Trump and Iran: the art of ambiguity

On the Iran peace talks, US President Donald Trump told CNBC on 1 June: “Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring.” This is quite an alarming admission from the commander in chief of a belligerent in a major conflict, as boredom is not exactly a quality that leads to success. Then, the next day, the President suggests something almost the opposite, about Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei: “I would like to meet him, and we probably will meet at some point, depending on how it all works out.”

Of course, it could all be masterful deployment of creative ambiguity – “we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points” (11 June) versus “discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved” (11 June). But then again, it could also owe something to stream of consciousness foreign policy, an unfiltered download of thoughts. Creative ambiguity in negotiation is used to advance your objectives, using an opaque or even contradictory fog to obscure them from the opponent until the element of surprise can be sprung. In this case, it’s very hard to tell, though keeping your opponent guessing is not a bad strategy at all – provided your approach is coherent and you don’t make our own side guess too.

What is the political purpose behind the war in Iran? In terms of winning strategy – the supreme combination of the ways, ends and means of achieving the objective – it was never fully clear.

However, in President Trump’s CNBC interview, an objective was pinpointed: “Once you explain that this is all about Iran having a nuclear weapon, people are willing to pay a little bit more.” By “pay”, one imagines the President could easily be referring to higher global energy costs. Of course, there is more on the table than just a nuclear weapon: reportedly, the key areas of discussions in talks with Iran concern a cessation of violence, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme, all of them weighty topics – but particularly the last, which is the reddest of red lines.

Finally, President Trump has arrived at what is likely to make the conflict less unpalatable to much of the world – the fear of nuclear weapons in the wrong hands. But why this approach, and why take so long to link actions to objectives? There are clues in the US President’s past. In his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, he writes that “I play it very loose (…) You can’t be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you’ve got too much structure.”

And that seems to be the way the war with Iran has played out, and in particular the talks surrounding it – not too much structure at all. In April, US Vice President JD Vance travelled to Pakistan for peace talks. Within 24 hours, he had left: empty-handed and with egg on his face. You don’t deploy your big guns if the experience amounts to being given the run-around, serving only to diminish the potency of your big gun. Establishing common ground as a basis of substantive talks is usually done using patient, low-key diplomatic work, with your top political leaders flying in to seal deals and gladhand in front of the world’s media, not doing the hard graft of negotiation.

But in pursuing the art of the deal, there is insufficient attention paid to the science of the deal. In negotiations, as in much of life, people – and governments – operate and react according to both rational and emotional stimuli. In other words, a combination of art and science. Negotiators have their bottom lines, clear rational and structured objectives which they must achieve in order to consider themselves successful. There are also things they will not give up at any cost. As well as this, though, they make emotional judgements, feeling what is possible during the course of talks, taking advantage of relationships and credibility built, and pursuing opportunities for potential breakthroughs or compromises. In pursuing art alone, or science alone, outcomes are likely to lack the desired impact.

Certainly, the President’s contradictory public comments in recent weeks about peace talks do not point towards coherent structure or strategy, something compounded by reports of a strained relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli military operations in Lebanon. Evidently, Trump’s frustration with Iran is clear, as he expressed to CNBC: “I think they handled the negotiations poorly. It took too long.” However, the Iranian leadership will be telling themselves the opposite. “We’re doing well, it is taking a long time” will be a prominent take away from how things have proceeded.

Iran has creative ambiguity of its own. It engages in talks, but evinces little genuine desire to end things conclusively. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said yesterday that “nothing has been finalised”. While President Trump imagines US force as compelling, Iran does not. One red line breached is enough to scupper other areas where agreement has already been reached. Iran has weathered the attacks so far, it is used to withstanding hardships imposed by sanctions, at present it feels little popular pressure from below, and has been able to raise the political cost of supporting the US by launching attacks against Gulf countries and beyond. It derives power from the rumbling on of the conflict, issuing a reminder last week that it can hit US allies easily enough – this time, Kuwait. So, if the force is not sufficiently compelling, then the quid pro quo comes into play. Is Iran motivated at all to end the war, and if so, how to unlock that motivation, and how to make any deal signed sustainable? These questions are the ones the White House needs to grapple with most resolutely.

The Trump approach to Iran presently lacks a persuasive quality, and Iranian passions will not meekly subside. There are just over two and a half years of the Trump presidency left, a mere blip considering Iran has a documented civilisation dating back to at least the 5^th century BC. The present regime endured eight years of attrition in the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), for the loss of up to half a million lives, according to upper estimates.  Its belief in “purity through fatality” gives it remarkable staying power, while process in lieu of outcome is perfectly acceptable to Iran as a strategy.

Thus it is questionable whether real negotiation is currently possible, seemingly because the bottom lines of the two parties are currently mutually exclusive. Iran wants a nuclear weapon, the US does not want that to happen: “And if they want to try and have a new nuclear weapon, I will blow them up to kingdom come,” he told CNBC. An unknown is what the US can offer to get out of this open-ended war, though the use of the word “new” is perhaps an indicator; that Iran’s previous enrichment programme might offer something to salvage and offer up in a peace deal. Alternatively, Iran may simply opt for a timeout by playing along at peace talks, wait out the next few years, and then hope the next occupant of the Oval Office is not so belligerent and more concessionary. Buying time is a strategy that will work in Iran’s favour.

Unfortunately, in the attempts to end this war, art and science are both lacking force, overshadowed by creative ambiguity from both sides.

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