President Donald Trump’s constant belittling of Iranian leaders is alarming some Arab and U.S. officials familiar with the Middle East who worry that such insults could prove a major obstacle to truly ending a war that has strained the world economy.
At the core of their concern is whether Trump is willing to show Tehran’s Islamist leaders enough respect to let them claim some level of victory, even if they agree to U.S. demands that leave them militarily weaker.
But Trump’s history of nursing grudges, ridiculing opponents and insisting he wins everything doesn’t bode well for those hoping diplomacy can bring the war to a close, according to interviews with 10 current and former U.S. and Arab officials.
“He badly wants this to end,” a senior Gulf Arab official familiar with the peace talks said of Trump. “But the Iranians are so far refusing to give him what he needs to save face and leave. And he does not seem to understand that they need to save face, too.”
Like several others, the official was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues. Some have direct experience dealing with Iran and said that while face-saving is important in any diplomatic negotiation, it’s especially key for Iranians for both cultural and domestic political reasons.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated Tuesday that negotiations were focused on creating a road map for future talks. Axios reported afterward that negotiators were hammering out a memo to declare an end to the war and give themselves 30 days to devise a more comprehensive long-term agreement. The senior Gulf official familiar with the peace talks confirmed there’s been progress toward agreeing on a basic framework.
Asked about the status of the talks, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said “conversations continue.”
Ideally, said Michael Ratney, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Trump would say nothing at all as his envoys deal with the Iranians. “Not a tweet, not a public comment, not a threat, not a compliment. Just let his negotiators negotiate,” Ratney said.
But that is not how Trump usually operates.
In recent weeks, Trump has called Iranian officials “crazy bastards” who are “mentally ill.” He has threatened to end Iran’s “whole civilization.” He has also repeatedly said the U.S. has already defeated Iran in the war.
Trump has lobbed many of these insults and threats as his envoys have sought a negotiated end to a fight that has affected the availability of oil, fertilizer and other goods crucial to the world economy.
The Iranians have responded with their own insults.
Tehran has unleashed everything from Lego videos mocking Trump to trolling social media posts. In mid-April, the state-aligned Tehran Times reported that the National Psychology and Counseling Organization of Iran had “called for an assessment of the mental health of U.S. political leaders, particularly Donald Trump, in the interest of world peace.”
Trump’s disdain for Iran’s clerical leadership goes back nearly 50 years. It’s driven in part by the regime taking Americans hostage shortly after Iran’s revolution tossed its shah out of power in 1979. He also has said he will only settle for a deal that is better than the one President Barack Obama reached with Iran in 2015 — a deal Trump later abandoned.
Tehran, meanwhile, has little trust in Trump. Iranian officials felt burned by Trump’s first-term decision to exit the Obama-era deal. They also were upset by his second-term moves that undercut diplomatic negotiations with military strikes. Such attacks decimated Iran’s nuclear apparatus and killed many of its top officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Kelly, the White House spokesperson, said that “what the regime says publicly does not always align with what they say privately.”
“The president will only accept a deal that puts American national security first,” she added.
It’s normal for both sides of a diplomatic negotiation to want to emerge from a conflict declaring victory. The question in this crisis is whether each side can abide the other also claiming it won, officials and analysts said.
The 2015 nuclear deal showed that Tehran’s regime can agree to an arrangement in which both it and the U.S. walk away claiming success. During that process — to the chagrin of many Iran hawks — Obama and his aides showed notable respect and restraint toward Iran.
By contrast, Trump has insisted on Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” He also has made demands that go beyond what Iran has cast as its red lines, such as insisting Tehran permanently abandon enriching uranium.
Iran’s regime is repressive, but it still has to worry about how ordinary Iranians view it, current and former U.S. and Arab officials said. If Trump insists on saying he vanquished Tehran in talks, that could make the regime look weak, stirring domestic unrest.
Trump’s demands reflect “a misperception that Iran will capitulate,” said Nate Swanson, who dealt with Iran as a national security official under multiple administrations including Trump’s. “This hasn’t and won’t happen no matter how much pressure Iran is under.”
During his White House briefing Tuesday, Rubio acknowledged that Iran has shown a high tolerance for economic pain but said the U.S. blockade of Iranian ships and ports is an attempt to push the regime to a breaking point. He also took a Trumpian tone in warning Iran about “generational destruction” to its economy, albeit by quoting rapper Ice Cube. “They should check themselves before they wreck themselves,” Rubio said.
Iranian culture in general puts an unusually high value on face-saving. Shame is borne not just by the individual but also their families or the nation. Many Iranians, even those who despise the Islamist regime, bristle at past U.S. interference in their country, such as the CIA role in a 1953 coup that strengthened the monarchy.
Some supporters of the U.S.-Israeli military action against Iran said Trump’s rhetoric is a necessary tactic designed to pressure Iran to make more concessions at a time when it is unusually weak.
While Iran has put a chokehold on the critical Strait of Hormuz waterway, Trump’s own blockade and his refusal to rule out more military strikes gives him considerable leverage over Tehran, they say.
“Part of the president’s strategy appears aimed at forcing Tehran to choose between saving face and losing its head,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran analyst with the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank who backs the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Some diplomats closely following the talks noted that Iran, having watched Trump for years, may be putting more stock in what his envoys say privately than what he says publicly.
“The real question is not whether Trump’s tone matters — it does. The real question is whether there is a backchannel that compensates for it,” one Arab diplomat said.
Trump has shown in the past that he can switch from attacking to fawning over an adversary. In his nuclear dealings with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Trump swerved from deriding Kim as “Little Rocket Man” to saying the pair “fell in love.”
But even with historic face-to-face meetings, Trump and Kim never sealed a deal, and North Korea has steadily grown its nuclear weapons stockpile.
Some officials and analysts wonder if Iran will take a page out of the North Korean playbook and eventually seek nuclear weapons regardless of any agreement with the United States now. After all, Trump is not threatening to attack Pyongyang.
Either way, Iran’s leadership “puts a strong premium on dignity and respect, despite their own often egregious behavior,” said a former senior Western official who has engaged with Iranian officials. “In their eyes, the wild comments from the Trump White House cheapen the U.S. and confirm their sense of self-worth in standing up against a decadent and immoral opponent.”
