The Second Trump Administration and Its Approach to Iran 

A few months into the second Trump administration, its differences with the first are evident. One major difference concerns the balance of power between various forces inside the Trump camp. The second administration is more willing to be disruptive, but that also means its internal workings are more stable. To put it in other words, forces that are ready to break with the previous Republican consensus on foreign policy ended up being quite marginalized in the first Trump admin but they’ve taken a solid role in the second admin so far. They are arguably in the driving seat. They include Vice President JD Vance, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk, and important peripherical elements such as journalist Tucker Carlson and the president’s elder son, Donald Trump Jr. Middle East Envoy Steven Witkoff arguably belongs in the same camp. Representing the more traditional Republican approach is National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is somewhere in the middle. He has traditional Republican credentials but also a national conservative ideological tendency and a focus on the Western hemisphere that could align with the Vance camp’s desire to wrest the United States away from the Middle East. 

Noting these factional dynamics is important in understanding the second Trump admin’s approach to Iran. Whether the president’s stated desire for a deal with Iran will bear fruit or not will depend on these dynamics. 

Trump himself has long been remarkably consistent on Iran: he does not want to change the nature of the regime in Iran (unlike his close ally, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel who has declared such a goal publicly), but he does want to change their behavior (chiefly around the nuclear issue and Iran’s support for regional militias). In fact, unlike the traditional Western position, Trump doesn’t even pretend to have human rights or democracy concerns with Iran, just as he doesn’t with the rest of the world. He squarely restricts his demands on Iran to a change in its nuclear and foreign behavior. In fact, even the twelve demands put on Iran by Mike Pompeo in 2018, while thought to be draconian, were restricted to these issues (plus the obvious one of releasing American hostages). In this, Trump doesn’t differ much from most of his predecessors since the ‘democracy and human rights’ have always had a relatively marginal role in American (and European) diplomacy with Iran. Even Trump’s signature style of threatening Iran with massive destruction and presenting that as an alternative to diplomacy is not that unsimilar to policies of Obama and Biden (Obama’s famous assertation that ‘all options were on the table’ marked the era of the negotiations).   

Trump’s vociferous opposition to the Iranian Nuclear Deal of 2015 had little to do with substance and all to do with political opportunism. He made opposition to it central to his 2016 run (he mentioned annulling it in all the three televised debates with Hillary Clinton) and as a way of garnering support from Netanyahu and hawkish elements in America. It worked magnificently for him as he—despite his skepticism toward NATO, his break from America’s global post-1945 commitments—became a clear favorite amongst many hawks and constituencies such as anti-regime Iranian-Americans and Washington, DC, outlets such as the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) on the account of his opposition to the 2015 deal and his policy of maximum pressure on Iran. 

But Trump’s end goal was always getting another deal with Iran, that he could now present as his own. He made clear that this deal would include significant reintegration of the Islamic Republic of Iran, under its current leadership, into the world order and come with a massive economic boon for Iran. Such a perspective differs widely from those advocated by other members of Trump’s coalition such as Netanyahu, FDD or anti-regime Iranians, and their corresponding advocates inside the Trump admin. In the first term, these differences were papered over because the Iran hawks supported Trump’s tearing down of the 2015 deal and, despite Trump’s own state desire, no diplomacy came to replace it. Iran refused to engage in any substantive negotiations with Trump (most notable example was Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s open refusal of Trump’s letter, delivered by then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in 2019). Thus the Iran hawks could support Trump as he amped up the pressure on Iran and took the spectacular decision of assassinating Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. In other words, if Trump didn’t come to clash with his own Iran hawks, this was mostly because of policy choices of Tehran.

This time around, Trump has started his second term with a restatement of his Iran policy: either agree to a new deal or we will bomb you. He finds an Iran that’s in a much worse condition, thanks to years of amped up sanctions (which continued under Biden) but also the battering of Iran’s axis of regional militias by Israel following the October 7 attacks. Almost all major factions of the Iranian establishment now advocate talks with Trump, toward a deal that could extend a life line to the regime. Iranian West-facing and pragmatic centrists (represented by men such as former president, Hassan Rouhani, and former national security advisor, Ali Larijani) are back in vogue. But even many conservatives are calling for talks with the United States. Despite his early open and loud opposition to talks with the United States, Khamenei has already sent a reply to Trump’s letter. According to Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian, the reply came from the person of Khamenei himself. He has permitted indirect negotiations with the United States. In other words, there is a willingness to negotiate and come to an agreement in both Tehran and Washington, DC. 

But a willingness for negotiation is not enough for reaching a deal. Few major questions remain. 

One, will Khamenei and Trump find an end goal agreeable to them both? Some sort of a broad but simple deal that restricts Iran’s nuclear program without completely stopping the enrichment as well as a vague commitment from Iran to not arm the regional militias could work, especially if Trump agrees to a version that would be face-saving for Iran. 

Second, will Trump have the patience of letting detailed negotiations go through? The Join Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with a more modest and clear outcome, took two years of intense talks, preceded by more years of informal talks. Will Trump have the necessary technical team to bring this about especially since there will be notable opposition to it from inside Trump’s own camp? 

Third, and the main topic of this article: how will the dynamisms inside Trump’s own camp  affect the policy towards Iran? In other words, if parts of the Trump coalition come to oppose any deal with Iran, will Trump be able to override them, perhaps with giving concessions on other questions to Israel?

There are already notable clashes around Middle East inside Trump’s coalition. This is especially important given how much the president values loyalty. Carlson has spoken harshly against any attack on Iran. He seems to have the ear of Witkoff with whom he did a long, sympathetic interview recently, in which the U.S. envoy suggested that the United States needed a verification of peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program. This is in contrast to Waltz’s demand for a “dismantlement” of Iran’s program. Witkoff has already attracted the ire of some Iran hawks. Other Middle East policies of Trump, such as direct negotiations with Hamas, have also been opposed by some inside the coalition. But Witkoff is not alone and other powerful figures such as Vance are in a similar corner. The revealing of the Houthi Signal chat showed Vance to be skeptical of policies such as attacks on Iran’s Yemeni ally the Houthis. The vice president recently lashed out against the DC publication Jewish Insider which is a strong supporter of Israel. A Vance-Waltz antagonism might very well heighten in the coming months. But the Vance team is in a much stronger position. 

Power plays inside the Iranian establishment have long thought to been crucial to achieving a deal with the United States. This time around, those in DC matter just as much if not more.