Is the US-Iran Interim Deal Dead? What Tehran Just Said

Iran’s president blamed the United States on Saturday 24 October for the failure of the interim agreement and in the same remarks said it should still be concluded. Washington’s messages came through other channels: a Friday intelligence memo, embassy drawdowns in four countries and Donald Trump‘s line that “we may do another little Epic Fury, or they’ll agree.”

Our earlier piece on Tom Barrack’s weekend warning and the Istanbul ministers’ reply covered the threats. This one covers the statements after them, with the running record on the Iran-US talks tracker.

Masoud Pezeshkian assigned the interim deal’s failure to Washington and asked for it to be concluded anyway. US Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton told Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday that Iranian plotting against American personnel had reached advanced stages. The State Department is cutting staff at four Middle East embassies, and officials denied a link to new strikes. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said, in AFP’s account, that any renewed attack will meet a response several times greater.

In remarks broadcast on Iranian state television and reported by Reuters on Saturday, Pezeshkian said: “We were having negotiations, the cowards (Americans) messed everything up…I still think we should go and conclude it.”

In a speech posted on his website, AFP reported, he said “there are many people in this society who are struggling to put food on the table.” He called for an end to what he described as a “state of neither war nor peace” and said Tehran “must also get out of this situation.”

AFP reported that a US blockade of Iranian ports has cut off oil exports and trade. It wrote that the ceasefire mediated mainly by Pakistan in mid-June collapsed soon afterward, with each side accusing the other of violations, and that on Friday Barrack, the US ambassador to Türkiye, said American strikes could resume as soon as the weekend.

The Associated Press reported that Clayton sent Rubio a memo on Friday 23 October saying his teams “have received intelligence that Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel.” Axios published the memo first, and three US officials confirmed it to the AP, which said it describes Iranian plotting as having reached advanced stages.

The AP named the four embassies as Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It said the State Department’s own announcement pointed to Houthi threats and did not mention Iran, while three officials said both the Iranian and Houthi threats fed the decision. Officials told the AP the drawdowns are not tied to possible new US and Israeli strikes. On Wednesday 21 October, the AP added, nonessential personnel and their families were ordered out of Saudi Arabia.

At a rally on Friday, according to the AP and Al Jazeera, Trump said of Iran: “we may do another little Epic Fury, or they’ll agree.”

Trump spoke on Friday, the day Clayton’s memo is dated, and Pezeshkian spoke a day later. The reporting does not say he was replying to either. Trump’s sentence ends in “or they’ll agree.” Pezeshkian’s ends in “I still think we should go and conclude it.”

Revolutionary Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said on Wednesday, according to Al Jazeera, that Iran would adopt a new “offensive” strategy if the US renewed attacks. The Guards also said, in AFP’s account, that any response would be “several times greater.”

Cole Bucy wrote in War on the Rocks on 21 October that Iran’s posture “reflects a subtle but important shift in Iran’s mindset” and that “Tehran’s bar for an acceptable deal appears fixed.” The Saturday reporting does not say where that bar sits.

Al Jazeera relayed a New York Times report in which unnamed US officials put Iranian threats to Americans in the Middle East at “the highest level” since the war began. Another official in that account said Houthi attacks and “Iranian terror plots targeting US officials” drove the staffing decisions.

Neither Reuters nor AFP reported the interim deal’s terms, and Pezeshkian did not say which American act broke it. The plots in Clayton’s memo are described only by officials. No source said whether the embassy cuts are precaution or preparation.

A reply to Pezeshkian from Rubio or Trump would show whether Washington treats the interim deal as dead. A new order moving diplomatic staff out of Qatar, the UAE, Jordan or Lebanon would add to the staffing cuts the AP reported. Al Jazeera notes that reports link a possible new US and Israeli campaign to the period after the 3 November midterm elections, so strikes before or after that date would show how Washington read the offer.