Can the U.S. and Iran reach a nuclear deal to avert a war?

With President Trump’s threat to attack Iran looming over the discussions, American and Iranian negotiators sat down again in Switzerland Thursday, separately, for another round of talks brokered by Oman, focusing on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. 

Iran says it does not have and will not build a nuclear weapon, and Mr. Trump has said he will not allow Tehran to acquire one — a position he shares with his recent predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden. 

The Obama administration spent months negotiating an international deal to constrain and monitor Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. But during his first term, Mr. Trump attacked the pact as “horrible” and pulled the U.S. out. Since returning to the White House, Mr. Trump has threatened to strike Iran if it doesn’t make a new deal to curb its nuclear activities.

Despite warnings from many nations in the Middle East and elsewhere, including Iran, that any U.S. strike could spark a major international conflict, Mr. Trump has ordered the biggest American military buildup in the Middle East in decades, pressuring Tehran to make the deal he wants.

Mr. Trump has given no indication about whether he’s decided to use force as the talks continue, so CBS News asked people with deep knowledge of Iran and the country’s hardline Islamic rulers to try to gauge the prospects of an agreement emerging from the talks to avert a war.

What Iran and the Trump administration have said

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Mr. Trump repeated his claim that the U.S. “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program” with strikes in June — a claim the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, has recently cast doubt on — and said despite his warnings, “they’re starting it all over. We wiped it out and they want to start it all over again and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions.”

The president has said repeatedly he prefers a diplomatic solution to the standoff but that he is prepared to use the U.S. military if he deems it necessary.

Mr. Trump claimed in his Tuesday remarks that Iran had never ruled out building a nuclear weapon, but the country’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, vowed not long before the U.S. leader spoke that Iran would “under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.”

“We have a historic opportunity to strike an unprecedented agreement that addresses mutual concerns and achieves mutual interests,” Araghchi said in a social media post, adding that a deal was “within reach, but only if diplomacy is given priority.”

Araghchi insisted, however, on Iran’s right to “harness dividends of peaceful nuclear technology” —  hinting at one of the major sticking points the negotiators in Geneva will need to work on.

While he didn’t reiterate the demand — pushed hard by Israel — in his State of the Union address, Mr. Trump has previously said any new nuclear agreement with Iran should include a full abandonment of all domestic uranium enrichment. That is something Tehran has said it cannot accept.

“Enrichment is our right,” Araghchi reiterated Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” noting that Iran is “a member of NPT [nuclear non-proliferation treaty] and we have every right to enjoy a peaceful nuclear energy, including enrichment.”

Araghchi said he couldn’t predict whether President Trump intends to strike his country, but he told Brennan, “I believe that still there is a good chance to have a diplomatic solution, which is based on a win-win game,” calling a solution to the standoff “at our reach.”  

“War looks inevitable,” expert say

Despite this public expression of optimism from Iran’s side, Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the Chatham House thinktank in London, believes the two sides are still too far apart. She told CBS News on Wednesday that, in her view, a military clash is inevitable, and soon.

“I think it’s imminent — I mean it’s a matter of days. War looks inevitable to me because President Trump has been not just assembling a huge arsenal to strike Iran, but also because President Trump has been clearly signaling that he is seeking the submission of the Islamic Republic to terms and conditions that currently the leaders in Iran don’t appear willing to make.”

“The main thing that Iran can give is a commitment to not enrich uranium above a certain grade inside Iran for a number of years,” said Vakil. “It’s worthwhile mentioning that Iran is already not enriching uranium and hasn’t been since the June war last summer when the United States pummeled Iran’s nuclear facilities and buried its enrichment program. So that is already de facto happening, and Iran can give that concession to President Trump.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, that Iran is not currently enriching uranium, but he added, “they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can.”

“What Iran simultaneously seeks is an affirmation of its nuclear rights as a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty,” Vakil said. “Iran doesn’t want to be singled out. Iran wants to be treated like all the other signatories. And so what it is looking for is an ability to enrich uranium at very low levels for medical purposes. And that would be how they compromise on this principle.”

