JCPOA Revisited?

Some useful discussion of how Iran’s situation has changed over the past two years:

 One hard-line Iranian lawmaker even claims that Tehran has been quietly engaging Trump’s team for two years as part of a strategy to prepare for any scenario, including the possible outcomes of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The same cold calculus appears to be shaping the thinking of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which controls Iran’s key military and nuclear infrastructure. A deal with Trump might eventually prompt the IRGC leadership to reassess the costs of prolonged hostility with the United States and consider a deeper detente. But such intentions remain unarticulated. For now, the IRGC shares a core objective with Khamenei: avoiding war. It wants to contain escalation, buy time, and preserve strategic leverage. Embracing negotiations does not, for the IRGC, represent a fundamental shift in worldview.

To eliminate any doubts about regime unity, Khamenei’s office has made it clear that the IRGC backs the talks led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi—but remains “fully alert,” with “fingers on the trigger,” should diplomacy falter. In this narrative, diplomacy and military deterrence are two sides of the same coin, and the IRGC stands as both the guardian of Iran’s red lines and the guarantor that any deal proceeds strictly on Tehran’s terms.

Meanwhile, Iran’s pragmatic and technocratic factions—in many ways, the backbone of the state machinery—have openly welcomed Khamenei and the IRGC’s endorsement of nuclear talks with the Trump administration. For Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian—the latest standard-bearers of the pro-engagement camp—this moment marks a calculated pivot in Tehran’s relationship with Washington.

Trump is unlikely to get a better deal than the JCPOA, but of course it will be the Hugest Deal Ever and the Iranians know that any successive Democratic President probably won’t withdraw from it. Republicans are allowed to do diplomacy; Democrats are not.