SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Successful negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program requires the United States to:

https://x.com/RezaNasri1/status/2047038205950640615

Reza Nasri

Successful negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program requires the United States to:

1- Signal good-faith in negotiations by honoring prior commitments.

The United States has violated the ceasefire by imposing a naval blockade and reneging on a mutual commitment to lift that blockade in exchange for Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Maintaining the blockade in breach of the agreement reached during negotiations sends a clear message to Iran: any future concession at later stages of the negotiations will also be pocketed, disregarded, and serve as a platform for further demands.

2- Adhere strictly to the agreed 10-point framework. 

Negotiations must remain confined to the existing 10-point framework. The United States must not introduce additional points. The naval blockade, which itself constitutes a violation of the ceasefire, cannot be treated as a new subject for negotiation.

3- Replace tactical unpredictability with strategic stability. 

Effective negotiations require a stable, predictable environment in which both sides can anticipate next steps and prepare accordingly. Abrupt policy shifts, impulsive statements, public contradictions, new sanctions, and last-minute escalations poison the atmosphere essential for agreement and push decision-making into purely reactive postures.

4- Define reasonable, stable objectives that respect Iran’s sovereign rights, regional status, and principles of fairness, equity, and legality. 

As a nation of 90 million people with centuries of continuous statehood, a sophisticated military-industrial base, and legitimate interests in its own defense and regional role, Iran must be treated as a de facto reality rather than a target. 

Accordingly, U.S. demands should be limited to verifiable non-proliferation measures, while explicitly recognizing Iran’s right to a conventional deterrent and a civilian nuclear program consistent with international law and Iran's global status.

5- Base policy on objective judgment rather than fabricated narratives. 

Policies built on demonization, exaggerated threat perceptions, caricaturizing, selective intelligence, or hostile narratives produce fragile outcomes. A durable agreement requires a sober, evidence-based assessment of capabilities, intentions, and constraints. Policy formation must therefore be insulated from domestic political theatrics, lobby influence, and ideological framing.

6- Uphold diplomatic conventions and language. 

Great-power diplomacy depends on mutual respect and fidelity to established international norms, including those codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969). Language invoking the destruction of civilizations, attacks on civilian infrastructure, harm to diplomats, or the deliberate crippling of an economy is incompatible with these principles and should be abandoned. It must be replaced with discourse that sustains reciprocity and respect. Only within such a framework can the political space necessary for meaningful and credible negotiations emerge.

7- Embrace genuine reciprocity and abandon the victor’s logic. 

The most durable agreements are built on simultaneous, verifiable give-and-take rather than one-sided concessions. The U.S. should match Iran’s readiness for nuclear limits with immediate, front-loaded sanctions lifting and explicit security assurances, calibrated so that each Iranian benchmark is met by a corresponding U.S. step on the same day. 

8- Learn from the last 47 years that Iran does not respond to pressure and adjust strategy accordingly. 

Iran’s political culture, national pride, and core principles ensure that coercive pressure produces resistance, not concessions. No leadership can appear to yield under duress without jeopardizing legitimacy. Only genuine U.S. flexibility and reciprocity elicit a similar response. Strategy should therefore abandon “maximum pressure” in favor of mutual de-escalation: pressure hardens Iran; flexibility enables compromise.