As a new round of Tehran–Washington talks approaches, an organized effort is underway in the American media and political space to redefine the starting point of the negotiations in a way that suggests Iran, after a period of pressure and threats, was forced back to the negotiating table. Although this narrative is understandable from the perspective of psychological operations, it does not align with the realities of diplomatic and field developments and is less a description of events than an attempt to shift responsibility for the breakdown in the negotiating process.

The reality is that, on the eve of the sixth round of negotiations in Khordad (May–June) this year, it was the United States that interrupted the course of dialogue by prioritizing the option of military action and resorting to hard power, seeking to achieve political objectives through field pressure and military strikes. This shift from diplomacy to hard action showed that, at that juncture, Washington did not consider the negotiation tool sufficient to secure its demands and sought instead to alter the balance from outside the negotiating table. The rupture in the talks, therefore, was not the result of Iran leaving the table, but of the United States changing its instrument.

Now, the same actor is once again speaking of readiness for negotiations while simultaneously attempting to present this return as the continuation of a successful pressure policy. This behavioral duality itself signals a change in calculation. In strategic logic, an actor that replaces diplomacy with hard power but then returns to negotiation is, in fact, revising its previous cost–benefit assessment. The return to the negotiating table in this framework is not the continuation of a consistent path, but a sign of the failure of an alternative one.

One of the most important variables influencing this recalibration has been the rising estimated costs of military action. The explicit warning by the Supreme Leader that any US attack on Iran would inevitably regionalize the conflict created a key shift in the decision-making environment. This position elevated the potential level of confrontation from a limited bilateral clash to a broad regional crisis, significantly expanding the risk horizon for American decision-makers. Under such conditions, the military option transforms from a controllable pressure tool into a costly and unpredictable scenario.

Although there appears to have been no change in America’s overarching objectives, it can be argued that the projected costs of the military option for Washington have exceeded its potential benefits, compelling it to change the tool through which it seeks to achieve those objectives. From this perspective, the US turn back toward negotiations should be analyzed within the framework of altered cost–benefit ratios, not as evidence of the success of pressure. In other words, it is Washington that has changed its approach, not Tehran.

By contrast, Iran’s behavioral framework during this period has not experienced a rupture. Its consistent emphasis on fair, just, balanced negotiations based on sanctions relief and the removal of threats has remained a constant line in its declared positions. Opposition to negotiations under threat follows the same logic, as talks conducted under pressure disrupt the balance of exchange and turn the process into one of imposition. This stance can be understood as a bargaining rule rather than a political slogan.

At the same time, the United States is attempting, through pre-emptive media positioning, to shape the cognitive agenda of the talks, including by implying that the primary goal is to extract rapid concessions from Iran and that, if this is not achieved, a scenario of renewed tension will be activated. This type of framing is part of pressure tactics in the pre-negotiation phase. Experience, however, has shown that the gap between narrative construction and actual behavior ultimately reveals itself in the substance and course of negotiations.

Accordingly, the current dispute is less about the principle of negotiation than about the interpretation of behavioral change. Available evidence indicates that the party which once interrupted diplomacy through military action and is now again speaking of negotiation is the United States. Efforts to invert this reality are part of a battle of narratives; but at the level of strategic analysis, the criterion for judgment is not promotional narratives, but the sequence of decisions and changes in instruments.