WeeklyWorker

22.05.2025
Amidst Saudi bling: Donald Trump with Mohammed bin Salman and Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa

Red lines and regional gambits

Trump’s visit to the Middle East garnered all manner of mega-sized business deals. However, unspoken, in the background, there were two looming issues, Gaza and the US-Iran nuclear talks. Yassamine Mather looks at the likelihood of an agreement

As the fifth round of nuclear talks between Iran’s Islamic Republic and the United States approaches, both sides have turned to the media to assert their red lines. Central to the standoff is uranium enrichment: some US officials insist Iran’s programme must be “dismantled”, while Tehran maintains that “the principle of enrichment is not negotiable”. There is nothing new about these red lines: what is surprising is why the issue has only come up after four rounds of talks, described by both sides as “positive” and “constructive”.

Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special representative for the Middle East, recently reaffirmed this position, stating that Trump is committed to resolving the issue through “diplomacy and dialogue”, but emphasised that “we cannot accept even one percent enrichment capability”. This triggered a swift response from senior Iranian officials. Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated Iran’s stance that enrichment would continue, and his deputy, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, warned that if the US remains inflexible the negotiations will fail. Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking at the Tehran Dialogue Forum, invoked the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to defend Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear research.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking on May 20 at the anniversary of former president Ebrahim Raisi’s death, echoed this defiance. Criticising indirect talks during Raisi’s presidency as fruitless, he declared: “Saying that they won’t allow Iran to enrich uranium is an outrageous mistake. The Islamic Republic is not waiting for permission from this or that party.”

New proposal

In contrast to this week’s antagonistic rhetoric, recent developments had suggested cautious optimism that a deal was possible. Amid the backdrop of Trump’s Gulf tour and regional diplomacy, Iranian negotiators had apparently floated a proposal: a regional uranium enrichment consortium involving Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. First raised during April talks in Oman and Italy, the idea envisages a new, jointly-managed enrichment facility - its location could be a Gulf island on Iranian soil, but outside existing sites like Fordow and Natanz. The goal would be to embed Iran’s enrichment within a regional and internationally supervised framework.

According to reports in Tehran, Araghchi discussed the proposal with officials in the UAE and Saudi Arabia in early May. According to these reports, the UAE responded positively, while Saudi Arabia expressed cautious interest, but did not reject the idea outright. The Islamic Republic hoped the consortium could reduce nuclear tensions, be presented as regional cooperation and offer a diplomatic way out for all parties. Iran would retain enrichment under international oversight, the US could claim it curtailed Iran’s autonomy and Gulf states could assert regional control over a high-stakes security issue.

However, deep mistrust remains. Past failures - such as the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal - have cast long shadows. While international institutions like the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Low Enriched Uranium Bank in Kazakhstan offer models for multilateral operations, the proposed consortium is a rare “third way”.

Iran’s pursuit of a multilateral enrichment framework is not new. In the 1970s, Iran’s stake in France’s European Gaseous Diffusion Uranium Enrichment Consortium, was frozen after the Islamic revolution, despite a legal victory over its investment. Similar proposals made to the UK, France and Germany in the 2000s were rejected amid fears of covert activity.

However, Saudi Arabia is also moving ahead on its nuclear ambitions - currently backed by the US - and it is difficult to predict what options will be preferred.

In this respect, Donald Trump’s high-profile May visit to the Persian Gulf reinforced Washington’s regional pivot and underscored the context for Iran’s proposal. The trip featured economic deals, defence agreements and cultural diplomacy - with nuclear talks playing out in the background.

In Saudi Arabia, Trump was welcomed with royal fanfare and met by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He also held a landmark meeting with Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa - the first US-Syrian presidential encounter since 2000. Alongside symbolic gestures came economic substance: Riyadh pledged $600 billion in US investments and signed a record $142 billion arms deal.

In Qatar, Trump oversaw Qatar Airways’ historic purchase of 210 Boeing jets and visited Al Udeid Air Base. He also participated in the handover ceremony marking the FIFA World Cup transition from Qatar to the US, using the occasion to promote dialogue over confrontation. He also praised Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for “acting in good faith” as a mediator between Washington and Tehran. “The emir has been quietly helpful,” Trump said, “trying to convey messages and reduce tensions on both sides. He understands the stakes and wants to avoid escalation.”

In the UAE (May 15-16), the focus shifted to innovation. Trump launched a five-gigawatt AI data centre in Abu Dhabi - set to be the largest outside the US - and received the Order of Zayed, the UAE’s top civilian honour. Plans for ‘Disneyland Abu Dhabi’ were also unveiled: apparently, this would envisage a fusion of American entertainment and Emirati identity!

While the economic agreements themselves may not be especially significant on their own, they signal a shift in US policy in the region - one that abandons even the pretence of concern for what Trump calls “woke” issues: women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and human rights more broadly. Notably, the tour did not include a stop in Israel. Some interpret this omission as a calculated attempt by the Trump administration to balance continued support for Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza with the need to maintain strong ties with Arab dictatorships - ties that are crucial for managing growing regional unrest and popular anger over the war on Palestinians. Moreover, in light of the new trade and investment deals, neither the US nor its Gulf partners appear eager to trigger a broader regional war targeting Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran’s economy remains in a dire situation. At the beginning of the current year, following severe currency fluctuations in Iran, the US dollar rate in the free market surpassed 100,000 tomans for the first time, while the price of a gold coin also rose to 103 million tomans. At the beginning of the US-Iran negotiations the exchange rate declined, dropping to around 83,000 tomans by April-May. This week, with the hardening of positions between Iranian and American officials, the dollar exchange rate in Iran suddenly surged again.

Espionage claims

UK-Iran relations sharply deteriorated in May 2025 following two high-profile British ‘counterterrorism’ operations that led to the arrest of eight men - seven of them Iranian nationals - in two separate cases.

On May 3, five men were detained in coordinated raids across London, Swindon and Greater Manchester. Four were confirmed as Iranian nationals and accused of ‘plotting a terrorist attack’, reportedly targeting the Israeli embassy. While the arrests dominated the headlines, the subsequent release of three of the suspects without charge received almost no media coverage - highlighting a striking double standard in press coverage.

That same day, in a separate operation, three other Iranian nationals were arrested under the 2023 National Security Act. They are accused of conducting surveillance on journalists from Iran International - a pro-Zionist, UK-based Persian-language news channel. All three men had previously been granted asylum in the UK! Iran’s ministry of foreign affairs has firmly denied any involvement in either case, calling the allegations baseless.

Given the timing - coinciding with Iran-US nuclear negotiations - it seems improbable that the Iranian state would authorise operations likely to derail diplomacy. A more plausible explanation is that rogue actors, possibly affiliated with Iran’s intelligence services, were involved. Such groups have previously been infiltrated by Mossad, and any incident like this - especially arrests on British soil - undoubtedly serves the interests of Israel, which remains deeply opposed to renewed US-Iran engagement.

Tensions have further escalated amid a renewed push in the UK parliament to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. A letter calling for proscription, signed by over 550 MPs and Lords across party lines, suggests heavy lobbying - likely backed by Israeli interests - at what is a strategically sensitive moment.

This push, however, faces long-standing obstacles:

While the arrests and parliamentary letter appear to show rising pressure for confrontation, they also raise serious questions about timing, motive and the broader geopolitical gamesmanship at work.