Since first taking office in 2017, US President Donald Trump has maintained an unwavering hardline stance toward Iran, marking a dramatic departure from the approach of his predecessor, Barack Obama. This represents not simply a policy adjustment, but a wholesale reversal in handling the Iranian issue.
Trump’s strategy toward Iran rests on three key pillars: withdrawing from the nuclear deal and reimposing crippling economic sanctions, applying military pressure with explicit threats of force, and systematically isolating Iran diplomatically.
This strategy crystallized in May 2018, when Trump – in his characteristically blunt manner – announced the United States’ withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement, dismissing it as “catastrophic” and “the worst deal ever negotiated.”
Will Trump’s cowboy diplomacy and rapid-fire dealmaking approach succeed where others have failed, forcing Iran – long known for its carpet weaver’s patience and strategic forbearance – to finally surrender its nuclear ambitions?
The economic sanctions have devastated Iran’s economy to an unprecedented degree. The statistics tell a grim story: Iranian oil exports have crashed from 2.5 million barrels per day before sanctions to barely 500,000 barrels daily, while the Iranian currency has hemorrhaged over 80% of its value, with inflation surging past 40% to historic highs.
Adding fuel to this economic inferno, Trump ramped up his threatening rhetoric during his second term. In March 2025, he issued an explicit threat to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, declaring unequivocally to NBC News: “If they [the Iranians] don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” warning ominously there would be strikes “the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Faced with escalating US threats
FACED WITH escalating American threats in 2025 and an economy in free fall, Iran – despite its long-cultivated image of unyielding defiance – began signaling willingness to negotiate, though carefully wrapping this concession in face-saving formalities. While confirming its readiness for talks with Washington about its nuclear program, Tehran insists these discussions are “indirect” rather than direct, as Trump has claimed.
Perhaps most tellingly, domestic voices calling for abandoning Iran’s official stance against pursuing nuclear weapons have grown increasingly vocal. In a watershed moment, Ahmad Naderi, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s presidium, publicly declared during a legislative session: “Perhaps the time has come to fundamentally reassess our nuclear, military, and security doctrine.”
Meanwhile, careful scrutiny of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s public statements reveals a meticulously crafted – if transparently desperate – propaganda campaign designed to project strength and progress, despite Iran’s increasingly dire circumstances.
Khamenei recently proclaimed with breathtaking detachment from reality: “The advancements achieved throughout our nation have provoked intense anger and discomfort among Iran’s enemies,” adding that “the independent Islamic identity of our regime is what fundamentally triggers their hostility.”
He continued with rhetoric bordering on the delusional: “The constant barrage of noise from enemy media channels stems purely from their frustration and impotence. Finding themselves without recourse, they fabricate claims utterly divorced from reality, desperately attempting to present their wishful thinking as fact, when the truth stands in stark contrast.”
Any critical observer can spot the jarring – almost comical – disconnect between Iran’s official rhetoric and the harsh realities on the ground. While Khamenei trumpets mysterious “advancements” supposedly infuriating Iran’s enemies, the evidence paints a starkly different picture: a nation buckling under crushing sanctions and military threats, reluctantly dragging itself back to negotiations it had previously rejected with indignation. His dismissal of “enemy media noise” and “fabricated claims” represents a transparent preemptive strategy to discredit inevitable reports of Iranian concessions in the ongoing talks.
This elementary propaganda tactic aims to inoculate domestic audiences against information contradicting the official narrative.
KHAMENEI CLEARLY recognizes – undoubtedly to his profound dismay – that the regime may have no choice but to make substantial concessions under Trump’s relentless pressure, yet he labors to psychologically prepare his followers by pre-framing these inevitable capitulations as victories against the “Great Satan and the Jews.”
The Iranian regime now faces an excruciating dilemma with no painless escape route: either bow to American demands and abandon its nuclear aspirations – risking domestic perception of weakness and surrender – or gamble on a military confrontation with the United States that could obliterate the entire power structure.
Caught in this tightening vise, Tehran appears to be frantically improvising, engaging in carefully conditioned negotiations while preserving the option for escalation, all while deploying its propaganda apparatus to recast potential concessions as diplomatic triumphs.
This dynamic shows the growing incompatibility between Iran’s traditional approach to international relations – the famed carpet weaver’s diplomacy built on strategic patience and multi-generational endurance – and the brutal efficiency of Trump’s pressure campaign demanding immediate, verifiable results.
Without question, Iran’s vaunted strategic patience now faces its most severe test under Trump’s unyielding pressure campaign. Tehran struggles to reconcile its long-held principle of patient resistance – a strategy that has served it for decades – with responding to American pressures that have systematically dismantled its economic foundation and threaten its very survival.
The final irony is inescapable: arrogant Iran, which has for years cultivated an image of revolutionary defiance and unshakable resolve, now finds itself in the humiliating position of essentially begging for a deal – any deal – that might preserve some semblance of dignity domestically while averting the catastrophic consequences of American military action.
The writer is a UAE political analyst and former Federal National Council candidate.