ANALYSIS: Trump Extends a Hand to Iran — and No One Knows If It’s a Clenched Fist

Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan — The Discreet Triangle

What happens behind the scenes is more revealing than what is said on camera. Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan served as channels of communication between Washington and Tehran over the weekend. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan made a flurry of calls—to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, the European Union, and U.S. officials. It was a diplomatic dance of rare intensity.

An Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that messages were exchanged between the United States and Iran via Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan over the weekend, with a specific goal: to prevent strikes on energy infrastructure. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi delivered “clear messages” to Iran regarding de-escalation.

A Gulf diplomat summed up the situation

“For now, it seems they have managed to avert an energy catastrophe,” said a Gulf diplomat. The conditional tense is the only honest way to phrase this. And yet, this diplomat points to a truth that no one in Washington wants to hear: it wasn’t Trump’s threats that made Iran back down. It was the regional mediators who, in forty-eight hours, built a safety net that the White House hadn’t even begun to weave.

The United Kingdom, through Prime Minister Keir Starmer, hinted that it was aware of contacts between Iran and the United States. “We, the United Kingdom, were aware that this was happening,” he said—without providing details. The phrasing is that of an ally who wants to be in the room without being in the picture.

The Numbers Trump Doesn’t Mention

Iran has already completed 99 percent of the centrifugation work needed to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for nine nuclear weapons. This figure comes from Robert Goldston, a Princeton professor specializing in arms control. In June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency estimated that Iran had 440.9 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.

Nine potential nuclear weapons. And Trump says that Iran has “agreed not to have nuclear weapons, etc., etc.” That’s like saying an armed man has agreed not to shoot—even though he already has his finger on the trigger, a full magazine, and nine spare bullets.

What “removing the enriched uranium” actually means

Trump has stated that if a deal is reached, the United States “will take Iran’s enriched uranium.” Iran has categorically rejected this demand in the past, citing its sovereign right to enrichment for civilian purposes. Nothing—absolutely nothing—in Iran’s statements this week suggests that this position has shifted by even a millimeter.

What Trump is presenting as an Iranian concession looks more like a U.S. wish list rephrased as a fait accompli. The tactic is familiar: declare victory before the battle, then deal with the consequences when reality catches up with the narrative.

Trump, the Brilliant Negotiator

From the American side, the narrative is crystal clear. Trump threatened, Iran caved, negotiations are moving forward, and a deal is imminent. “There’s a very good chance a deal will be reached this week,” he said, crediting his own threat to destroy Iran’s power plants as the decisive leverage.

There’s one problem with this narrative: there is no public evidence that Iran has made any concessions whatsoever. None. The only verifiable fact is that Trump has pushed back his own ultimatum. In the language of negotiation, it’s the one who backs down who has budged—not the other side.

Iran Unwavering

On the Iranian side, the semi-official news agencies Fars and Tasnim portrayed Trump’s reversal as a retreat. “Since the start of the war, messages have been sent to Tehran by mediators, but Iran’s clear response has been that it will continue its defense until the required level of deterrence is achieved,” Tasnim reported.

And yet, both narratives serve the same purpose: to allow each side to maintain its image of strength in the eyes of its domestic audience. Trump needs “the art of the deal.” Iran needs unwavering resistance. The problem is that reality cannot be both at the same time—and someone will eventually lose face.

The Fars List

The Fars news agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, has published a list of potential targets. Not military targets. Civilian infrastructure: desalination plants, power plants supplying U.S. bases, and industrial and energy infrastructure in which U.S. interests are invested. And—a chilling detail—the nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates.

Qalibaf explicitly stated that Iran would consider vital infrastructure throughout the region to be legitimate targets, including desalination plants on which entire nations depend for their drinking water.

Dimona—The Ballistic Message

This weekend, Iran fired missiles toward Dimona, Israel—the city that houses the key facility of Israel’s undeclared nuclear program. The facility was not hit. But the message was crystal clear: we know where your secrets are, and our missiles can reach them.

In Iran’s strategic calculus, striking near Dimona without hitting Dimona itself is a demonstration of both capability and restraint. It is a statement in the language of deterrence that says: next time, we won’t miss on purpose.

More than 2,000 dead

The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has killed more than 2,000 people. This figure appears in news dispatches between two paragraphs on oil prices, like a footnote in a financial report. Two thousand lives. Families. Names that no one in the West will ever utter.

