A Critique of a Defeated Diplomat’s Peace Plan
Author: Meysam Taheri
Source: Global South Magazine
Mohammad Javad Zarif has once again stepped out of the shadows. This time—not at the negotiating table, not in the halls of Vienna, but in the pages of Foreign Affairs—an American publication for an American audience, written in a language more familiar to Washington than to Tehran. He has presented a plan he himself describes as being “from a position of victory.” Yet any reader even slightly familiar with the realities of this war and the nature of the administration of Donald Trump will hear, behind these militant words, a familiar signal: capitulation.
First: A Message to Someone Who Will Never Listen
Zarif addresses his plan to an administration that, from beginning to end, has neither believed nor will ever believe in any agreement. This administration lives by falsehoods, makes decisions based on illusions, and justifies every defeat by presenting it as a victory. Trump is not someone who understands the concept of “win-win”; in his mindset, every deal is either a total victory or a bombardment. He has never acknowledged retreat, never admitted loss, and never accepted an agreement that carries even a hint of equality.
Accordingly, the only real way to force Trump into any reconsideration—not agreement, but mere reconsideration—is to place the global economy under serious threat, to the extent that his domestic audience on Wall Street begins to cry out. Yet Zarif offers concessions instead of pressure. This is not diplomacy from a position of strength—it is a plea dressed in the language of victory.
Second: You Put Your Main Card on the Table—and Then You Bargain?
Zarif’s proposal to “reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting sanctions” effectively turns Iran’s most important leverage—a card capable of shaking the global economy—into a tradable commodity. This is not a tactical concession, but a strategic capitulation.
And has Zarif forgotten how such deals have ended? The experience of the JCPOA stands before us: Iran made real nuclear concessions—what did it receive in return? A few years later, Trump withdrew with a single signature, and all sanctions returned. That defeat, that historical humiliation, has not become a lesson for Zarif or his allies. It is as if the JCPOA was not a strategic failure, but a “repeatable misunderstanding.”
Similar proposals were conveyed to the United States by Zarif’s own protégés through an Omani intermediary during the last round of negotiations. What was Washington’s response? The bombing of Iran. And now Zarif returns to the same table with the same ideas?
Third: You Know You Are Wrong—Yet You Still Write
Zarif himself admits he hesitated before publishing the article. This admission is not a sign of humility, but proof of self-awareness: he knows he is swimming against the current of society. Against the armed forces. Against what the Iranian army has demonstrated on the battlefield. Against the will of a society that, under bombardment, chants: “no capitulation, no compromise.”
Yet he writes nonetheless. Why? Because this “hesitation” is not a moral warning, but a defensive shield. An old technique: first declare, “I know I shouldn’t say this,” so that if criticism comes, you can respond, “I myself said I was hesitant.” This is not sincerity—it is image management.
Behind this “hesitation” lies another message: that the people, the armed forces, the defenders of the country do not understand. That some “enlightened” figure must rise and show the correct path. This diplomatic snobbery is perhaps the most unconscious—and the ugliest—layer of the text.
Fourth: Where Is Israel?
Throughout this lengthy article, one important absence stands out: Israel. Zarif writes about America, about Donald Trump, about Kushner, about Witkoff—but says nothing about Israel, about Benjamin Netanyahu, or about the Zionist lobby in Washington, which would never allow the existence of a strong, united, and economically powerful Iran.
This absence is not accidental. In his conceptual framework, Zarif reduces the issue to a bilateral equation: Iran and the United States. But the reality of this conflict is triangular. Israel is not standing on the sidelines—it is one of the main driving forces of the situation, a force that will never accept a victorious and prosperous Iran, even if Washington were to want it.
Zarif either does not see this reality—which is unlikely—or consciously ignores it. Both possibilities are equally troubling.
Fifth: Oil Investment as Bait
Zarif proposes that American companies invest in Iran’s oil sector. As if Mohammed bin Salman and his partners in the Persian Gulf had not offered the same to the United States, only on a much more generous scale and with far deeper pockets. And what was the result? In a moment of real crisis, the United States abandoned them and firmly aligned itself with Israel.
A diplomacy of “kill us, but come invest in our oil” did not work in Riyadh, nor in Abu Dhabi—and it certainly will not work in Tehran.
Trump does not understand “win-win.” He either wants everything or resorts to bombing. Zarif knows this. Yet he continues to write.
Sixth: The Guardian’s Great Discovery
The Guardian writes in an explanatory tone that this article “reflects a line of thinking present within part of Iran’s ruling establishment.” What a remarkable discovery. As if the Rouhani–Zarif current in Iran had been hidden, as if this line of thinking—seeking any compromise at Iran’s expense to normalize relations with the West—had not existed openly for years.
Western media make this “discovery” because they need it: they need to show that “Iran has a strategic internal divide.” Zarif, knowingly or not, has become a tool of this narrative.
Seventh: The Nuclear Illusion
Zarif remains stuck in the same old assumption: that if Iran steps back from its nuclear program, the reason for attacks will disappear. This argument not only ignores the past—since it has never been proven that Iran sought to build a bomb—but also shows that Zarif either does not understand the nature of this conflict or does not wish to.
This war is not about nuclear weapons; it is about Iran’s survival and regional power. A strong Iran—even without a single gram of enriched uranium—is a threat both to Israel and to the structure of American hegemony in the Middle East.
Conclusion: Neither Zarif nor Pezeshkian
Fortunately—and perhaps this is the only real “fortunately” in this entire story—in today’s Iran, under conditions of an imposed war, decisions are made neither by Zarif nor by Masoud Pezeshkian nor by any foreign minister. There exists an unpublicized military-political core that determines the real strategy, while the Foreign Ministry merely executes an agenda dictated from above.
Zarif knows this. Therefore, this article is neither an operational plan nor a real option on the decision-making table. It is an attempt at a return, together with Rouhani, a return of a current that has repeatedly demonstrated its readiness for concessions at Iran’s expense—an attempt to say: “I am still here. I still matter.”
Mr. Zarif, history remembers peacemakers—that is true. But history also remembers those who, at the moment of victory, extended a hand of capitulation—and traitors.
