A senior voice from Iran’s political establishment has broken with the country’s hardline wartime rhetoric, urging Tehran to strike a deal with Washington to halt the conflict and avert further devastation.

Writing in the US journal Foreign Affairs, former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif argued that Iran should leverage what he described as its “upper hand” in the conflict with the United States and Israel — not to escalate, but to force a negotiated end.

A Deal Built on Nuclear Limits and Hormuz

Zarif proposed a sweeping diplomatic bargain: Tehran would curb elements of its nuclear programme and reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the full lifting of US sanctions.

The offer, he argued, could end the war while preventing the next one. Washington had rejected similar terms in the past, Zarif said, but the shifting military and political balance could now make them acceptable.

The proposal would also include a mutual non-aggression pact and the reopening of economic relations between Tehran and Washington — two countries that have had no formal diplomatic ties since the fallout from Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A Rare Call for Peace Inside Iran

Zarif’s intervention is notable because he currently holds no official post yet remains one of the most influential diplomatic figures in Iran’s recent history.

He served as foreign minister from 2013 to 2021 and helped craft the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. That deal collapsed after the United States withdrew during the presidency of Donald Trump.

His call for negotiations stands in sharp contrast to the tone from Iran’s current leadership, where senior military and political figures have urged the country to keep fighting until the United States is defeated.

War Pressure Mounts on Both Sides

Zarif acknowledged the emotional appeal of continuing the fight but warned the cost would be catastrophic.

“Although continuing to fight the United States and Israel might be psychologically satisfying,” he wrote, “it will lead only to the further destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure.”

Trump has hinted at ongoing contacts with Tehran while simultaneously threatening to send Iran “back to the stone ages” if negotiations fail — a stark reminder that the window for diplomacy may be closing fast.

Iran's former top diplomat urges deal with US to end war

I mean this is great news right ?

Anything that suggests renewed diplomacy, containment of a threat and an end to global economic turmoil is better than the current, empty war of words, death and destruction.

However, I doubt Netanyahu, with his frequent warnings that we're "two weeks away from nuclear Armageddon" is keen on any rapprochement. Even if Trump has an epiphany and calls off the dogs, Israel may be a big fly in the ointment.

10 minutes ago, blaze master said:

I mean this is great news right ?

It should be if the guy has any real political influence. If he was really Machiavellian, it might be a reach out to the Vance faction, with divide and rule. Remove Trump, Non-Aggression Pact with Trump. Nobel Peace Prize. Sweep the Mid-terms. It would require a complete abandonment of most of Iran's foreign policy (Hezbollah, Hamas), but the Iranians might conclude these are a spent force anyhow, and served their purpose. Ignoring the ignoramuses at Hamas, who are masters of their own downfall, a distinguishing feature of Shia "extremism" from Sunni "extremism" is their discipline. Iran exerts total control over their proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. With Sunni extremists, Riyadh, Dubai and Qatar cannot say the same. The Arabs feed money to their co-religionists, because ultimately, they are sympathetic to their vision of an Islamic Middle East, but these extremists came from the back streets, the gangs, the crimonal classes, the Arab underclass, who resent the decadent Sheikhs who have frittered away so much wealth.

Logically, in 1979, if America had to align with an Islamic theocracy, it should have been Iran not Saudi Arabia, which is far more dupliticious. But Ruhollah set the tone.

Nixon reconciled the US with China, and that was a fairly momentous thing. Clinton reconciled with Vietnam and that was scarely a headline. Vance goes to Tehran? Doubtful.

But of course Mohammad Javad Zarif is a nobody in Iranian politics. He resigned his post in 2025, is seen as part of a reformer faction that is reponsible for where they are now. Hardliners will argue that negotiation got them nowhere. In the end, the only person among the current leadership worth listening to is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. For being a IRGC hardliner, he does possess a certain wit and awareness of Western society that is surprising.

You need men willing to do impossible things. Trump 2016 could have done such a thing, because he was supposed to be the rule-breaker and got away with so much. Now, he's just another old fat man merely following a well trodden route in US politics that been a feature since 1991. Bomb them.