Weaponizing Ambiguity: How Trump’s Shadow Diplomacy May Be Fracturing the Islamic Republic
Whether the talks are real or not, the message is already spreading mistrust in Tehran and calming global oil markets.
President Trump said on Monday that Iran had reached out to Washington for talks after the US threatened to strike Iranian energy infrastructure. He said, “They called, I didn’t call. They want to make a deal, and we are very willing to make a deal.” He also claimed that the United States had been speaking to “a top person” in Iran, though not to the new supreme leader, and added that “we don’t know whether he is living.” At the same time, Trump said the threatened strike on Iran’s major power plants had been paused for five days. Oil prices fell after his remarks, while Iran’s foreign ministry denied that any such talks had taken place.
But the importance of Trump’s remarks is not only in the news itself. It is also in what the statement is designed to do.
Trump is trying to achieve two things at once.
First, he is using ambiguity as a political and psychological weapon inside the Islamic Republic. By saying he has been talking to a very senior Iranian figure without naming that person, he is planting doubt and suspicion among what remains of the leadership. In current conditions, that matters. Iran’s leaders are living in hiding. Command centres are disrupted. Communications are limited out of fear of interception and assassination. Meetings are difficult, if not impossible. In that setting, a statement like this will be deeply unsettling. Each senior figure will now be asking: Who is talking to Washington? Who is looking for an off-ramp? What is being hidden from the others?
By naming no one, Trump makes everyone in Tehran wonder who is talking to Washington.
This does not affect only the top. Lower-ranking officials also hear the same message. If they begin to believe that some of their leaders are quietly searching for a way out, they will become more uncertain, more demoralised, and more open to defection. At the same time, hardliners will turn even more aggressively against figures they see as less rigid and begin looking for the supposed traitor within the system, especially after Trump suggested that even Mojtaba Khamenei is unaware of these contacts.
Some reports pointed to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as the possible figure involved. Ghalibaf himself denied that and called the reports fake news aimed at influencing financial and oil markets. But in an atmosphere like this, denial does not cancel out the effect. It creates new questions instead of closing them down. Some will ask: What if Ghalibaf is lying? Others will ask: what if someone else is involved? The foreign ministry’s denial will have the same effect. In a system already shaped by fear and mistrust, public denials can deepen suspicion rather than contain it.
In a leadership living in hiding, ambiguity is not just rhetoric. It is a weapon.
Some hardline members of parliament, including Hamid Rasaei, have already gone public and started asking questions. That is exactly what Trump wants to achieve.
Second, Trump is also sending a message to the markets. By talking about a possible deal and pausing strikes on critical Iranian infrastructure, he signalled that the conflict will not move immediately into a more dangerous phase. The effect was immediate: oil prices fell. This also gave Trump an off-ramp of his own. It allowed him to step back, for now, from a strike on Iran’s power plants while still claiming momentum and leverage. So even if these contacts are real, limited, exaggerated, or deliberately ambiguous, the statement is already producing an outcome Trump wants: psychological pressure inside Tehran and calmer energy markets outside it.
That is the core point. This is not a normal diplomatic process. We do not know whether these talks are real, serious, or meaningful in any conventional sense. But that is no longer the only question. The statement itself is already doing political and economic work. It is widening mistrust inside the Islamic Republic and helping calm panic in global oil markets.
But there is a deeper question. Even if the reports are true, even if someone inside the system is involved in real contacts, can he actually deliver anything that matters? Will IRGC commanders listen? Will the men sitting behind the missile launchers take their cue from a political figure seeking an off-ramp? Or will they see whoever is talking to Washington not as a decision-maker, but as a traitor who deserves punishment or death?
That is the real uncertainty. The problem is not only whether there is a channel. It is whether anyone on the Iranian side still has the authority to make that channel meaningful.
While sowing doubts among the Iranian leadership they are also likely delaying and buying time for ground force elements to get in place for whatever missions have been assigned.
I would say “isolating”. You made an important point that few in the West understand. The United States essentially battles with the revolutionary guard - not Iran. Iran is quite diverse, not just culturally, but in power pyramid too.