Iran International
The Islamic Republic will seek a new lease on life in US talks, former Iranian diplomat Hossein Alizadeh told the Eye for Iran podcast, adding that Iran's rulers will never abandon their hardline ideology against the West.
“It is ideology, flexible ideology. Extremist, but flexible,” Alizadeh said. “Using lies, creating lies—that’s part of their strategy.”
Alizadeh, who served in Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 22 years, said Tehran’s current posture is motivated by a desire to stay afloat amid both internal unrest and external pressure.
Despite having defected, Alizadeh says he remains in contact with individuals inside Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and remains familiar with official policy thinking.
He offered insight into the mindset of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling him a revolutionary who clings to the vision of his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to export the Islamic Revolution.
“The reality is dictating to Khamenei that in this situation—internally because of the economic problems inside Iran, and tension with many parts of the world, particularly with Israel and the United States, and now with the European Union,” he said.
According to Alizadeh, pressure is mounting: Israel’s strikes on Iran’s regional proxies, economic hardship, domestic dissent, and the looming threat of “snapback” sanctions from the E3 (Britain, France, and Germany) are all pushing Tehran toward tactical concessions.
Despite its defiant stance, he said, Iran will most likely cave to US demands—but only temporarily.
Flipping his lights on and off, Alizadeh emphasized: “The nuclear program is like this: switch on. Switch off."
Iran permits nuclear inspectors into the country, he added, but blocks human rights monitors because Tehran can pause nuclear activities but cannot hide rights abuses.
Alizadeh served as a diplomat in Finland during the 2009 contested elections, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s declared victory sparked mass protests.
Supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi claimed the vote was rigged, leading to a nationwide crackdown.
That moment, Alizadeh said, shattered his lifelong beliefs.
“When the Green Movement erupted in Iran was a moment that I always describe it as rebirth for myself,” he said.
Alizadeh pointed to the lack of public outrage from Iran’s hardliners in the face of renewed diplomacy—even with President Donald Trump whom the detest for ordering the killing of military leader Qasem Soleimani and withdrew from an earlier nuclear deal during his first term.
“Trump is in office—the Trump who killed Qasem Soleimani and the Trump who withdraw his country out of the JCPOA,” Alizadeh said. “None of the hardliners are saying anything against the talks. So, in fact, it's a matter of survival. They know this is a real game.”
Alizadeh said he advises American officials that Iranian diplomacy should not be compared to the Western model. In Iran’s case, it’s a calculated tool to manipulate perception.
“For Khamenei, diplomacy is a tool. He used it as instrument to trick people that, I am a rational person. Iran under me is a normal country like all the others,” Alizadeh said.
To hear more from Hossein Alizadeh, watch the full episode of Eye for Iran on YouTube or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, or Amazon.
The plan was presented by Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi in writing to US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff during the three-hour talks.
Tehran proposed that in the first stage, it would temporarily reduce its uranium enrichment level to 3.67% in exchange for access to financial assets frozen by the United States and permission to export its oil, the diplomatic sources told Iran International.
In the second phase, the sources added, Iran would permanently end high-level enrichment and restore the United Nations nuclear watchdog's inspections if the United States lifts further sanctions on Iran and persuades Britain, Germany and France to refrain from triggering the so-called snapback of UN sanctions on Tehran.
In this phase, Iran would also commit to implementing the Additional Protocol, a supplementary agreement that allows the UN nuclear watchdog to carry out surprise inspections at sites not declared to the agency.
Tehran ended that compliance in February 2021 after Trump in his first term withdrew from a previous international deal over Iran's nuclear program in 2018.
The third and final stage calls for the US congress to approve the nuclear agreement and for Washington to lift both primary and secondary sanctions, while Iran would transfer its highly enriched uranium stockpiles to a third country.
Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon and the US intelligence assesses that Tehran has not yet resolved to build one, but the Trump administration has warned Iran it must come to a nuclear deal or face attack.
A second round due to be held in Rome on Saturday could prove more rocky than the amicable first round in which Iran submitted its plan for a deal.
Washington toughened its public stance on Tuesday, with both the White House and Witkoff saying that the US goal in negotiations would be the wholesale end of Iran's nuclear program, a notion Iran has repeatedly called a non-starter.
Iran's proposal welcomed by Witkoff
US envoy Witkoff welcomed the proposals presented by the Iranian side, the sources told Iran International, surprising the Iranian delegation in Muscat.
Iranian officialdom appeared cheered by the first round of talks, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remarking in a meeting with senior military commanders on Tuesday that "the initial steps have been implemented well".
A diplomatic source outside Tehran expressed skepticism to Iran International of the Islamic Republic's intentions in the talks and said it seeks to delay a foreign attack by staggering an agreement over several complex phases.
“One of the reasons Iran’s Supreme Leader agreed to allow the resumption of negotiations is the need to buy more time, because he knows Iran currently lacks the ability to defend itself against another airstrike," the source said.
“Iran is mainly stalling to buy time to rebuild its air defense capabilities, which were all destroyed by Israel in late October, and to restore its capacity to produce surface-to-surface missiles which were damaged in that same Israeli attack,” the source added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Thursday that his actions had previously thwarted Iran's ability to build a bomb, appearing to respond to a New York Times report that President Trump had halted Israeli plans to attack Iran.
"Netanyahu has led countless secret and open actions in the campaign against Iran's nuclear program that only thanks to them Iran does not have a nuclear arsenal today," the statement said.
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Wednesday Iran was "not far" from possessing an atomic bomb.
"It's like a puzzle: they have the pieces and maybe one day they could put them back together. There's still a long way to go before we get there. But they're not far away, we have to admit that," he said in an interview with Le Monde.
"It's not enough to tell the international community 'we don't have nuclear weapons' for them to believe it. We have to be able to verify it," Grossi said.
In its latest report in March, the IAEA warned that over the past three months, Iran had significantly expanded its reserves of highly enriched uranium, and if this trend continues, its stockpile could theoretically be enough to produce six nuclear bombs.
