U.S. President Donald Trump brought a completely new perspective to U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding the three key locations – Gaza, Ukraine and China – which have held a prominent place in recent international politics. While Trump has taken some steps to end the Ukraine-Russia war, he has begun to show more of his own approach to competing with China. In Gaza, he put the strip plan on the agenda, which was met with fierce opposition, even though it provided a temporary pause in Israel’s genocidal attacks.
Besides all this, the Iranian issue has also started to occupy a very different and exceptional place within American foreign policy. Trump’s rigid and antagonistic attitude toward Iran in his first term, the policy of maximum pressure, the strategy of regime change and events such as the assassination of Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani have created the expectation that Iran-U.S. relations will be full of tension in Trump’s second term. In addition to this, Israel’s aggression against Iran and its proxy forces throughout 2024, led to a strong belief that Iran could face intense pressure from the U.S. in 2025.
However, with the start of his second term, Trump has adopted a relatively moderate stance on nuclear negotiations with Iran. He has clearly stated that he is in favor of negotiations with Iran and has taken initiatives in this direction. However, Trump, who had presented the option of negotiation in a threatening tone, framed the alternative to negotiations as pressure and attack. At this point, Israel’s insistence on airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and the operations against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have revealed the concreteness of this threat.
Threats to the regime
This situation engenders a profound sense of confusion and anxiety within Iran. In the wake of Israel’s assertive approach toward Iran and its proxies last year, the start of Trump’s second term, as would be anticipated, has significantly elevated Iran’s perceived threat level. This increased threat perception was manifested in Iran’s nationwide military exercises conducted in January and February 2025. These exercises primarily involved the Iranian Armed Forces testing their air defense and counterattack scenarios. Code-named “Eqtedar-1403,” the exercises were designed to assess Iran’s capabilities to counter potential attacks on its nuclear facilities. This demonstrated Iran’s increased threat perception, indicating the possibility of being targeted by an air campaign following the Israeli attack in October 2024, even before Trump’s second presidential term started.
This increasing threat perception is further compounded by Trump’s belligerent and menacing conduct regarding the nuclear negotiations. Trump has stated that he intends to initiate negotiations with Iran on the terms he has outlined and that failure on the part of Iran to comply may result in military operations and economic pressure being applied. This dynamic has the potential to directly impact regime security, which is widely regarded as the most pressing security concern in Iran.
In essence, Trump has presented Iran with a binary choice: either engage in negotiations or face the prospect of regime change. The conditions of the previous nuclear deal process, which took place in 2015 under the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama, were quite different from what Trump is putting forward now, leading Iran into great confusion. The demands and terms of negotiations proposed by Trump extend beyond Iran’s nuclear program, encompassing its ballistic missile program, drone production and the cessation of support for regional proxies.
In a double bind
This engenders a grave dilemma for Iran. Should Iran opt for the negotiating route and acquiesce to these demands, it would be compelled to adopt an entirely contradictory stance to the one it has historically espoused. For an extended period, Iran has endeavored to establish a deterrent posture through the development of its missile program and the demonstration of its air power, seeking to utilize these as elements of its national narrative. Should the terms of the negotiations be accepted, regime security will be ensured, yet Iran’s deterrence may falter.
Conversely, the condition of the negotiations that demands the cessation of support for proxy forces would represent a betrayal of the narrative that Iran has spent years cultivating. This is because, within the context of the regime’s fundamental paradigm, Iran considers the creation of an axis of resistance in the region and the provision of support to proxy actors to be a constitutional duty and an ideological necessity. Consequently, a withdrawal of support for these proxies by Iran would represent a deviation from its own ideological framework, potentially leading to a reassessment of the regime by its supporters and the emergence of fissures within the regime, particularly within the security bureaucracy. Furthermore, this would engender a significant deficit of trust among proxy actors, particularly in light of the substantial setbacks experienced by Lebanese Hezbollah.
This situation has already started to create deep fractures in Iran. In Tehran, the issue of negotiations with the U.S. is the dominant agenda both in domestic politics and in the security bureaucracy. Of course, within this framework, the conservative wing is distant and even opposed to negotiations.
Disagreement on concessions
At the highest level, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described the U.S. as an unreliable actor and emphasized that negotiations would be a deception. Following this, President Masoud Pezeshkian said that the supreme leader had the last word on the negotiations and that the issue was closed. If the resignation of Vice President Javad Zarif, who was close to the reformist wing and favorable to negotiations, is also taken into consideration, it can be said that the issue of negotiations is currently met with opposition in Iran. The frequent inventory displays of Iran’s missile and air power by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) aerospace command and the frequent threatening statements made by the commander of the force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, show that this is also the case in the context of the military bureaucracy.
Nonetheless, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s efforts to negotiate with the U.S. continue. In addition, the frequent statements by Iranian officials that “Iran has no proxy force in the region” and the Quds Force’s calls for “restraint and calm” and activities toward the actors in Iraq and Yemen continue. This situation clearly shows that Iran is caught between negotiation, regime security and narrative. Each option carries different costs, and as a result, Iran is experiencing significant confusion about which strategy to pursue.