Published on August 6, 2025, 8:02 AM EST – Key Points and Summary – Two months after a brief war with the U.S. and Israel, Iran has signaled it will not base its economic strategy on resuming nuclear talks.
-A top Iranian official stated the country can overcome sanctions and will not “tie everything to negotiations.”
-In response, the U.S. State Department flatly rejected Iran’s previous demands for compensation as “ridiculous.”
-Amidst this diplomatic stalemate, Tehran has created a new Supreme National Security Council, appointing a veteran politician to lead it in what some see as an attempt to rein in hardliners and reorder its defense establishment.
Iran and America Just Can’t Get Along
Back in June, the U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, following nearly two weeks of bombardment by Israel. This was followed by a ceasefire, which did not lead to a wider war.
President Donald Trump, at that point, pushed to get Iran to return to talks about giving up the possibility of its nuclear program. No such talks have resumed, although Iran did sit down with representatives of Britain, France, and Germany last month, with those nations threatening to reimpose the U.N. sanctions that were lifted after the JCPOA in 2015.
Would Iran return to the table with the U.S.?
The Deputy Foreign Minister Speaks
Per Newsweek, Iran’s regime has signaled that it “won’t base its economic strategy on any resumption of nuclear talks with the U.S. and warned it has ways to overcome sanctions if Washington rejects its conditions.”
“We are currently under sanctions, but we are still carrying out our economic and commercial activities and selling our oil,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA), as reported by Newsweek.
Gharibabadi was part of the team that was negotiating with the U.S. before it struck the nuclear facilities in June.
“They wanted to reduce our oil sales to zero, but they couldn’t. Because there are different capacities. We should not tie all the country’s destinies to negotiations,” Gharibabadi told the agency.
“If we were able to lift the sanctions through negotiations, that would be great, and this is not a bad step, and we should do it. But if they want to take advantage of the negotiation platform, we should naturally not tie everything to negotiations.”
The U.S. Responds
Per Newsweek, Tammy Bruce, the longtime conservative pundit who is now a State Department spokesperson, said this week that “what I can say is that any demands for financial compensation from the United States to the Iranian regime are ridiculous.
“If the Iranian regime really wanted to save money or alleviate some of the sanctions policy, they would stop taking destabilizing actions.”
A New Council for Iran
Meanwhile, Iran announced this week that it was establishing a new Supreme National Security Council.
This is not to be confused with the National Defence Council, which was in place during the country’s long war with Iraq in the 1980s and has now been reconstituted.
Per the Financial Times, President Masoud Pezeshkian named Ali Larijani the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.
Per a decree from the president, Larijani will be tasked with “monitoring and prioritising national security risks, particularly new technological threats . . . and enhancing sustainable security at national, regional and international levels.”
Larijani is described by FT as a “veteran politician” and a conservative, whose appointment is nevertheless characterized as an “attempt to rein in hardliners and reorder the country’s defence establishment.”
He is a senior political adviser to Iran’s supreme leader who has served in various roles in the government over the years.
Escaping Disaster
Also this week, Thanassis Cambanis, senior fellow and director of Century International, wrote for that organization about how “America Can Still Escape Disaster in Iran.”
“As the administration attempts to spin the twelve-day-war narrative and move on from its spectacularly ill-advised and anti-American risk-taking, a world order based on rights and the rule of law is now circling the drain,” Cambanis writes.
“This moment of crisis, however, also presents an opportunity for new alliances. Trump’s adventurism has betrayed the expectations of a large swathe of his base, revealing common ground between pro-diplomacy progressives and the anti-interventionist caucus. This common ground can be the basis for a new and strategic movement for better foreign policy—and indeed must be, to head off Trump’s march toward regional chaos.”
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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