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The Real Obstacle in Iran Negotiations: Managing a Volatile Ally</TITLE]This spring, during one of the most sensitive Middle East negotiations in recent decades, American officials engaged in an unprecedented diplomatic maneuver: they quietly requested that other governments warn Iran of a potential Israeli plot to assassinate Tehran’s lead negotiators.According to a New York Times report corroborated by US officials, Washington feared Israel was planning to target Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Unable to directly command its ally to stand down, the US chose to warn its adversary about its friend. Regardless of whether the threat was imminent, the US government viewed the risk as significant enough to warrant action.At this critical juncture, Washington’s primary challenge is not merely keeping Iran at the negotiating table, but preventing its closest ally from destroying the table entirely. The most difficult entity for Washington to manage is not the long-standing enemy it has faced for decades, but the ally it continues to arm.A Recurring PatternThe New York Times reports that previous Israeli strikes during the conflict claimed the lives of Ali Larijani, former secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and Kamal Kharazi, a former foreign minister and advisor to the supreme leader. Both were pragmatic figures intended to be central to the talks. The current negotiation channel is led by Araghchi and Ghalibaf in large part because the alternative leaders were killed.Ghalibaf has reportedly survived two Israeli assassination attempts: one during the 12-day war in June 2025, and another during a recent strike on a bunker where senior officials were meeting.When the Spoiler is an AllyIn conflict-resolution theory, “spoilers” are actors who view peace processes as threats and act to dismantle them. Political scientist Stephen Stedman notes that external spoilers are the most dangerous, as they face no consequences when talks fail. These actors typically strike when a process is nearing a breakthrough or during highly symbolic moments that can turn an incident into a full-scale rupture.Current conditions provided a textbook environment for such spoiling. The US-Iran track had recently achieved an interim agreement to halt hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Simultaneously, Iran was observing days of public mourning for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This period of high symbolic exposure coincided with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declaring Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, a target, while Araghchi demanded that Washington restrain Israel. The tension was so high that Mojtaba Khamenei avoided his father’s public funeral ceremonies.Standard methods for managing spoilers—such as coercion or inducement—are designed for adversaries. They fail when the suspected spoiler is the very ally central to a superpower’s regional strategy. Coercing Israel is politically unfeasible in Washington, and “inducing” it is unnecessary given the existing level of support. Furthermore, the Israeli government views these diplomatic concessions as a strategic failure that facilitates regime change and releases funds to Tehran.Israeli reporting, including an investigation by Ynet, suggests internal pressures within Israel contribute to this stance. The Netanyahu administration has been accused of pressuring intelligence services to provide inflated assessments of military achievements. Consequently, a durable peace agreement is seen as narratively dangerous to the Israeli government, as every month the peace holds, it serves as an audit of the promised military victories.Iran’s internal dynamics also contribute to the volatility. Even after the recent memorandum, continued strikes on Gulf targets and threats from the IRGC to abandon the talks created a dual-sided pressure. The process is being squeezed by an allied spoiler on one side and factional spoilers within the Iranian government on the other.In alliance theory, this is known as “entrapment”: a patron being dragged by a client into outcomes the patron does not desire. While the standard model involves an ally dragging a patron into war, this case is the inverse: a client working to pull its patron out of a peace agreement. This occurs because an ally with significant domestic political weight can resist a patron that cannot afford to let them defect.When the spoiler is an ally, diplomacy shifts from conflict management to alliance management, with limited success. Washington has moved from private requests to public rebukes, including comments from Vice President JD Vance. The progression from private warnings to public leaks suggests that standard diplomatic channels are insufficient to control a partner. This concede that a superpower may lack control over its primary partner, necessitating a new strategy: stabilization through third parties to protect the process itself.Prioritizing Stabilization Over ProgressUS officials have acknowledged that during serious negotiations, the logic of targeting negotiators changes: killing them would effectively end the possibility of a deal. Donald Trump has echoed this, noting that striking Iranian leaders would leave him with “nobody to negotiate with.”The periods between negotiating rounds are the most vulnerable times for any peace process. The recent funeral and July 4th celebrations pushed political rhetoric to its limit just as the diplomatic channel was most exposed.In such volatile phases, the goal should shift from making progress to achieving stabilization—freezing the situation through intermediaries until the symbolic danger passes. While a pause in talks was agreed upon for the funeral, it failed to stop broader hostilities, as US strikes resumed and Iran responded with attacks on US facilities.However, third-party mediation is proving effective. To prevent attacks on their delegation, Iran sought guarantees through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries. In one instance, Pakistani fighter jets provided escorts for Iranian planes. When threats forced an emergency landing, the delegation had to travel by land to continue talks in Doha and Switzerland. Third parties are absorbing the risks that the primary actors cannot, acting as buffers to vouch for safety when the main powers cannot.The ultimate success of the current memorandum will be judged by developments regarding Hormuz, nuclear centrifuges, and sanctions. For now, the achievement is much smaller: despite the tension and strikes, the feared Israeli assassination operation did not occur, the negotiators survived, and the diplomatic channel remains open. This is a hard-won success achieved not by managing an enemy, but by managing a friend.
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