Iraq is seeking to broker a face-to-face meeting between Iranian and US officials in Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said on Saturday, more than six months after Israeli and US attacks on Iran put bilateral talks on hold.
"Iraq is trying to arrange a bilateral meeting between Tehran and Washington in Baghdad, but the issue needs some reassurances," al-Sudani told Lebanese TV channel Al-Mayadeen.
The Iraqi prime minister said there has been dialogue in more than one place on the issue, but "commitments and the language of threats stand as obstacles."
"Part of my conversation with (US envoy) Tom Barrack when he visited Baghdad, was to bring the views between Tehran and America closer, and he asked me how to deal with the situation, and I told him that it should be treated with respect."
The United States held five rounds of negotiations with Iran over its disputed nuclear program earlier this year, for which Trump set a 60-day deadline.
When no agreement was reached by the 61st day on June 13, Israel launched a surprise military offensive, followed by US strikes on June 22 targeting key nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow.
"Iran needs trust, because it is not acceptable to reach an agreement and then, hours later, see an attack take place," Al-Sudani said in his meeting with Tom Barrack, according to his interview with Al-Mayadeen.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in November that US President Donald Trump’s letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, sent shortly before the war, explicitly presented two options: continued war and bloodshed, or direct negotiations aimed at completely eliminating Iran’s nuclear enrichment and ballistic missile programs.
Tehran has rejected US demands, saying that uranium enrichment is its inalienable right and that no other country has any say over its missile program.
Earlier this week, the United States and Iran traded sharply worded accusations at the United Nations Security Council, with Washington offering conditional talks while Tehran blamed the standoff on US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Speaking during the session, Morgan Ortagus, counselor of the US Mission to the United Nations, said Washington remained open to formal negotiations but only if Iran agreed to direct talks and abandoned uranium enrichment.
“In both administrations, President Trump extended the hand of diplomacy to Iran,” she said. “But instead of taking that hand of diplomacy, you continue to put your hand in the fire. Step away from the fire, sir, and take President Trump’s hand of diplomacy.”
Iran rejected that framing. “We appreciate any fair and meaningful negotiation but insisting on zero enrichment policy is contrary to our rights as a member of the NPT," Tehran's UN envoy Amir Saeed Iravani said.
"Iran will not bow down to any pressure and intimidation.”
The problem between the Islamic Republic and Western powers “is not the nuclear issue,” but opposition to Iran’s plan “to establish a national and international Islamic order,” Ali Khamenei said in a message issued Saturday to the annual meeting of Islamic student associations in Europe.
He framed the confrontation as resistance to an “unjust global order and the system of domination.”
“The heavy assault of the US army and its disgraceful appendage in the region was defeated by the initiative, courage and sacrifice of Iran’s young people,” Khamenei said in a reference to recent regional conflicts.
Costs of confrontation
The remarks came after a 12-day war that left Iran with significant losses among senior military commanders and caused damage to nuclear, military and security infrastructure. Critics say the confrontation with the West, shaped by Khamenei’s policies over more than three decades, has imposed heavy costs on the population, with sanctions crippling large parts of the economy, weakening the currency and driving up the cost of living.
Despite this, senior officials have continued to defend the strategy. On Friday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged that sanctions have contributed to economic disorder but portrayed them as a factor behind Iran’s industrial “independence” and the development of its defence and missile sectors.
Speaking earlier in Isfahan, Araghchi said Iranians must accept the reality of sanctions and “accept that it is possible to live with sanctions.” He added that while sanctions have costs, he also knew their “blessings,” comments that triggered a wave of public criticism from citizens who said officials were disconnected from daily economic hardship.
Nuclear dispute still central
Khamenei’s insistence that the nuclear issue is secondary contrasts with Tehran’s recent remarks that reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency helped pave the way for Israeli and US attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
On June 12, the IAEA’s board of governors adopted a resolution accusing Iran of breaching safeguards by accumulating highly enriched uranium and restricting inspectors’ access, and called on Tehran to resume full cooperation.
The supreme leader’s comments also come as Iran-backed groups across the region are widely viewed as major sources of instability in the Middle East, complicating Tehran’s efforts to cast its confrontation with the West as purely ideological.
At the start of 2024, Iran appeared to be riding high — expanding regional reach, edging closer to nuclear threshold status and projecting confidence at home and abroad. That trajectory began to reverse in late 2024 and accelerated into 2025.
The past year brought direct confrontation with Israel and later the United States, the weakening of Tehran’s regional proxy network and mounting domestic pressures. What it did not bring was collapse.
That survival, analysts warn, may now be shaping how the Islamic Republic approaches 2026 — not as a moment for restraint, but as proof that it can endure unprecedented pressure and press forward.
