Amid public declarations of defiance, Iran's surviving leaders have refused negotiations with U.S. President Trump to halt the ongoing attacks by American and Israeli forces. However, according to The New York Times, on the second day following the commencement of strikes, informed officials revealed that operatives from Iran's Ministry of Intelligence indirectly contacted the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to propose discussions on terms for ending the conflict.
U.S. officials reportedly viewed the outreach with skepticism—at least in the short term—doubting whether either the Trump administration or Iran is genuinely prepared to de-escalate.
Nonetheless, the proposal, which was conveyed through another nation’s intelligence service, raises a critical question: as Israel’s systematic airstrikes target Iran’s leadership, throwing Tehran into disarray, is there anyone left within the Iranian government capable of implementing a ceasefire agreement?
Israeli officials, who are advocating for a campaign lasting several weeks to cripple Iran’s military capabilities—potentially even leading to the collapse of the government—have urged the United States to disregard the overture. For now, Washington does not consider the proposal serious.
After days of expressing openness to a deal with Iran, Trump stated in a social media post on Tuesday that it is now “too late” for talks.
Later that day, Trump lamented to reporters that Iranian officials whom the U.S. viewed as potential leaders are being killed. “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he said, adding, “Pretty soon we won’t know anybody.”
As attacks continue, Iran’s secret outreach and the fragmentation of its leadership underscore a central challenge for Trump: what kind of government in Iran does he hope to shape, or at a minimum, accept? He now appears to believe the best outcome would involve more pragmatic figures emerging from within the existing political structure.
At the very least, officials in the Trump administration would expect any agreement to halt bombing to include commitments from Tehran to abandon or significantly scale back its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, and to cease support for foreign proxy groups such as Hezbollah. In return, Trump has suggested he would allow Iran’s surviving leadership to retain economic and political power.
On Tuesday, Trump again hinted that his preferred model would mirror the approach the U.S. took in Venezuela after forcibly installing a new leader in January. Under the threat of further military action, Trump compelled the successor to cede control of Venezuela’s oil exports to the U.S., while making few demands for political reform.
“I think what we did in Venezuela was a perfect scenario,” Trump said in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday. “Leaders can be picked.”
But such a vision may prove illusory.
For one, despite recent intelligence contacts, it remains unclear whether Iran is truly willing to negotiate. Some Iranian leaders may believe they can inflict enough physical, economic, and political pain on the U.S. and Israel to force an end to the attacks. Trump already faces mounting political pressure from Republican allies dissatisfied with his actions.
Trump’s shifting rhetoric regarding Iran’s leadership may reflect tensions with Israel over war aims, according to Steven A. Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Cook noted during a press briefing on Monday that Israel is unlikely to support a “Venezuela-style solution” engineered by Trump for Iran, which could result in members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) taking power. The elite military force controls much of Iran’s economy. Some analysts and U.S. officials believe its ranks may include pragmatists less committed to the regime’s fundamentalist principles and more focused on preserving their own power and wealth.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces struck a compound where senior Iranian clerics were meeting to select a successor to Supreme Leader Khamenei, who was killed in a Saturday airstrike.
Prior to the offensive against Iran, the CIA issued an intelligence assessment examining various scenarios for leadership in a post-attack Iran. Individuals briefed on the agency’s options noted that none were considered highly credible, given the number of unknown variables in predicting how events would unfold.
Nevertheless, policymakers who reviewed the intelligence drew conclusions about the most likely outcomes. Some dismissed the idea that opposition groups could seize power. Instead, they focused on the prospect that a faction within the IRGC could become the most influential voice in government.
A key question for the Trump administration now is whether any of these officials would survive repeated attacks on the government.
Given Trump’s contradictory statements about his war aims, he could still change his mind after ruling out negotiations.
But even if he resumes the search for an Iranian leader, it may grow increasingly difficult to identify someone with sufficient influence to compel the country to adhere to an agreement with the U.S. as the government weakens.
Many analysts warn that Iran’s government could soon lose control of remote regions dominated by ethnic minorities such as the Kurds, or collapse entirely, leading to chaos and violence akin to the civil wars in Syria and Libya.
In a video released early Saturday announcing the strikes, Trump encouraged Iranians to rise up, declaring, “Your time of freedom is near,” and suggesting that once the attacks ended, they could “take over your government—it will be yours.”
Since then, Trump has adopted a more passive tone. “They will have that opportunity, but it’s really going to be up to them,” he told The New York Times. “They have to make that decision.”
But analysts caution that there is no guarantee Trump would welcome the outcome of a popular revolution.
“The likelihood of a successor state becoming a U.S.-friendly liberal democracy is very low—especially since it would be born out of a war with America,” said Rosemary Kelanic, Middle East projects director at Defense Priorities, a group that generally opposes U.S. foreign intervention.
Trump acknowledged the risk on Tuesday.
“The worst-case scenario is we do this and then somebody just as bad takes over, right?” he said. “We’re hoping to see somebody there who can give the country back to the people.”
When asked about the possibility of reinstating Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of Iran’s former Shah overthrown in 1979, Trump appeared unenthusiastic. He described Pahlavi as “a very nice person” but indicated a preference for “somebody who’s popular locally now, if there is such a person.”
Pahlavi has not lived in Iran since the 1970s.
While some Iranians chanted his name during recent protests, his level of popular support remains unclear.
Still, Pahlavi represents an era of closer U.S.-Iran relations. His father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, consolidated power following a U.S.-backed coup in the 1950s and ruled for decades. He sold oil to the U.S., purchased American weapons, was a frequent guest at the White House during the Nixon and Carter administrations, and maintained good relations with Israel.
The Islamic revolution that overthrew him was led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who established a religious government virulently hostile to the U.S. and Israel and committed to spreading its fundamentalist vision of Shia Islam across the Middle East.
Trump and his senior advisers argue that doing business with Iran’s current leadership is impossible given their religious extremism and open hatred of the West. They point to Iran’s refusal to accept Trump’s demands during last month’s nuclear talks—conducted under the threat of force—as evidence of the leadership’s fanaticism.
On Monday, Trump referred to Iran’s leaders as “radical maniacs,” adding, “They are sick. They are mentally ill. Sick. They are angry. They are crazy. They are sick.”
If the Iranian government survives, the challenge for Trump may lie in finding an interlocutor he described on Tuesday as “more moderate.” This would require someone sufficiently senior and authoritative within the current system, yet not overly committed to its revolutionary ideology.
Previous U.S. presidents have engaged with relatively moderate figures within Iran’s political establishment who appeared willing to build closer ties with the West. Former President Obama struck a deal in 2015 with a reformist Iranian president, exchanging limits on the country’s nuclear program for relief from economic sanctions. (Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018.)
Some Obama administration officials had hoped the deal would empower moderates over time and open Iran to the West. But critics, including Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, argued that Iran’s political system is controlled by clerics, and that the idea of a moderate faction is an illusion.
“I’ve been looking for the elusive Iranian moderate for 30 years,” then-U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates joked in 2008.
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