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With the Trump administration seemingly intent on negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran, it is vital that the White House first makes a realistic assessment of the current state of Iran’s nuclear programme, which most Western intelligence experts believe is aimed at producing nuclear weapons.

After US and Iranian officials met for a third round of talks in the Gulf state of Oman at the weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi openly said that Iran remained extremely cautious about the success of the negotiations to resolve a decades-long standoff.

US President Donald J. Trump has invested a substantial amount of political capital in agreeing a new deal with Tehran, aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring its own nuclear weapons arsenal.

Trump, a staunch critic of the original nuclear deal negotiated by in 2015 by President Barack Obama, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), dramatically ended American participation in 2018.

Justifying his decision, Trump argued that the JCPOA failed to address key issues such as Iran’s continued research into producing weapons-grade nuclear material, development of ballistic missiles and Tehran’s support for Islamist terror groups in the Middle East. Is he repeating their mistake?

After commencing his second term at the White House in January, Trump initially indicated that, by seeking to restart nuclear negotiations with Tehran, his ultimate objective was the complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear programme, the only realistic means of preventing the ayatollahs from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Trump initiated the dialogue with Tehran after sending a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 7, making it clear that the US could not allow the Iranians to acquire nuclear weapons.

Trump even went so far as to warn Tehran that it would face direct US military action and further tariffs if it did not abandon its question for nuclear weapons.

“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” was his blunt warning ahead of the opening of talks with Tehran.

Trump’s maximalist approach towards the nuclear talks has been dubbed the so-called “Libya model“, named after the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who decided to eliminate his country’s nuclear weapons programme in 2003 under pressure from the US.

Since the first round of talks opened in early April, concerns have been raised that Trump has now watered down his objectives with regard to his demands on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Reports emerging from the Omani-mediated talks suggest that, rather than seeking the complete dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear programme, Trump is instead prepared to settle for a less demanding settlement, one that allows Tehran to continue with its nuclear activities so long as they are not linked to producing nuclear warheads. At this point, that is folly. If Iran is able to enrich any uranium at all, it can easily enrich it to a weapons-grade level of 90 percent within weeks.

Trump’s decision to take a less confrontational tone to the ayatollahs is due to their insistence that they will never agree to the total dismantling of their nuclear activities, but would instead accept the verification-based approach set out in the JCPOA.

With the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN-sponsored body responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme, warning recently that Tehran already has enough weapons-grade uranium to make six nuclear warheads, Trump’s willingness to adopt a more conciliatory tone has alarmed Western intelligence officials who remain convinced that Iran is determined to acquire its own nuclear weapons arsenal to threaten the West and its allies.

Several factors help to explain why Trump has suddenly decided to modify his objectives in the nuclear negotiations, not least the influence a number of anti-Israeli advisors, who have been appointed to key positions in the administration, can bring to bear on the president.

Another important factor that is undermining Trump’s efforts to address the threat Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose to world peace is that his negotiations are based on out-of-date intelligence provided by Washington’s intelligence community.

A recent report by the highly-regarded Institute for Science and International Security, for example, found that Iran has now developed the technology to enrich enough uranium to fuel one nuclear weapon in less than a week, a significant advance given that in 2020 it would take Iran more than five months to achieve the same target.

Yet, despite compelling evidence that Iran has continued work on its clandestine programme to produce nuclear weapons, American intelligence chiefs such as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard continue to insist that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that Iran is actively attempting to build nuclear weapons.

This is evident from the conclusion reached by this year’s Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, which said:

“We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that [Iranian Supreme Leader] Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”

Even though this conclusion fails to acknowledge the conclusions reached by the IAEA and other international bodies, the fact that US intelligence chiefs remain in denial about the true extent of Iran’s nuclear activities might at least partially explain why Trump is prepared to take a less confrontational tone in his negotiations with the ayatollahs.

There are also suggestions that Trump might be hoping to be hailed as a president of “peace” — a word he often tellingly repeats — and perhaps be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Many thought he had been cheated of it in recognition of his historic Abraham Accords during his first term.

Sadly, the Norwegian Nobel Committee will most likely never reward Trump with the Nobel Peace Prize, no matter how much peace he delivers. To them, a worthy recipient was Yasser Arafat, among other leaders now known more for their failures than for success.

Trump instead would do well to focus on becoming the greatest leader of the 21^st Century, another Churchill, by ridding the world of Iran’s nuclear weapons threat for once and all, as well as its ballistic missile program and its ability, through its proxies, to keep exporting terrorism.

One former CIA director has described the assessments previously provided on Iran’s nuclear programme as “stupid intelligence”.

This has led to calls for the administration to undertake an immediate reappraisal of Washington’s intelligence assessment regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons as a devastating matter of urgency, and for the Trump administration to undertake an urgent reappraisal of Gabbard.

The assessment also should include all the terrible implications that an Iranian regime with the capability of building and delivering nuclear weapons will have for an inevitable international arms race.

If Trump is to stand any chance of ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it is essential that the White House has the most up-to-date assessment of the true state of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Failure to do so will simply enable the ayatollahs to fulfil their long-held goal of global hegemony.

Con Coughlin is the Telegraph‘s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.