The defining moment of the year was the June war with Israel, a confrontation that punctured long-held assumptions about Iran’s deterrence while stopping short of triggering a regime change.
On Eye for Iran, Middle East analyst and former Israeli intelligence official Avi Melamed who directs the Inside the Middle East fellowship program for policy and security professionals; journalist and investigative reporter Jay Solomon, author of The Iran Wars; and historian Shahram Kholdi assessed what the Islamic Republic’s survival says about the year that is about to end and why its interpretation of that survival could make the coming year more volatile.
Fear is breaking — but survival is being reframed
Avi Melamed pointed to a psychological shift inside Iran as one of the most consequential developments of 2025.
“The most significant one is that I think that we are witnessing now a very significant shift in Iran in the sense that many Iranian people are no longer afraid of this regime,” he said.
That erosion of fear has coincided with widespread social defiance, particularly among younger Iranians and women, even as repression continues.
Shahram Kholdi said that Tehran is not reading this moment as a loss. Instead, he argued, the leadership is internalizing 2025 through a survivalist lens — one that encourages defiance rather than restraint.
“If something that can kill you doesn’t destroy you, it makes you stronger,” Kholdi said, describing what he sees as the clerical establishment’s core mentality after the June war with Israel.
That belief, he argued, helps explain why executions have continued and why the Islamic Republic is signaling resolve despite suffering unprecedented blows.
A strategic reversal — interpreted as a test passed
Externally, 2025 marked a sharp break from the trajectory that once favored Tehran. Jay Solomon described the year as a reversal after decades in which Iran expanded influence through proxies and deterrence.
“The word I’d use for the year is weakness,” he said.
Solomon pointed to Israeli strikes, the degradation of Hezbollah and Hamas, and Iran’s struggle to manage overlapping crises — from inflation and water shortages to public dissent.
Yet despite expectations of mass bloodshed following the June conflict, the Islamic Republic ultimately pulled back, reinforcing its own perception that it had weathered the storm.
Why 2026 may be more volatile
For the analysts the biggest concern for 2026 was the risk ahead.
Iran’s deterrence model has been punctured but not abandoned. Instead, Tehran appears determined to rebuild — restoring proxy leverage, advancing missile capabilities and reasserting influence amid uncertainty.
Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile appears largely intact following the June war, with roughly 2,000 heavy missiles still in its arsenal, according to Al-Monitor.
The outlet cited an Israeli security source saying that Israel's military intelligence had conveyed the assessment to the United States in an indication that Israel is urging Washington to again act to address the alleged threat.
Melamed warned that this environment heightens the risk of miscalculation. Kholdi argued that the belief that Iran “didn’t lose” the June war makes confrontation more likely, not less. Solomon added that shifting political currents in the United States are being closely watched in Tehran and Tel Aviv alike, narrowing the window for restraint.
The danger, the panel suggested, is that survival itself is being treated as victory.
As 2026 begins, the Islamic Republic may be weaker — but convinced it has passed a test. That conviction could shape the year ahead more than any battlefield outcome.
Iran would respect Iraq’s sovereignty but stood ready to act if the Iraqi government sought assistance, Mohammad Kazem Al-e Sadegh said in an interview reported by the ISNA news agency.
“Iran is ready to protect the political system in Iraq from collapse if officially requested,” he said, without elaborating on what such protection would entail.
Iran supports Iraqi groups through financing, training, and arms, primarily focusing on Shia militias that are often integrated into the official Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
This support helps groups like the Badr Organization and Kata'ib Hezbollah exert military and political influence, though some factions like Harakat Hezbollah Al-Nujaba have focused more on military operations. The support allows Iran to pursue its regional objectives, gain influence, and destabilize Iraqi politics while coordinating attacks against US forces.
Armed groups and ‘independent decisions’
Al-e Sadegh addressed recent Iraqi initiatives aimed at consolidating weapons under state control, a sensitive issue given the power of Iran-aligned armed factions. The Iran-backed groups, he said, were hesitant about weapons monopolisation due to concerns over its consequences, but insisted they had reached a level of maturity that allowed them to make decisions independently.
“Our relationship with these groups is longstanding, but they have reached a stage where they can decide for themselves,” he said, rejecting descriptions of the factions as Iranian proxies.
On regional tensions, the ambassador said Iran was “fully prepared” to respond to any hostile action by Israel, adding that Israel had sought US mediation to secure a ceasefire.
Iraq has balanced relations with both the United States and Iran, but faces mounting risks to its financial system if it falls foul of global sanctions regimes.
Hezbollah and the Houthis are key members of a broader network of Iran-backed groups across the region.
Iran views Iraq as a strategic economic and political partner amid Western sanctions, while Baghdad remains wary of being drawn into US efforts to squeeze Tehran and its regional allies.
