DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s supreme leader said Friday that negotiations with America “are not intelligent, wise or honorable” after President Donald Trump floated nuclear talks with Tehran.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also suggested that “there should be no negotiations with such a government,” but stopped short of issuing a direct order not to engage with Washington.
Khamenei’s remarks upend months of signals from Tehran to the United States that it wanted to negotiate over its rapidly advancing nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of crushing economic sanctions worth billions of dollars.
Khamenei noted that Trump unilaterally withdrew from the earlier nuclear deal under which Iran drastically limited its enrichment of uranium and overall stockpile of the material, in exchange for crushing sanctions being removed.
“The Americans did not uphold their end of the deal,” Khamenei said. “The very person who is in office today tore up the agreement. He said he would, and he did.”
I didn’t advocate for any of that. All I did was point out Iran’s leadership also sucks.
They tried to suck less and then America put a knife in their back. Which is not very encouraging.
I was not happy when Trump unilaterally pulled out of the deal; I have wondered if Hamas’ October 7th attack even happens if rapprochement with Iran continued rather than what ended up happening, but I am also not convinced Iranian leadership was much interested in changing much beyond getting sanctions relief. US actions aren’t the reason why they’re oppressive to women and LGBT folks or why they’re supplying arms to Russia in aid of their invasion of Ukraine. Maybe the latter would be different if Russia wasn’t one of their only options for trading partners, it’s tough to say.
US actions are partially the reason though. The population could have changed if it was not being actively convinced not to do so.
Instead of moderates, hardliners became more popular because of the constant US threat, refusing to normalize, and not holding up its end of deals.
Iran has a long history of US and European meddling and stealing their oil since 1953. You might not understand but they have plenty of reason to fear the US. And they have been betrayed many times when they let their guard down.
It would be akin to asking why Ukrainians do not love Russian culture after Russia invaded their country and bombed them.
I know about the CIA/MI6 backed coup in ‘53. I think it definitely led to the revolution, but I also feel that revolution was co-opted by autocratic religious extremists.
I think the crackdowns during the protests that came in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s murder support my view that they’re autocratic. They have taken no concrete steps to improve women’s rights, and any and all presidential candidates must be approved by the Ayatollah so they’re really just controlled opposition at best.
Don’t interpret any of this as saying the US has any moral high ground to stand on, because what bits of American policy I have been proud of are rapidly evaporating.