The major powers and Iran will be convening in Kazakhstan at the end of the month [Feb. 26] for what is already being described as yet another “last chance” for negotiations. The truth of the matter is that all of the parties are well aware that the current timetable only hinders any chance of achieving an agreement, even if the Iranians would want that.

Iran’s presidential elections are scheduled for June, and the most striking feature of the current campaign is that it hasn’t started yet. There are plenty of theoretical candidates, but few have actually committed themselves to running. In the background, the regime is exerting enormous pressure so that the events of 2009, and especially the so-called Green Revolution, do not repeat themselves. The reformists of that time, like former Parliament speaker Medhi Karroubi and former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, are under house arrest, and Iran’s economic situation has only deteriorated over the past few years with the collapse of its currency, a decline in oil exports and a sharp rise in prices. All of this is deeply related to the sanctions and, by extension, to the nuclear crisis. In this current situation, the regime is having a very hard time giving any indication that it is willing to compromise, and indications like that are rare even in the best of times.

But while the Iranian clock ticks down to the election, there is another clock, an Israeli one, ticking in the Middle East. It counts the number of centrifuges that can be used to enrich uranium to 20% and the total of all uranium enriched to these high levels. Prime Minister Netanyahu has drawn a "red line" (in his UN speech), based on a specific amount of enriched uranium that would enable the Iranians to manufacture a bomb in a short amount of time. While this line has yet to be crossed, the visit by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) this week led to an anticipated but no less worrying result: The Iranians are beginning to install even more advanced centrifuges, in what is seen as an unequivocal message of defiance by the Islamic Republic.

Anyone who hasn’t bothered to understand this message’s true meaning needs only to consider what the Supreme Leader himself said last week in response to an initiative by US Vice President Joe Biden, who offered the Iranians direct negotiations with the United States. "We will not negotiate with a gun held to our head," said Ayatollah Khamenei. And if all these indicators are not enough, there is also the fact that the UN inspectors returned from their visit to Iran admitting that they failed in their endless efforts to convince the Iranians to enter serious discussions about the allegations that they are developing nuclear weapons.