Negotiating with terrorists and rogue actors is wrong. It gives them legitimacy and usually advances their objectives. But if negotiations are deemed necessary, there are two indisputable truths to keep in mind: 1) They always lie, and 2) they always play for time.
Successful negotiations with Iran must start with this approach.
They always lie
Iran lied to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the world for 18 years about its enrichment program. It signed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (commonly known as the Iran deal) while hiding facilities and a nuclear weapons archive, which Israel smuggled out of Iran in 2018.
In Gaza, Iran’s proxy Hamas signed ceasefires and used every one of them to breach and regroup.
These are not disputed facts.
They always play for time
Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, do not answer to voters or election cycles. They can afford to wait for sanction regimes to fracture or for political will to fade.
They have run this play countless times and will do it again unless the cost of waiting is higher than the cost of making a deal.
Negotiations give them legitimacy
Every round of negotiations – in Vienna, Doha, or Islamabad – hands Iran something it seeks but has not earned: legitimacy and recognition. That is the real prize.
A process that drags on indefinitely delivers legitimacy for free, before any concession is made. That was the case with Hamas, and that is the case with Iran.
Lessons from Hamas negotiations
For nearly two decades after pulling out of Gaza in 2005, Israel faced the same cycle: Hamas fires rockets, war breaks out, international pressure on Israel mounts, a ceasefire begins – repeat. Hamas survived each round and came back stronger because Israel was always pressured to stop prior to finishing the job.
October 7 broke that cycle.
Hamas took 251 hostages, believing this would force Israel to stop the war. It had the opposite effect. For the first time, no one could credibly demand Israel stop fighting while innocent people were held captive. Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk eventually admitted that releasing the hostages would “remove Israel’s justification to continue the war.”
Israel kept hitting Hamas throughout the hostage negotiations. The goals never changed: release the hostages and destroy Hamas’s military and governing capability.
The outcome: all hostages home, Israel in control of roughly 60% of Gaza, Hamas badly hit and its disarmament pending.
None of that came from goodwill. It came from unrelenting military pressure.
Apply it to Iran
The same logic directly applies to the talks with Iran.
US President Donald Trump may prefer reaching goals through negotiations, but realistically they can work only under maximum pressure.
Sanctions cannot be lifted as a gesture of good faith. They must remain in place until Iran’s behavior changes.
The same goes for the naval blockade, which is costing the regime up to $500 million a day.
Military options must remain on the table. Any agreement must be verifiable, the enriched uranium must leave Iran, and violations of said agreement must carry real consequences.
Iran will need to give up its nuclear material to remove American and Israeli justification to continue the war.
In fact, every world leader committed to peace should tell Iran to “give up the material so the war can end.” The more political pressure is put on Iran, the less likely that kinetic strikes will be needed.
Every ceasefire or diplomatic pause must be temporary – maintained only as long as it serves the goal, and abandoned the moment Iran uses the respite to stall or advance its nuclear program.
The moment pressure eases, Iran runs out the clock. It is what Iran has done for 47 years every time the pressure let up.
Decades of negotiating with Hamas and Iran lead to the following conclusions: they always lie, they always procrastinate, and they do not respond to goodwill – only to pressure.
For negotiations to bear any fruit, the blockade must continue and Trump’s finger must stay on the trigger.
The writer is head of the US office at Acumen Risk Ltd., a risk-management firm.