America’s endless cycle of broken promises
A hard lesson Iran must never forget
By Ali Karimi Magham
International relations expert
Decades of deceit, from JCPOA betrayal to ongoing economic warfare, prove that US-Iran talks serve only Washington’s coercive agenda. Iran must finally learn from failed experiences and confront American duplicity with strength, not naïveté.
For more than four decades, the Islamic Republic has faced a consistent pattern from the United States, one that has never changed despite political transitions, smiling diplomats, or rhetorical gestures of “goodwill.” It is the pattern of deception, coercion, and calculated dishonesty. Yet periodically, certain political currents inside Iran resurrect the illusion that Washington can somehow be persuaded to behave like a so-called normal negotiation partner! Today, as discussions about the possibility of re-igniting a new round of talks re-emerge, Iran must recall with absolute clarity that the United States has not simply failed to honor its commitments; it has structurally proven incapable of doing so.
The central question is simple: how many times must Iran be burned by the same flame before acknowledging that the fire itself will never change?
The clearest example, of course, is the JCPOA. This agreement was not a small diplomatic exercise; it was a carefully calibrated test of whether the United States possessed the maturity and political discipline to respect an international commitment. Iran fulfilled every obligation with exceptional meticulousness. It halted enrichment at agreed levels and permitted unprecedented inspections under the world’s most intrusive verification regime. No country under pressure had ever demonstrated such transparency.
What did Iran receive in return? Not the promised sanctions relief. Not the economic normalization envisioned in the deal. Not even minimal respect for the agreement’s legal obligations. Tehran, instead, received a stream of covert and overt violations, even before Washington formally abandoned the deal in 2018. American officials pressured banks not to engage with Iran, threatened corporations that considered entering the Iranian market, and quietly undermined every potential avenue of economic recovery. And then, with the swagger of colonial arrogance, the United States withdrew unilaterally, proudly violating UN Security Council Resolution 2231.
Washington’s withdrawal was not a mistake. It was not a result of one administration’s hostility. It was the natural outcome of an American political culture that does not recognize legal continuity when dealing with Iran. In the US worldview, agreements with Iran are expendable. Commitments expire with elections. Treaties can be discarded with a signature. This is not diplomacy; it is weaponized unpredictability.
Even today, as American officials whisper about “dialogue,” their actions reveal a darker truth. Sanctions continue to rattle Iran’s economy. Iranian assets remain frozen or stolen. Pressure campaigns intensify across every economic, technological, and military domain. Meanwhile, Washington pretends to extend a hand of diplomacy while holding a knife behind its back.
This is not a new tactic. It is the American modus operandi. And it is astonishing that anyone inside Iran still imagines these tactics can be neutralized by polite conversation or Western smiles.
The United States carries a deep, foundational hostility toward independent nations that refuse to bend to its geopolitical architecture. For more than forty years, Washington has supported every act of aggression against Iran: backing Saddam Hussein’s chemical warfare, orchestrating coups and sabotage networks, downing a civilian airliner, and constructing one of the most comprehensive sanctions regimes in history, all under the guise of “pressure,” “containment,” or “defense of international order.” The truth is more straightforward: the United States despises the Islamic Republic because it simply refuses to submit.
Given this record, any Iranian policymaker advocating fresh negotiations must confront a complex reality: what exactly will be different this time? What evidence suggests that the United States is prepared to respect commitments it has violated for decades? The burden of proof lies on those who promote engagement, not on the Iranian people, who have seen the consequences of misplaced trust time and time again.
It is not a matter of Iran changing its expectations, but of finally bringing them into alignment with reality.
Every negotiation with Washington has created vulnerabilities, not opportunities. Every concession Iran made produced new demands rather than goodwill. Every gesture of flexibility—far from softening American hostility—emboldened Washington to escalate pressure. For the United States, compromise is a one-way street that ends only when Iran surrenders its sovereignty.
Iran’s strength has never come from negotiations with America. It has come from steadfast resistance, strategic deterrence, regional partnerships, and the ability to withstand and outmaneuver decades of economic warfare. The Islamic Republic is respected not because it capitulates, but because it refuses to be coerced. If anything has forced Washington to acknowledge Iran as an unavoidable regional power, it is not dialogue; it is Iran’s resilience
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