and the ships that supposedly carried the drugs to the United States.
In any case, no one is aware that the reference is not coincidental and that it indicates that what happened in the Caribbean country could happen in Iran soon.
More than 30,000 protesters killed
As if this were not enough, there is the question of ego, which always counts when we talk about Trump.
At the beginning of the demonstrations against the ayatollah regime, the American president promised the opponents that he would not fail them and that he would come to their aid.
A few days later, he was accepting Pezeshkian’s version that there would be no more executions and distancing himself from the protests. Many around him have seen it as a sign of weakness and Trump does not like that.
If he can settle that outstanding score, he will try.
The regime recognizes 3,000 civilian deaths at point-blank range, while the HRANA agency claims that it has been able to count 6,000.
However, medical sources both inside and outside the country believe that the figure of 30,000 is closer to reality, and could even reach 35,000.
The massacre has been such that, in his role as world peacekeeper, Trump surely has a thorn in his side.
In this sense, the senator has stated Lindsey Grahama close friend of the president and court advisor on international policy issues.
Graham said on Monday that he had recently spoken with Trump and that he trusted him to “keep his promise” to help Iranians who had protested against his government.
It is also true that Graham has been defending Ukraine against Russia for years and it does not seem that the president is paying much attention to him.
In general, the situation is reminiscent of June 2025, when the United States agreed to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program, sent a delegation to Doha to meet with Pezeshkian’s envoys… and the next day, Trump ordered the attack on the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities.
With that precedent on the table, Tehran had better accept everything they propose or probably this time the attacks will not be a single night or exclusively on military objectives.