On the latest episode of The President’s Inbox, Jim sat down with Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to discuss the ongoing talks between the United States and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program.

Here are three takeaways from their conversation:

1) The United States is pressing Iran to curtail its nuclear program. U.S. and Iranian negotiating teams have met four times over the last month. Iran's willingness to come to the negotiating table likely reflects its deep economic troubles and its military vulnerability in the wake of Israeli air strikes late last year that destroyed significant portions of Iran’s air defense network. Although Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has publicly doubted the reliability of U.S. commitments given that President Donald Trump withdrew the United Sates from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran reached under the Obama Administration, Karim noted: “There’s clearly a will in both capitals, both Tehran and Washington, to reach some kind of an agreement.”

2) President Donald Trump looks to be focused on limiting Iran’s nuclear program rather than Iran’s behavior in the Middle East more broadly. Trump denounced the 2015 nuclear deal for doing nothing to curb Iran’s ballistic missile program or its malign regional activities. But Trump has not made either of those goals a focus of the new talks. “A smaller deal is going to be a much easier political lift,” Karim argued, “but Trump may not want to agree to something which is not as strong as the deal he left.” A less ambitious deal could, however, expose divisions within the Republican Party over policy toward Iran. Whether Trump settles for a limited deal or walks away from the table, therefore, may hinge on his willingness to defy fellow Republicans.

3) A nuclear deal will not mend relations between the United States and Iran. The Islamic Republic’s identity is rooted in resistance to American influence and power. Khamenei and other members of Iran’s ruling elite fear that sustained engagement with the West would erode clerical authority and empower reformist factions at home. As Karim put it: Khamenei “very much fears that a U.S.-Iran rapprochement would be a far greater existential threat to the Islamic Republic than actual U.S. bombs.” Accordingly, Tehran prefers an agreement that averts war or economic collapse but falls short of ushering in a new era of détente.

If you’re looking to read more from Karim, check out his latest article for the Carnegie Endowment’s blog Emissary titled, “Iran Wants to Avoid Both Peace and War With the United States. Trump Isn’t Having It.”