“I believe the maximum concessions that the ayatollahs can offer will not meet White House’s minimum requirements. Both sides have their red lines and it’s hard to see how a deal can be arrived at without one side making major concessions,” CBS News contributor Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist and activist, said ahead of the talks in Geneva.

She said there were rumors that the Trump administration might consider a deal that allows Iran to maintain “a token enrichment program, as a research facility,” for instance. But she notes that given Mr. Trump’s vehement criticism of the previous agreement negotiated by the Obama administration, he now “needs a much better deal.”

The nuances of Iran’s nuclear program were clearly a key aspect of the talks on Thursday, as the head of the U.N.’s IAEA again joined the delegations in Geneva.

Iran’s ballistic missiles “are also a big concern,” said Alinejad, referring to the huge number of conventional weapons Iranian leaders have threatened to aim at Israel and U.S. military installations across the Mideast if Mr. Trump does order strikes.

“A deal that leaves Islamic Republic’s nuclear enrichment facilities intact and allows them to keep their missiles would be viewed as a total failure,” she said.

Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a CBS News contributor who served as national security adviser in the first Trump administration, shared the pessimism. 

“The ideology of the theocratic dictatorship and its permanent hostility to the United States and Israel will result in intransigence and an inability to make concessions on enrichment, the missile program, and support for terrorist organizations,” he said Thursday. 

“Trump is firmly on the record criticizing the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal — remember ‘worst deal ever?’ He will not be willing (and his political base would not support) concessions that essentially replicate the flaws” of that previous agreement, McMaster predicted.

The risks of a new “forever war”

Vakil said Iran was now in a much weaker position “than they have ever been,” given the damage inflicted on the country’s nuclear program by the U.S. in June, and on its allied “proxy groups” in the region by Israel during its war with Hamas. 

But there are still major risks for Mr. Trump, because of fears new U.S. military action will trigger a regional war.

“If the U.S. attacks us, that’s an act of aggression. What we do in response is the act of self-defense,” Araghchi said before the talks. “And it is justifiable and legitimate. So, our missiles cannot hit the American soil, so obviously we have to do something else — we have to hit, you know, the Americans bases in the region.”

U.S. commanders have explained to a frustrated president, sources told CBS News this week, that there may well be no swift, easy military option to deliver a blow that will force Iran to capitulate to his demands. That means a protracted conflict could be difficult to avoid after a first strike.

“I am worried that President Trump may have painted himself into a corner,” said Alinejad. “The U.S. military is without doubt capable of inflicting unparalleled damage on the Islamic Republic forces but what is the end result? What is the grand strategy here? This needs to be clarified. Any facility that is destroyed can be rebuilt and the military cannot stay in the Persian Gulf forever.”  

A sustained military commitment could be a tough sell for the American public, especially given Mr. Trump’s own previous public disdain for drawn-out conflicts.

“He’s been opposed to ‘forever wars,’ and he’s been opposed to operations like the 2003 Iraq war. So, the Iranians are playing with that,” Vakil told CBS News, “in the hope that that could deter President Trump and entice him instead toward a deal.”

Overall, Vakil and Alinejad voiced serious doubt that the ongoing diplomacy will bridge the gap between the positions held by Tehran and Washington, and they both voiced significant concern about what that means for the Iranian people.

“The Islamic Republic is detested by the majority of Iranian people. But they need help to stand up against the regime’s revolutionary guards and other paramilitary units. I am hopeful that the U.S. attack will have a major impact,” said Alinejad.

McMaster, who has significant experience commanding U.S. forces in the Middle East, believes “major impact” may well be how the Trump administration decides to avoid a protracted conflict — by delivering a blow so decisive that Iran’s hardline rulers simply cannot mount a meaningful response.

“The U.S. cannot ‘manage escalation.’ Every time we try to do that Iran has escalated on its own terms with impunity,” he said Thursday. “I think that the opening campaign will be extensive, not a ‘signaling’ exercise. Iran will have very limited options to retaliate and expand the conflict due to U.S. extensive air defense, offensive counter-air, and long range strike capabilities.”

Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who was brokering the discussions in Geneva on Thursday, said in a social media post that the first couple hours yielded “creative and positive ideas.” He said the meetings would resume later in the day after a break, when “we hope to make more progress.”