Dear Ayatollah: Trump makes politics personal with Khamenei letter

US President Donald Trump's letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei urging nuclear talks may represent a bid to engage directly with the country's veteran strongman and cut out technocrats who shepherded a previous agreement.

"The main aim was to directly engage the Supreme leader because normally these negotiations take place between ministers or senior officials," said Kamran Matin, a senior lecturer in International Relations at Sussex University, "The Americans know who's wielding the actual power in Iran."

Trump announced he had sent the letter in an interview which aired on Sunday. While he did not disclose its contents, the White House confirmed he was inviting Iran to negotiate on its nuclear program.

"There are two ways Iran can be handled, militarily or you make a deal," Trump had told Fox Business. "I would prefer to make a deal, because I'm not looking to hurt Iran."

Tehran denies seeking a nuclear weapon but has rapidly stepped up nuclear enrichment in recent years and now its stockpile could in principle be refined further into six atomic bombs, according to the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

Just a day after Trump had revealed his letter gambit, Khamenei delivered another speech rejecting the idea of US talks, fulminating that Tehran will not be bullied.

On Wednesday the Supreme Leader said Trump's pullout from a 2015 nuclear deal means he cannot be trusted and that Washington would come off worst in any war.

But Khamenei's rhetoric may indicate the door is not yet completely closed , said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC.

That deal was mostly championed by relative moderates in the Iranian government.

Khamenei's message may lie not so much what he said but what he left out.

"(The Supreme Leader) hasn't said no to talking to Trump forever and ever," said Vatanka, "He hasn't even mentioned the assassination of Qassem Soleimani. And that was supposed to kill the notion of Iran ever talking to Trump again. But we haven't heard anything about Qassem Soleimani in the last sort of signals from Khamanei."

Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's most formidable military commander Qassem Soleimani in a 2019 drone strike in Baghdad, causing Khamenei and other hardliners to seethe and vow revenge.

Trump in his first term had also sought to convey a letter to Khamenei which he refused to even accept.

Letter vs Oral Message

Iran's fortunes are far bleaker now, however, providing more of an opening for talks.

Iran, Vatanka argued, suffered a huge setback with the fall of its greatest Arab ally in Syria, while other proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah were also severely weakened by Israel. US-led sanctions have brought Iran's economy to its knees and threaten unrest.

The US president could have sent an informal message through a third country but chose to send a letter to Khamenei, as his predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden had done previously.

Obama, whom Trump blasted as being too lenient on Iran in the 2015 deal, reached out to Iran's Supreme leader with a direct and secret letter in 2009.

"Sending a message written rather than orally does convey greater diplomatic urgency, greater importance," said Greg Brew, an Iran analyst with the Eurasia Group.

"An official message from the president would carry more weight," he added.

All options means all options

Despite Trump's apparent desire for a diplomatic solution with Iran, he still has maintained a tough stance by reinstating the "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions on Iran from his first term.

Trump vowed the alternative to a new deal would be a military intervention.

"American alternative exit options are, such as Israeli or even American military force," said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran Program at the Washington DC-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. "But make no mistake, I think when the president intimates that all options are on the table, all options are on the table."

While showing the world Washington aims for a diplomatic resolution is a good thing, Taleblu said the rift between the Islamic Republic and the Trump administration may be too wide to bridge.

"Realistically today in 2025, there is no real a zone of possible agreement that gives the US everything it needs from a nonproliferation perspective," Taleblu said, "let alone all the lingering non-nuclear issues that exist between the US and Iran.