In a speech on February 8, 2026, two days after talks with the United States, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made clear that Tehran has no intention of retreating from its core positions. “If you ask me what our greatest challenge is right now, I would say it is the challenge of standing firm,” he said. “Once you take a step back, it is no longer clear how far back you will have to go. That is our greatest challenge.” The message closely echoed the long-standing posture of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
For Araghchi, “standing firm” means continuing uranium enrichment, pressing ahead with ballistic missile development, and preserving Tehran’s network of militant proxy groups—precisely the issues President Donald Trump has identified as non-negotiable U.S. demands.
“Why have we insisted—and continue to insist—so strongly on enrichment, and why are we unwilling to give it up, even if war is imposed on us?” Araghchi asked. “Because no one has the right to tell us what we should have and what we should not have.”
“Once you take a step back, it is no longer clear how far back you will have to go.”
Although Washington has indicated that a second meeting with Iranian officials will take place, Trump has little room to maneuver. He has said repeatedly that Iran’s nuclear program must end. Any continued uranium enrichment would leave Tehran with the technical capacity to revive a weapons-oriented nuclear effort in the future, whenever U.S. attention weakens or shifts elsewhere. On the other two issues—missiles and proxy forces—any limited agreement would carry little weight, especially given the difficulty of monitoring and verifying Iran’s activities.
Some observers argue that Tehran has carefully weighed the risk of a U.S. military strike against Trump’s demands and concluded that it cannot afford to give up its missile arsenal or its capacity for regional disruption. Meaningful concessions, they say, would expose the ruling system to existential danger by making future military retaliation easier if Iran again threatens others or unleashes large-scale violence at home.
From this perspective, the most rational course for Araghchi is to prolong negotiations indefinitely—reducing the likelihood of an American attack while offering no substantive concessions.
In his remarks, the foreign minister repeatedly described the talks as “good.” “It was a good start, and it can have a good continuation as well,” he said. “If this process continues along the same lines, I think we will reach a good framework for an agreement.”
Nour News, a Tehran outlet reflecting the views of the Supreme National Security Council, explained what “good” means in this context. The term, it wrote, carries no moral weight but serves as a functional measure of strategic advantage. “‘Good’ is not a moral attribute but a functional standard,” the outlet wrote. “A good negotiation is one that reduces strategic costs, expands national opportunities, and widens the range of future decision-making—even if it does not necessarily lead to an immediate agreement.”
By that logic, Araghchi appears satisfied with the talks so far—a conclusion that should concern U.S. decision-makers.
Nour News went on to signal a preference for prolonged negotiations, an approach well-suited to a government under heavy internal pressure and facing a growing U.S. military threat. “In Iran’s experience, some of the most costly agreements have emerged from rushed negotiations that were presented as ‘good,’ but in practice proved unstable, unbalanced, and fragile,” the outlet wrote.
“In Iran’s experience, some of the most costly agreements have emerged from rushed negotiations that were presented as ‘good,’ but in practice proved unstable.”
At the same time, authorities have sought to shore up their domestic position by continuing arrests of citizens involved in the January protests, and senior figures from the Reform Front, which by Iranian standards can be considered a loyal opposition. One reformist figure described the arrests this way: “Mr. Khamenei views the emergence of a national opposition as an existential threat to the corrupt ruling system. The arrests carried out in recent days, based on baseless and even childish accusations, have been designed with this aim in mind.”
Another political activist saw a deeper pattern. “What we are witnessing today in Tehran is not merely a temporary crackdown or a routine security response,” the activist said. “The arrest and summons of reformist figures fit into a familiar but deeper pattern: the hard engineering of the political arena for the post-Ali Khamenei era.”
U.S. policymakers may need to pay closer attention to these internal dynamics. Iran’s ruling system has lost legitimacy with a significant portion of the population, a vulnerability that could doom the regime if the U.S. attacks. For millions who risked their lives in January, and for the tens of thousands who were killed, the prospect of a new U.S. deal signals the temporary survival of the regime—and the likelihood of further destabilizing behavior in the future.
