Tehran, Iran Analysts say that Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States promises Iran a bumpy road that may lead to different results when it comes to its relations with the West.

American leaders, along with the Israelis, are openly discussing military strikes on major Iranian nuclear facilities and critical infrastructure such as power plants and oil and petrochemical facilities.

Iran’s leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remain defiant, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has conducted large-scale military exercises, mostly focused on defending sensitive sites.

Transformation but where?

For more than two decades, Iran’s relationship with the West has been largely determined by developments in the country’s nuclear program and efforts to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear bomb. Tehran has consistently stressed that it does not seek to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

Recently, Iran’s top political and military authorities have discussed the possibility of this happening Changing Tehran’s officially declared policy Not seeking to possess a nuclear weapon amid increasing security threats.

There appear to be two schools of thought in Tehran: one seems open to the possibility of engaging the United States, including regarding the nuclear program, and the other is vocal about pursuing a nuclear weapon, especially in light of the erosion of deterrence against Israel and the setbacks to its regional allies. Nissan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at the Washington-based Crisis Group, noted that the United States’ allies are Iran’s allies.

“But if the former camp prevails, it will still require willingness in Washington to engage Tehran — and given the Islamic Republic’s weaknesses, there will likely be some inclination to pressure the regime more forcefully rather than to make concessions to it.”

Iran lost one of the principles of its advanced defense strategy with the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria Strikes directed at the “Axis of Resistance” Throughout the region.

The country is also subject to wide-ranging sanctions that are negatively impacting its already beleaguered economy, leading to a decline in the national currency and higher inflation. In addition to the energy crisis.

Amid difficult economic conditions, the expected government of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian To send its diplomats to Europe And later this month for talks with the Group of Three – France, Germany and the United Kingdom – which appear to want more engagement with the West.

The general framework being discussed appears similar to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, which lifted some economic pressures on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.

But no new framework has yet taken shape, and any talks so far appear to have been consultations aimed at clarifying views.

Desire to reach a new agreement

But things are different this time, compared to when Iran and the West negotiated for years in the period leading up to the nuclear agreement.

In 2018, Trump backed away from the JCPOA Imposing harsh sanctions on Iran. He also ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s supreme leader and the main architect of its regional axis, five years ago.

“Unlike the first Trump administration, the Europeans will be more aligned with whatever policy the United States chooses because the Europeans have in some ways supported the maximum pressure campaign themselves in recent years due to their growing tensions with Tehran,” Ely said. said Geranmayeh, Vice President of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Abbas Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, told Al Jazeera that this year should see major developments that will better clarify the direction of Iran’s nuclear program.

Many provisions of the JCPOA have expiredThere is a growing desire to negotiate a new understanding, Aslani said – especially since a key sunset clause in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which allows the West to reimpose any sanctions lifted by the United Nations on Iran, will expire in October 2025.

Geranmaier said the E3 maintains the re-imposition of sanctions mechanism as the last tool it has to take advantage of Iran, and they realize that once used, it could trigger “a chain of escalatory events that is completely unpredictable.”

As such, Europe will spend the remaining time until October preventing escalation and pushing toward diplomacy.

However, there is still a big question mark over how the Europeans will respond if Trump demands the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran by the E3 in exchange for trade-offs on transatlantic issues related to European security, the expert said.

“We will either move toward much higher tensions or reach some kind of agreement, albeit limited, on the nuclear program, depending on whether Iran and the United States can reach some kind of understanding,” Aslani said.

There is also the possibility that Tehran and Washington could sit down for direct negotiations, something Iran has refused to do due to the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA.

“If the Trump administration tries to push hard for concessions, it will be very difficult to reach an agreement even if there is a broader understanding,” he said.

Iranian nuclear program

The latest information indicates that Iran has not yet begun manufacturing a nuclear bomb.

However, a year after Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, it began increasing the level of enrichment and the number of centrifuges, and subsequently repeated the process. Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities And international criticism.

In recent months, this has happened Installation of thousands of new centrifuges In response to the passage of another critical resolution submitted by the West against it in the Board of Directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It is now enriching uranium to a rate of up to 60 percent, which is a relatively short technical step away from the more than 90 percent required to make a bomb, as the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Tehran has enough fissile material to make multiple bombs.

Crisis Group’s Rafati said the increased nuclear activity gives Iran some leverage when it comes to talking to Trump, but it also comes with significant risks.

“Tehran is enriching near weapons level and with almost zero penetration time, blurring the line between a situation that is alarming and alarming enough for the United States and/or Israel to consider military action,” he told Al Jazeera.

Nuclear breakout time is the time needed to produce enough fissile material to make a bomb. If Iran decided to produce a nuclear bomb, it would have to design and assemble a weapon, combine it with a long-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and test it successfully.

We are in a holding pattern in the short term, as the “big elephant in the room” in which Trump takes office is days away, and there is still no clear idea of ​​how his administration plans to shape its relations with Iran, according to senior analyst Geranmayeh.

“I believe that in the first few weeks of 2025, Iran is unlikely to significantly escalate its nuclear activities unless President Trump aggressively doubles down on his maximum pressure campaign,” Geranmayeh told Al Jazeera.

She added that Iranian nuclear activity may calm down slightly if the United States prioritizes diplomatic talks aimed at stopping the escalation, which means that two very different scenarios may unfold in the future depending on Trump’s own position.