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Iran Faces US Without Plan B as Nuclear Red Lines Collide

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
While rising US–Iran tensions over Tehran’s uranium enrichment jeopardize nuclear talks, three Iranian sources said on Tuesday that the clerical leadership lacks a clear fallback plan if efforts to resolve a decades-long dispute collapse.
With negotiations faltering over clashing red lines, Iran may turn to China and Russia as a “Plan B,” the sources said, but with Beijing’s trade war with Washington and Moscow distracted with its war in Ukraine, Tehran’s backup plan appears shaky.
“The plan B is to continue the strategy before the start of talks. Iran will avoid escalating tensions, it is ready to defend itself,” a senior Iranian official said.
“The strategy also includes strengthening ties with allies like Russia and China.”
On Tuesday, Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected US demands to halt uranium enrichment as “excessive and outrageous,” warning that the talks are unlikely to yield results.
After four rounds of talks aimed at curbing Iran‘s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, multiple stumbling blocks remain. Tehran refuses to ship all of its highly enriched uranium stockpile abroad or engage in discussions over its ballistic missile program, two of the Iranian officials and a European diplomat said.
The lack of trust on both sides and President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a 2015 accord with world powers has also raised the importance for Iran of getting guarantees that Washington will not renege on a future accord.
Compounding Tehran’s challenges, Iran‘s clerical establishment is grappling with mounting crises – energy and water shortages, a plummeting currency, military losses among regional allies, and rising fears of an Israeli attack on its nuclear sites – all exacerbated by Trump’s hardline policies.
With Trump’s speedy revival of a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, including tightened sanctions and military threats, the sources said, Iran‘s leadership “has no better option” than a new deal to avert economic chaos at home that could threaten its rule.
Nationwide protests over social repression and economic hardship in recent years, met with harsh crackdowns, have exposed the Islamic Republic’s vulnerability to public anger and triggered sets of Western human rights sanctions.
“Without lifting sanctions to enable free oil sales and access to funds, Iran’s economy cannot recover,” said the second official, who like others asked not to be identified due to sensitivity of matter.
Iran‘s foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment.
A THORNY PATH
Wendy Sherman, former US Undersecretary for Political Affairs who led the US negotiating team that reached the 2015 accord between Tehran and six world powers, said it was impossible to convince Tehran to “dismantle its nuclear program and give up their enrichment even though that would be ideal.”
“So that means they will come to an impasse, and that we will face the potential for war, which I don’t think, quite frankly, President Trump looks forward to because he has campaigned as a peace president,” she said.
Even if enrichment disputes narrow, lifting sanctions remains fraught. The US favors phasing out nuclear-related sanctions, while Tehran demands immediate removal of all restrictions.
Dozens of Iranian institutions vital to Iran‘s economy, including its central bank and national oil company, have been sanctioned since 2018 for “supporting terrorism or weapons proliferation.”
When asked about Iran‘s options if talks fail, Sherman said Tehran would likely “continue to circumvent sanctions and sell oil, largely to China, perhaps India and others”.”
China, Iran‘s primary oil buyer despite sanctions, has helped stave off economic collapse, but Trump’s intensified pressure on Chinese trade entities and tankers threatens these exports.
Analysts warn that China and Russia’s support has limits. China insists on steep discounts for Iranian oil and may push for lower prices as global oil demand weakens.
If talks collapse – a scenario both Tehran and Washington hope to avoid – neither Beijing nor Moscow can shield Iran from unilateral US and EU sanctions.
France, Britain, and Germany, though not part of the US–Iran talks, have warned they would reimpose UN sanctions if no deal emerged quickly.
Under the 2015 nuclear pact’s UN resolution, the E3 have until Oct. 18 to trigger the so-called “snapback mechanism” before the resolution expires.
According to diplomats and a document seen by Reuters, the E3 countries may do this by August if no substantial deal can be found by then.
Diplomats warn that getting a deal before then would mean, in the best-case scenario, an initial political framework like in 2013 whereby both sides offer some immediate concrete concessions giving time for a more detailed negotiation.
“There is no reason to think it will take less time than the 18 months in 2013 especially when the parameters and the geopolitical situation is more complicated now,” a senior European official said.
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Trump Administration to Release Over $5 Billion School Funding That It Withheld

US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump, in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
President Donald Trump’s administration will release more than $5 billion in previously approved funding for K-12 school programs that it froze over three weeks ago under a review, which had led to bipartisan condemnation.
“(The White House Office of Management and Budget) has completed its review … and has directed the Department to release all formula funds,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the U.S. Education Department, said in a statement, adding funds will be dispersed to states next week.
Further details on the review and what it found were not shared.
A senior administration official said “guardrails” would be in place for the amount being released, without giving details.
Early in July, the Trump administration said it would not release funding previously appropriated by Congress for schools and that an initial review found signs the money was misused to subsidize what it alleged was “a radical leftwing agenda.”
States say $6.8 billion in total was affected by the freeze. Last week, $1.3 billion was released.
After the freeze, a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states sued to challenge the move, and 10 Republican US senators wrote to the Republican Trump administration to reverse its decision.
The frozen money covered funding for education of migrant farm workers and their children; recruitment and training of teachers; English proficiency learning; academic enrichment and after-school and summer programs.
The Trump administration has threatened schools and colleges with withholding federal funds over issues like climate initiatives, transgender policies, pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s war in Gaza and diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Republican US lawmakers welcomed the move on Friday, while Democratic lawmakers said there was no need to disrupt funding in the first place.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon separately said she was satisfied with what was found in the review and released the money, adding she did not think there would be future freezes.
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Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says

Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Israel will resume airdrop aid to Gaza on Saturday night, the Israeli military said, a few days after more than 100 aid agencies warned that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave.
“The airdrops will include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food to be provided by international organizations,” the military added in a statement.
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Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas did not want to make a deal on a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza.
“Now we’re down to the final hostages, and they know what happens after you get the final hostages. And basically because of that, they really didn’t want to make a deal,” Trump said.
The comments followed statements by Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the effect that Israel was now considering “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending the terror rule of Hamas in the coastal enclave.
Trump added he believed Hamas leaders would now be “hunted down.”
On Thursday, Witkoff said the Trump administration had decided to bring its negotiating team home for consultations following Hamas’s latest proposal. Witkoff said overnight that Hamas was to blame for the impasse, with Netanyahu concurring.
Trump also dismissed the significance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Macron’s comments, “didn’t carry any weight,” the US leader said.
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