U.S. and Iranian negotiators will meet with Arab counterparts on February 6, 2026, in Muscat, Oman. The outcome will decide how the U.S. handles Iran—deal or destruction. President Donald Trump has given the regime a chance to avoid the second fate, but it is unclear if they will take it. There is a deal that could put things on the right path there.
The focus is on Iran’s nuclear program and its ballistic missiles. These represent signature regime ambitions. Iranian authorities have either avoided any agreement that would meaningfully curtail them, or they simply violate commitments recognizing Western officials are loath to acknowledge their own failures and so will provide cover for Iran.
The religious revolution the regime still pushes is one of global conquest, with a desired end state of global Islamist rule.
It is unlikely the Islamic Republic will agree to any peace deal worthy of the name because it has no interest in peace. The religious revolution the regime still pushes is one of global conquest, with a desired end state of global Islamist rule. It is impossible to compromise with that mindset.
The Islamic Republic has spent decades and billions of dollars building its “Axis of Resistance” to advance its influence throughout the region. The regime’s leaders do not want to lose that, both because they want the influence and because they are afraid to acknowledge they impoverished their own people for nothing. They will not accept any solution that does not allow them to cling to power.
The recent protests and the slaughter conducted by the regime to suppress them have shown the world that even under pressure, Iran’s rulers will wield raw power to keep control. But they also stripped whatever veneer of civilized behavior was still present, and that has weakened European support among countries like Germany and Italy that preferred to trade rather than aim for the Islamic Republic’s end. The time to push the Islamic Republic aside is now; the question remains, how.
The best-case scenario would be for the ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to surrender and say they no longer wish to run the country. That outcome is unlikely. But if the regime pushes the supreme leader aside and allows a secular leader to hold real power, there is a way to avoid more Midnight Hammer-ing.
The people of Iran want to choose their government, and they deserve to do so. They have a history of success and prosperity that ended with the Islamic Revolution in 1979. It is time to allow them a return to that.
The time to push the Islamic Republic aside is now; the question remains, how.
An acceptable deal for Trump would be to have either the current president, Masoud Pezeshkian, or a previous one, like Hassan Rouhani, to preside over a national referendum. This could decide whether to either keep the current constitution and theocracy, or to abolish it and pick another form of government. There is no opposition group that could hold such a national vote, so keeping the regime bureaucracy in place makes sense.
There should be no trust, however. Instead, outside groups will need to provide intrusive oversight to ensure the vote is honest. But the people reject the regime and there seems no doubt the result would be a change. This could begin a nonviolent transition and is preferable to the opposition groups who endorse violence or seek to impose their own views, the way Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini once did.
All the issues of the nuclear and missiles programs, as well as the support for regional terror proxies, would be tied to the result of this referendum. No one expects the current regime to honor any deal to dismantle those programs, but a future one could—especially one given a path to prosperity and security backed by the only global power who can deliver it.
It is a heavy lift for sure, but there are no easy ways out of this quagmire.
