The US would again "buy" time with a deal with Iran: They sought a twenty-year "suspension" of all nuclear activities

The US is negotiating with Iran on a deal that would buy time again for a twenty-year “suspension” of all nuclear activities by “leaking”

The United States has proposed a 20-year "suspension" of all nuclear activities, even as President Donald Trump demands guarantees that Iran will never be able to build a nuclear weapon.

Just before US Vice President J.D. Vance left Islamabad early Sunday morning, he described Iran and the US as light years apart in positions, most notably on guarantees that Iran can never build a nuclear weapon — "not just now, not just in two years, but in the long term."

It turns out that the Trump administration means 20 years by long-term.

As details of Vance’s 21-hour visit to Pakistan emerged on Monday, sources familiar with the talks said the U.S. position was not a permanent ban on Iran’s nuclear enrichment. Instead, the United States proposed a 20-year “suspension” of all nuclear activities. That would allow Iran to argue that it had not permanently given up its right, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to produce its own nuclear fuel.

In response, Iran renewed its proposal to suspend nuclear activities for up to five years, according to two senior Iranian officials and a U.S. official. The Iranians had made a very similar proposal in February during failed talks in Geneva, which convinced U.S. President Donald Trump that it was time for war. Days later, he ordered an attack on Iran.

There are several other issues weighing on the negotiations, including restoring free navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and ending Iran's support for militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. However, Iran's refusal to give up its nuclear ambitions, dismantle its vast nuclear infrastructure and move its fuel stockpiles out of the country has always been a key sticking point.

So the revelation that the two sides are now at odds over a timeframe for suspending nuclear activities suggests there is room for agreement, and there were signs on Monday that negotiators could meet again in the coming days. White House officials said the meetings had not yet been finalized, but that a new round of direct talks was being considered.

However, for Trump and his associates, there is also a risk that the eventual agreement could resemble the 2015 nuclear deal, from which the US president withdrew three years later, calling it "a terrible, unilateral agreement that should never have been made."

The crux of Trump’s criticism of the Obama-era deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was that it contained deadlines. Indeed, Iran was gradually given more room to enrich uranium until 2030, when all restrictions would cease to apply (although the obligations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty would still prohibit building a bomb).

However, Obama's agreement did not entail a complete suspension of nuclear activities, which would now allow for at least several years without any nuclear activities, after the end of Trump's term.

“If they could get Iran to suspend for even a few years, that would be better than what we got in the JCPOA,” said Rob Mali, who was part of the 2015 negotiating team in the Obama administration and later led the failed attempt by the Joseph Biden administration to renew some form of the agreement.

In fact, the history of US-Iranian relations is full of attempts to buy more time. Sometimes this has been done by sabotaging programs, as when the US and Israel used cyberweapons to cause nuclear centrifuges to self-destruct. Sometimes it has been through sanctions, and sometimes through diplomatic agreements.

The result is that it took Iran longer to get closer to a nuclear bomb than almost any other state that has seriously attempted to develop one, longer than North Korea, India, Pakistan, or Israel, which possess nuclear arsenals today.

The status of the ongoing negotiations was described by officials and experts who did not wish to speak publicly due to the sensitivity of the talks. Like the Obama administration, the Trump White House is trying to maintain the secrecy of the negotiations in order to have maximum room for reaching an agreement, but, as then, it is also facing strategic "leaks" of information from both sides.

Vance said Monday night that there had been "some good conversations" with Iran in Pakistan and that the move was now on Tehran.

"The key question is whether the Iranians will show enough flexibility," he told Fox News.

He added that Iran had shown some flexibility, but not far enough. Asked about whether negotiations could continue, he said that would be best to ask the Iranians.

At the White House, spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said that "President Trump, Vice President Vance, and the negotiating team have clearly defined the red lines of the United States of America."

"Iran's desperation for a deal will only grow now that President Trump's extremely effective naval blockade is in place," she said, adding that the blockade "is directing oil tankers into the great, beautiful American Gulf."

Another sticking point is the US demand that Iran remove about 440 kilograms of bomb-grade uranium from the country to prevent its possible use in a military program. Trump has also considered sending ground forces to Isfahan to secure most of the highly enriched uranium, which is stored deep underground in large tanks.

The Iranians insist that the fuel must remain in the country, but they have offered, as in Geneva, to significantly dilute it so that it cannot be used to produce nuclear weapons.

And that would extend the time needed to eventually build a bomb. The risk, however, is that Iran would still have the fuel and could in the future re-enrich it to its current level of about 60 percent purity, just below the 90 percent needed for weapons.

As negotiations enter the next phase, one of the key questions will be whether Iran will get back the money it claims is due.

Trump has claimed for years, and he repeated this recently, that the Obama administration returned “planes full of cash” to Iran — alluding to the return of $1,4 billion in frozen assets, plus an additional $300 million in interest (some of that money was indeed delivered in cash by plane, because Western banks were not allowed to do business with Iranian institutions).

It is still too early to assess the outcome, but part of the current negotiations also concerns Iran's demand that the West unfreeze about six billion dollars in oil revenue, which has been blocked in Qatar due to sanctions from Trump's first term.