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Talks between the United States and Iran, which President Trump said on Monday would begin on Saturday<\/a> in Oman, face considerable problems of substance and well-earned mistrust.<\/p>\n But time is short for what is likely to be a complicated negotiation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at a fork in the road, heading toward a crisis,\u201d said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.<\/p>\n While Mr. Trump has recently threatened Iran with \u201cbombing the likes of which they have never seen before,\u201d he has also made it clear that he prefers a diplomatic deal. That reassurance \u2014 made in the Oval Office sitting next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has pressed for military action \u2014 will be welcomed widely in the Arab world.<\/p>\n Even if the target is the Islamic Republic of Iran, with all of its ambitions for regional hegemony, Arab countries from Egypt through the Gulf fear the economic and social consequences of an American and Israeli war, especially as the killing in Gaza continues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But Mr. Trump\u2019s public demands \u2014 that Iran stop nuclear enrichment, hand over its large supply of enriched uranium and destroy its existing nuclear facilities \u2014 will almost surely be rejected by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran\u2019s supreme leader, as an unacceptable humiliation and surrender. How far both sides are willing to compromise is unclear, but Mr. Trump is well known for making ultimate demands at the start and then searching for a deal.<\/p>\n This weekend\u2019s talks are expected to be at a high level and include Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and reportedly Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump\u2019s special envoy for the Middle East, Russia and much else. While the two sides disagree on whether these initial talks will be \u201cdirect,\u201d as Mr. Trump said, or \u201cindirect\u201d through intermediaries, as Iran said, it will not matter very much, given the importance of the two men.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n What will matter, as Mr. Araghchi said, is that the effort is \u201cas much an opportunity as it is a test\u201d \u2014 a test of the willingness of both sides to negotiate seriously on restricting Iran\u2019s nuclear program, which Iran says is only for civilian purposes, in return for permanent sanctions relief.<\/p>\n But even if war can be avoided, the space for talking is narrow, European officials and analysts say, because by the end of July the Europeans must signal whether they will reimpose the punishing United Nations sanctions against Iran, currently suspended under the 2015 nuclear deal, but which expire on Oct. 18.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The reimposition of these sweeping sanctions \u2014 which are in addition to other sanctions imposed on Iran \u2014 are considered important leverage to push Iran toward compliance with the old deal or to negotiate a new one. The Europeans \u2014 Britain, Germany and France \u2014 remain signatories of the deal and can chose to reimpose the U.N. sanctions, with a notification period included. But their ability to do so, and the leverage it provides, expire in October.<\/p>\n If these additional sanctions are reimposed, Iran says it will pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty altogether.<\/p>\n And that might cause Israel, with American help, to engage in an extensive military campaign to destroy Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities. Both Israel and the United States have vowed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n The Europeans want to decide before Russia, increasingly an ally of Iran, takes over the presidency<\/a> of the Security Council for the month of October.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Iran is having already scheduled technical talks about its nuclear program with Russian and Chinese officials in Moscow. Separately, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said Russia had welcomed the Oman talks, adding that \u201cwe support settling the issue of the Iranian nuclear dossier by political and diplomatic means.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI am very worried,\u201d said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and director of the foreign policy program of the Brookings Institution. \u201cThis tactic of negotiation under threat being used by the Trump administration is not a substitute for a serious policy on Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n Already, the United States has moved more long-range stealthy B-2 bombers into range and dispatched a second aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, into the region, while initiating a major bombing campaign against the Houthis, Iran\u2019s allies, which is seen as a message from Washington.<\/p>\n Iran is eager to avoid a further set of multilateral sanctions, on top of the ones that Washington imposed after Mr. Trump withdrew from the deal<\/a> in 2018. But the Europeans have said they will reimpose sanctions absent a new nuclear deal. That has prompted Iran to vow that it would then abandon the nonproliferation treaty, which has a 90-day timeline, which might even then allow for some last-minute diplomacy.<\/p>\n Even if Iran agreed to keep international nuclear inspectors in the country, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in charge of implementation of the treaty, has made it clear that Iran\u2019s previous refusals to be open with its inspectors mean that the world is already blinded to a significant degree about Iran\u2019s nuclear program. And an unregulated Iranian nuclear program \u2014 with the strong potential for a breakout to produce even a primitive nuclear weapon \u2014 may prompt Israel and the United States to attack Iran.<\/p>\n The West and Israel are concerned that Tehran has been secretly planning a faster, cruder approach<\/a> to building a weapon; it already has enough near weapons-grade uranium to build at least six bombs, according to I.A.E.A. data.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine that Israel would be happy with a nuclear program as advanced as Iran\u2019s without U.N. supervision,\u201d said Ali Vaez, Iran project director for the International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A bombing campaign would most likely prompt serious Iranian counterattacks on American and Israeli targets and Gulf infrastructure, like Saudi oil facilities, which no Arab nation in the region wants to see. It could also prompt Iran to weaponize its nuclear program and build a bomb.<\/p>\n Whether the Europeans will be willing or legally able to postpone the deadline for imposing more sanctions is unclear, analysts say. But there would have to be enormous progress toward a new deal to even consider the option.<\/p>\n Given mutual mistrust \u2014 after all, Mr. Trump already pulled out of one nuclear deal<\/a> \u2014 a new accord would have to \u201cperpetually restrain Iran\u2019s nuclear advancement in return for perpetual economic guarantees,\u201d ones that Ayatollah Khamenei, \u201cwho is deeply anti-American,\u201d believes will be guaranteed, said Ms. Vakil, the Mideast specialist at Chatham House. Iran is also likely to want strong security guarantees for the future of the regime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Netanyahu said on Monday in the Oval Office that he sought a deal \u201cthe way it was done in Libya,\u201d referring to 2003, when Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, then the leader, agreed to eliminate all of his country\u2019s weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear-weapons program. If Mr. Trump \u201cseeks to dismantle the Iranian nuclear program Libya-style, in addition to closing down Iran\u2019s missile program and Tehran\u2019s relations with its regional partners, then diplomacy will most likely be dead on arrival,\u201d argued Trita Parsi<\/a>, an Iran expert at the Quincy Institute.<\/p>\n But if Mr. Trump\u2019s strategy \u201cis centered on achieving a verification-based deal that prevents an Iranian bomb \u2014 his only red line \u2014 then there is reason to be optimistic about upcoming talks,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n Mr. Vaez believes the Iranians are skeptical about getting a deal with Mr. Trump. \u201cI see signs that they are preparing for war,\u201d he said, including efforts to increase social cohesion, vowing not to enforce a strict law on the hijab, releasing some political prisoners and warning about protests.<\/p>\n After Israel\u2019s efforts to destroy Iran\u2019s proxies and allies in the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Israel air attacks on Iran\u2019s missile defenses, Iran is perceived as militarily vulnerable.<\/p>\n But Mr. Vaez warns of overconfidence. \u201cNo doubt the Iranians are weakened, but they are not weak, and they are not desperate,\u201d he said. \u201cIran does not want to validate pressure as a tool for concessions, which is a slippery slope,\u201d he said. \u201cFor Khamenei, the one thing more dangerous than suffering from U.S. sanctions is surrendering to them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n