Playing Bluff Poker on a Knife’s Edge

Listen To This Story

It’s going to take more than a knife-edge game of bluff poker to get US-Iranian talks back on track.

To successfully pull back from the brink, both the United States and Iran would have to fundamentally alter the assumptions underlying their negotiation strategy and what they hope to achieve in talks.

That may be a tall order, particularly for President Donald Trump, who clings to the fiction of already having achieved total victory in Iran, an inflated perception of his negotiating skills and ability to dictate terms, and an overestimation of the powers of his office and country — and of what military superiority can achieve.

Trump’s belief that the US-Israeli air campaign has rendered Iran militarily impotent, inflicted incalculable infrastructural damage, and that Iran is a one-man dictatorship rather than a multilayered governance system reinforces his flawed perception of reality.

On the bright side, Trump, like Iran, would prefer a negotiated resolution rather than escalation of hostilities once the current ceasefire expires on April 22.

The problem is that neither the president nor Iran — both convinced that they have the upper hand — wants a resolution at any price.

As far as Trump and Iranian leaders are concerned, negotiations must be on their own mutually exclusive terms.

In addition, the United States and Iran both want to be able to not only declare victory but also assert that they have defeated the other.

In jockeying for position in future negotiations, Trump is his own worst enemy with his bombastic language, outlandish threats, and refusal to capitalize on potential openings.

This weekend, Trump missed an opportunity to de-escalate and create space for negotiations when Iran, in advance of the Islamabad talks, declared the Strait of Hormuz open for shipping, albeit on Iranian terms.

The president responded by insisting that the US naval blockade of the strait would remain in place until an agreement with Iran had been reached and seized a commercial vessel headed for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

Since then, Trump has failed to create space, for example, by potentially temporarily lifting the blockade during talks in Islamabad, freeing the crew of the seized vessel, if not the vessel itself, or agreeing to allow humanitarian cargo destined for Iran to traverse the strait.

In the contest of who will blink first, Trump assumes that Iran is already on its knees and that, if necessary, bombing its power plants and bridges will finish it off.

Iran may have suffered incalculable damage to its military capabilities and infrastructure seven weeks into the war, but it remains capable of hitting targets in Israel and the Gulf and blocking shipping in the strait.

Similarly, Iran is betting that, in a US election year, when the war is unpopular and Americans are critical of the president’s performance — including some who question his mental ability to govern — Trump’s quest for quick, decisive victories will persuade him to compromise.

So far, there is no indication that Trump is bowing to domestic pressure. On the contrary — if anything, he has dug in his heels.

As a result, the gap between the US and Iranian positions on most issues dividing the two countries remains yawning.

Complicating a compromise resolution of what is, perhaps, the lowest-hanging fruit, the nuclear issue, is the fact that Trump needs to produce an accord that is substantially superior to the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump unilaterally walked away from that agreement in 2018.

To do so, Trump demands that Iran agree to terms that would amount to surrender by giving up its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) enshrined in the 2015 agreement.

Trump has also refused to entertain alternative ways of ensuring that Iran’s 400+ kilograms of highly enriched uranium is diluted to NPT-acceptable levels, insisting instead that the Islamic Republic hand it over to the United States.

These demands run counter not only to the Islamic Republic’s DNA but also to Iran’s national identity, which emphasizes sovereignty, deterrence, and national pride.

So does the notion that Iran would negotiate with the US Navy’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in place or in response to Trump’s threats to renew the bombing of critical Iranian infrastructure.

Iran’s resolve and belief that time is on its side will be put to the test if Trump follows through on his threats.

As it maneuvers to set the terms of renewed negotiations with the United States, Iran is keenly aware of shifting Gulf attitudes towards the region’s relations with the US and its positioning in a new, more multipolar 21st-century world order, in which middle powers would have greater flexibility.

In a sign of the times, Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent Emirati intellectual, who often reflects government thinking as well as a more nationalistic trend that sees the United States as both an ally and a liability, called for a fundamental reassessment of the United Arab Emirates’ reliance on the US.

“The UAE no longer needs America to defend it, as it has proven during the Iranian aggression that it is capable of defending itself with distinction. What the UAE needs is to acquire only the best and latest weapons that America has,” said Abdulla. “Therefore, it is time to think about closing the American bases, as they are a burden and not a strategic asset.”

Abdulla’s comment is likely to be music to Iran’s ears, even though it represents one extreme of Gulf debate and contradicts statements by senior UAE officials, including influential presidential adviser Anwar Gargash, who suggested that the Iran war was pushing Gulf states to cooperate more closely with the United States and Israel.

Iran would be mistaken to read too much into Abdulla’s words.

Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates, the most assertive of the regional monarchies and the only one to be led by a ruling family member with a military career, are nowhere close to rupturing their security ties to the United States.

Post-war, they are more likely to want to renegotiate the terms of their anchor relationship with the United States, invest in greater self-reliance and the development of a robust military-industrial complex, and, within boundaries, diversify their defense arrangements.

Even so, Iran is likely to see Abdulla’s comment as signaling which way the long-term wind is blowing.

James M. Dorsey, an associate editor of WhoWhatWhy, is an adjunct senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.