In Tehran, rescue workers from the Iranian Red Crescent are clearing the rubble of residential buildings hit by U.S.-Israeli strikes. The word “residential” should be enough. A residential building is where people sleep, eat, and raise their children. It is not a military target—it is a home turned into a grave.

The Global Economy as Collateral Damage

Oil prices have skyrocketed since the start of the conflict. Some of the world’s busiest air corridors are under threat. Fertilizer markets—and thus the global food supply—are experiencing shocks that analysts describe as potentially long-lasting. And yet, all it took was a tweet from Trump for the markets to breathe a sigh of relief.

This volatility is not a sign of resilience. It is a symptom of a global system so dependent on the words of a single man that a change in tone on social media can shift billions of dollars in a matter of minutes.

The Diplomat-in-Law

Jared Kushner holds no official title in the Trump administration. He is neither Secretary of State, nor a Senate-confirmed special envoy, nor a career diplomat. And yet, according to Trump himself, he was in the room on Sunday, participating in discussions with an unidentified Iranian leader.

Kushner’s presence sends a signal—but to whom? To the Iranians, he is a negotiator who brokered the Abraham Accords and whose ties to Saudi Arabia and the UAE are well documented. To Trump’s critics, it is proof that U.S. foreign policy operates like a family business, where key positions are handed down by bloodline rather than merit.

Steve Witkoff—the envoy no one is talking about

And yet, it is Witkoff, the official envoy, who is theoretically in charge of the dossier. A former New York real estate developer turned diplomat by virtue of his friendship with the president, Witkoff embodies this administration, where the line between private business and public affairs has ceased to exist. The fact that Trump mentions Kushner before Witkoff in the same sentence speaks volumes about the actual hierarchy of power.

Thirty-three kilometers that hold the world hostage

Before the war, one-fifth of the world’s traded oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz. This figure seems abstract until you put it into perspective: millions of barrels a day, hundreds of billions of dollars a year—the economic lifeblood of all of Asia. Closing the Strait of Hormuz is like cutting the jugular of the global economy.

Iran knows this. Iran has always known this. And that is precisely why the strait is its most powerful bargaining chip—the only one that forces Washington to listen.

The miscalculation that no one is correcting

Trump treats the Strait of Hormuz as a problem to be solved through threats: reopen the strait or your power plants will go up in flames. But this logic has a fatal flaw. If Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz under duress, it loses its only strategic asset without receiving anything in return. No rational leader—and Iranian leaders, whatever anyone may say, are cold-blooded strategists—would accept this trade-off.

The real question is not “how to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz” but “what must be offered to Iran for it to agree to do so.” By asking the wrong question, Trump inevitably gets the wrong answer.

Water as a Weapon of War

When Iran threatens desalination plants in the Gulf, it is not threatening industrial infrastructure. It is threatening the very survival of entire populations. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain—these nations depend on desalination for their drinking water. Without these plants, there is no rationing. There is thirst.

The mention of the Emirati nuclear power plant in the Fars list is of a gravity that Western analysts seem to underestimate. Striking a civilian nuclear power plant would constitute an act of unprecedented escalation—but in a conflict where residential buildings are already being bombed in Tehran, precedents have ceased to serve as safeguards.

Riyadh’s deafening silence

Saudi Arabia, the Gulf’s leading oil power, remains remarkably discreet. Mohammed bin Salman spoke with Fidan, the Turkish minister—but no strong public statement has come from Riyadh. This silence is not caution. It is calculated terror. Saudi Arabia knows that in an all-out Iran-U.S. conflict, its own oil facilities—Abqaiq, Khurais, Ras Tanura—would become targets. The 2019 drone attack on Abqaiq briefly cut Saudi production in half. A repeat of that during wartime would be catastrophic.

Additional amphibious assault ships

While Trump talks about peace, the U.S. Navy is deploying additional assets to the region. Amphibious assault ships—vessels designed to project ground forces onto a hostile coastline. This isn’t the kind of equipment you send for negotiations. It’s the kind of equipment you send for an invasion—or to maintain a credible threat of one.

The disconnect between rhetoric and deployment is this administration’s hallmark. The words say “peace.” The ships say “war.” And the world is left to guess which to believe.

