Congress MP Dr. Shashi Tharoor published his latest TharoorThink column on Friday, June 19, 2026, drawing a sharp contrast between the negotiating philosophies of Iran and the United States through the lens of two books — Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal (2017) and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi's The Power of Negotiation (2014).

Context

In his post on X, Dr. Tharoor described the comparison as exploring a 'conceptual chasm' between the two sides' approaches to deal-making, asking pointedly: 'Can the twain truly meet?' The column arrives at a moment when US-Iran nuclear diplomacy remains in a fragile and uncertain phase, with no formal framework currently binding the two sides.

Trump's The Art of the Deal is widely read as a manifesto of transactional, leverage-first negotiation — a style that shaped US foreign policy during his first term and has re-emerged as a defining feature of his current administration's posture. Araghchi's book, written while he was deeply involved in nuclear talks, reflects Iran's own diplomatic doctrine: sovereignty-centred, resistance to coercion, and rooted in a long-term strategic patience.

Policy Backdrop

The conceptual gap Dr. Tharoor identifies has concrete policy consequences. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 powers, represented a multilateral attempt to bridge exactly this divide — placing verifiable limits on Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for phased sanctions relief.

That architecture collapsed when the United States withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and imposed a 'maximum-pressure' sanctions regime. Iran responded by progressively rolling back its nuclear commitments, and the gap between the two sides' opening positions has widened considerably since. The fundamental disagreement is not merely tactical: it reflects divergent assumptions about what makes an agreement legitimate and durable.

Stakeholders and Impact

Dr. Tharoor, a former UN Under-Secretary-General with direct experience in multilateral diplomacy, brings an unusual vantage point to this comparison. His TharoorThink column series has consistently engaged with global affairs from an Indian perspective, and this instalment places India — a country with significant trade, energy, and diaspora ties to both Iran and the United States — implicitly in the audience of a negotiation whose outcome matters far beyond the two principals.

The stakes extend to P5+1 partners, regional powers in West Asia, and global energy markets. A breakdown in diplomacy has historically tightened Iranian oil sanctions, affecting Indian refiners who have at times been among Tehran's largest crude customers. Non-proliferation watchdogs and the IAEA Board of Governors also watch each diplomatic signal closely.

What's Next

Any resumption of direct or indirect nuclear talks — whether through back-channel diplomacy or at IAEA Board of Governors meetings — will test whether the philosophical distance Dr. Tharoor maps in his column can be bridged in practice. His framing suggests that without a shared understanding of what a 'deal' means, technical agreements risk remaining structurally unstable.

As US-Iran tensions continue to define the non-proliferation landscape, Dr. Tharoor's literary comparison offers a reminder that negotiating styles are not merely rhetorical — they encode fundamentally different visions of power, sovereignty, and legitimacy that any durable agreement must ultimately reconcile.