From 'help is on the way' to nuclear talks, Iranians wary of Trump's shift
After Trump repeatedly pledged to hold Tehran accountable for its protest crackdown, many Iranians are still waiting for him to make good on his promises.
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WASHINGTON — When US and Iranian negotiators sit down for talks Friday, nearly a month will have passed since Iran’s security forces massacred thousands in the streets of Tehran, undeterred by President Donald Trump’s pledge to come to the protesters' “rescue.”
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has verified more than 6,800 deaths from the protests, with some 11,200 cases still under investigation. That the Trump administration is holding talks with Iran in the wake of the bloodshed is seen by many Iranians as undercutting its earlier pledges to hold the regime accountable.
Al-Monitor’s Tehran-based correspondent, whose name is withheld for security purposes, said in a WhatsApp message that “a deep sense of betrayal has begun to take hold” among Iranians.
"One promise after another from Donald Trump had raised expectations among many Iranians that his warnings would increase the cost of any crackdown by the regime," he said. "Many now argue that the US president has effectively abandoned them. The protests and sacrifices, they say, were not meant to pave the way for a better nuclear deal.”
US and Iranian officials will hold negotiations in Oman on Friday, their first since the 12-day war in June. The Trump administration is entering the talks with a list of demands, including that Iran halt its uranium enrichment, address its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, constrain its ballistic missile production and cease its support for regional proxy groups. Iranian officials, however, have said they are only willing to discuss their country’s nuclear program.
Trump's rhetoric on Iran has shifted in recent weeks. After first threatening force over the mass killings, he has since tied military action to Iran’s refusal to abandon its nuclear program. Trump has warned Tehran that its failure to heed US demands will trigger strikes “far worse” than those on Iranian nuclear sites last June.
Negar Mortazavi, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and host of "Iran Podcast," said opinions within Iran are split over the Trump administration’s pursuit of a deal.
“Some Iranians feel at their wit's end. They welcome any form of external action, military action and war which they think will help bring an end to the status quo," Mortazavi said. "But most Iranians are really worried about military action and war, and they don't necessarily see that as helping their situation."
Trump's red line
When asked by Al-Monitor on Wednesday how the nuclear negotiations advance Trump’s repeated pledges to aid the Iranian people, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that meeting with adversaries to the United States doesn't represent a concession.
“We don't view meetings as even legitimization,” Rubio said. “I think if there's an opportunity to engage directly with counterparts in the Iranian regime, the United States would be open to that.”
Rubio said upcoming talks should address the Iranians’ “treatment of their own people,” along with the country’s nuclear program, ballistic missile production and regional proxies. He also credited Trump with having already helped protesters when he "publicly prevented mass executions," suggesting that Iran had already heeded the administration's warnings.
Earlier this month, Trump said that thanks to his tough rhetoric, Iran halted the planned executions of some 800 people detained in the protests. But at least 15 prisoners were executed at dawn in prisons across Iran at dawn on Tuesday, according to HRANA.
Activists say that arrests of protesters are continuing across major Iranian cities, with authorities setting up checkpoints and conducting door-to-door searches. According to reporting from the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group, officers are forcing people to undress at checkpoints and detaining anyone showing possible protest-related injuries from pellet guns or live ammunition. HRANA has documented more than 50,000 arrests, including of doctors who treated the protesters.
Amid this ongoing crackdown, there is a view in both Tehran and Washington that the negotiations are merely a facade, with the United States using them as cover for an eventual attack. Last June, US warplanes bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities a week after a scheduled sixth round of nuclear talks was called off amid Israeli strikes.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Iranian government is engaging in the negotiations not only to deter looming US strikes but to demoralize the Iranian protesters.
“The Islamic Republic is trying to tell its own downtrodden and repressed population that America, even after promising help was on its way, is more interested in speaking with regime elites than in standing Iranian than in standing with the Iranian people,” Taleblu said.
“There is angst and concern in Tehran as to why the president would so quickly pivot from trying to hold Tehran accountable to trying to ink a nuclear deal,” Taleblu said. “Literally, everybody you talk to, eyes are trained on the skies.”
