Ten years of asking a fish to climb a tree

Western capitals keep reaching for the same wrench – and are surprised when it doesn’t fit the bolt.
Since the P5+1 talks produced the JCPOA in 2015, the US and Europe have treated negotiation as the default tool to manage Iran’s nuclear program and wider aggression. Even now – after the E3 triggered UN snapback and the pre-JCPOA sanctions regime returned in late September 2025 – the line from Washington is that “diplomacy is still an option,” with calls for direct talks under tougher pressure. Tehran’s answer is unambiguous: the Supreme Leader calls talks with the US a “sheer dead end.” Add the strategic backdrop of the 12-day Israel–Iran war in June 2025 and recent US strikes on nuclear infrastructure. The “new normal” is escalation cycles and time-buying, not credible bargaining.

The core misdiagnosis: you can’t ask a fish to climb a tree
Negotiation is a tool, not a virtue. It works when both sides value agreement enough to trade across differences. The Islamic Republic’s operating system does not. Its leaders prize resistance, delay and leverage accumulation over mutual accommodation with what they still call the “Great Satan.” Treating Tehran as a conventional bargaining counterpart is like asking a fish to climb a tree.

Three lenses that explain why negotiation isn’t in the Islamic Republic’s toolbox

1. Definition test. In the Iran–West file, we reliably get “discussion” – meetings, communiqués, photo-ops. We don’t get sustained “achievement” of a meaningful “agreement” that endures beyond tactical pauses. The JCPOA briefly constrained the program, but shortly afterward it was effectively dead; Iran then expanded enrichment beyond caps and obstructed inspectors. That’s not a failed session; it’s the wrong tool.

2. Outcome test. Measured by results, the arc bends toward more nuclear capability and less transparency. IAEA reporting shows continued stockpiling at near-weapons-grade levels and unresolved safeguards questions. That is the opposite of negotiated de-escalation.

3. Predictive test. Each time Washington re-opens “talks,” Tehran exploits the window to buy time, split coalitions, and improve position – from centrifuge workarounds to access games. The latest cycle fits the pattern: allies restore UN sanctions; Washington signals talks are still possible; Khamenei declares talks a dead end; Moscow and others contest enforcement. The negotiation script runs, but the other actor never enters the stage.

A quick history check (and why goodwill theory failed)
The Obama administration treated the JCPOA as a verifiable brake and a bridge to broader understandings. That was a strategic bet, but it misread the regime’s ideological constraints. The Trump administration’s withdrawal acknowledged the deal’s political fragility without supplying a stable end-state. The Biden administration’s revival effort rested on the same premise that a grand bargain was attainable. Today, with UN sanctions restored and fresh Western measures reinforcing them, Washington again signals that diplomacy remains on the table. Tehran’s response is explicit: no direct talks with the United States and no strategic rethink. The two sides inhabit different policy universes – one speaking negotiation, the other playing resistance.

So what does “diplomacy” mean here – deal-making or choreographed surrender?
Words matter. If “diplomacy” means classic bargaining toward mutual compromise, then no counterpart exists. If, instead, it means coalition management, deterrence signalling, conditional offers with hard stops, and verification-first sequencing, then it has utility – as scaffolding for pressure, not as a substitute for it. When Washington says “negotiation,” Tehran hears “stall for time.” When Tehran says “dialogue,” it often means “extract relief without material rollback.” The only durable “agreement” is one that materially changes the regime’s incentives – or reduces its capacity to act against them.

What to do instead
The only durable solution is not another communiqué; it is Iranian-led regime change. That conclusion flows from observed behaviour, not wishful thinking. External policy should shorten the runway to that transition while containing nuclear risk and regional aggression in the meantime. In practice:

1. Retire the negotiation fantasy. Treat any contact with Tehran as deconfliction or compliance verification, not a pathway to strategic compromise. Time is the regime’s preferred weapon; deny it.
2. Name the end-state. Say plainly that the sought outcome is a free, non-theocratic Iran chosen by Iranians. Align legal, economic, diplomatic and informational tools to accelerate an indigenous transition rather than resuscitate a dead bargaining track.
3. Empower people, not the palace or the mosque. Invest in censorship-busting technology and safe communications; protect dissidents and diaspora networks; individually sanction judges, prosecutors and security chiefs; block revenue streams that finance repression. Pair public diplomacy with human-rights cases that delegitimise the regime’s courts and ideology.
4. Apply integrated pressure. Maximise enforcement on energy, petrochemicals, metals and shipping; seize grey-fleet tankers; target front companies and banks that move IRGC money; hold Tehran responsible for its proxies; support Israel’s campaign that reduces Iran’s hard power; time-box any channel with automatic penalties tied to verifiable nuclear reversals; keep the decisive mix ready – economic warfare, offensive cyber, covert sabotage and precise military options – and use it when required.

The bottom line
For a decade, Western policy tried to teach a fish to climb a tree. The regime treats “diplomacy” as another battlefield, not a bridge to compromise. The only stable path is Iranian-led regime change, with outside policy serving one purpose – to shorten the runway for that transition while containing the regime’s nuclear and regional menace in the meantime. Talks are not progress; pressure, delegitimisation and empowerment of the Iranian people are.

Mehran Mossadegh is an expert negotiator and strategic thinker, the founder of NegotiationWise and has written further on the P5+1 and Iran negotiations below. He holds a masters in commercial law from Monash University and a bachelor of Engineering from University of Technology, Sydney.