The “Maximum Pressure” Doctrine, Version 2.0

During his first term, Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and imposed a policy of “maximum pressure” consisting of crushing sanctions. The result? Iran enriched more uranium, not less. It developed more missiles, not fewer. It strengthened its regional proxies, not weakened them.

And yet, it is the same strategy—amplified by actual bombs this time—that the administration is deploying today. Repeating the same action while hoping for a different result is not strategy—it is an admission of intellectual exhaustion.

The countdown continues

Five days—that’s next Friday or Saturday. If no agreement emerges, if the strait remains closed, if the phantom negotiations remain just that—what happens? Will Trump return to his threat to “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear facilities? Will he grant five more days? Will he escalate the situation?

No one knows. And that is precisely the problem. Unpredictability is not a negotiating strategy when a regional war is at stake. It is a systemic risk. One poorly worded tweet, one misinterpretation, one military incident in the strait—and those five days become five minutes before the point of no return.

Conditions “subject to the success of the discussions”

Trump clarified that the deadline was “subject to the success of the ongoing discussions and meetings.” This phrasing is a magnificent rhetorical trap. If the talks fail, it’s not Trump who has failed—it’s Iran that failed to cooperate. If they succeed, Trump is the genius who forced peace. In either case, he wins the narrative. In either case, the world loses clarity.

Starmer and the Art of Diplomatic Ambiguity

“We, the United Kingdom, were aware that this was happening.” Keir Starmer’s statement is a masterpiece of calculated ambiguity. Aware of what, exactly? Formal discussions? Messages relayed by intermediaries? A phone conversation between Kushner and an unidentified Iranian official?

Starmer doesn’t specify—and this vagueness is intentional. The United Kingdom wants to be seen as a well-informed player without being held accountable for the outcome. If a deal emerges, London was in on the secret. If everything falls apart, London was merely a distant observer.

Europe’s Absence

While Turkey and Egypt negotiate, Pakistan relays messages, and Britain observes, the European Union is conspicuous by its near-total absence from the narrative. Fidan has spoken with EU officials, to be sure—but no European leader has taken the initiative. No proposal for mediation has come from Paris, Berlin, or Brussels. Europe is watching a war on its strategic doorstep the way a bystander watches a fire from across the street—concerned but motionless.

Sloppy agreements lead to the next wars

Trump wants a deal this week. This sense of urgency is telling—and terrifying. A deal on Iran’s nuclear program, on the Strait of Hormuz, on ending hostilities, on the fate of regional proxies, on security guarantees, on sanctions—all of that in five days? The 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA, required years of meticulous negotiations involving six world powers. And even that agreement, the result of colossal diplomatic effort, did not survive a change in the U.S. presidency.

A “deal” negotiated in a matter of days under the threat of bombing would not be a peace agreement. It would be a ceasefire disguised as a victory, a photo op for the cameras, a document whose ink would dry before its terms were violated.

What a Real Agreement Would Require

A lasting agreement would require Iran to abandon its enrichment program—something it has refused to do for twenty years. It would require the United States to lift sanctions—something Congress would block. It would require security guarantees—which no one is in a position to give to a country currently being bombed by the very party proposing to negotiate. It would require Israel to be at the table—and Israel has its own calculations, its own red lines, and its own election to manage.

Every condition necessary for a real agreement is missing. What remains is diplomatic theater—spectacular, televised, and fundamentally empty.

What We Know

We know that more than 2,000 people have died. We know that Iran has enough enriched uranium for nine nuclear weapons. We know that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and that the global economy is bleeding. We know that regional mediators—Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan—have been working urgently to prevent an energy catastrophe. We know that Trump has pushed back his ultimatum by five days.

What we don’t know

We don’t know if any real negotiations took place. We don’t know who spoke to whom. We don’t know if Iran made any concessions at all. We don’t know what Trump will do on Friday if nothing has changed. We don’t know if the world is closer to peace or simply closer to the edge of the precipice, with five days left to look down.

What we know for certain is this: a man who threatens to destroy the power plants of a country with 88 million people, then announces “constructive negotiations” a few hours later, is not in control of the situation. He’s winging it. And when you wing it with bombs, ballistic missiles, and enriched uranium, there’s a name for that: it’s Russian roulette on a civilizational scale.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost