Once again, the Iranian regime has perfected its oldest and most cynical diplomatic trick: delay, distract, and deceive. The reported visit of Ali Larijani, adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to Oman this week, coming hot on the heels of so-called "indirect" nuclear talks with Washington in Muscat, should set alarm bells ringing in every serious policymaker's office. This is not diplomacy. It is political theatre, designed to sap Western resolve while the mullahs buy time.

We have seen this movie before, and it always ends the same way. For more than two decades, Tehran has used negotiations not as a path to compromise, but as a shield behind which it advances its nuclear program, expands its missile arsenal, entrenches its regional proxies, and tightens repression at home. "Talks about talks" are the regime's favorite holding pattern. They create the illusion of engagement, defuse immediate pressure, and divide Western capitals, while nothing of substance changes on the ground.

The current moment is especially dangerous because it combines Western hesitation with Iranian desperation. The clerical regime is weaker than it has been since the 1979 revolution hijacked by the mullahs. The nationwide uprising, erupting again in late 2025 and early 2026, has exposed the depth of popular rage against a system sustained only by fear. Thousands of protesters have reportedly been killed, including hundreds of women and children, some as young as 3. Tens of thousands more have been detained. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has once again shown itself not as a military force, but as a domestic occupation army.

That reality was powerfully underscored last Saturday in Berlin. Under freezing winter skies, an estimated 100,000 Iranian exiles and international........

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