Happiness Quote by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Rafsanjani’s line does two things at once: it registers impatience while carefully signaling restraint. “I’m not satisfied with the progress” is a pressure tactic aimed at his own side and the other negotiators, a way of saying: don’t confuse dialogue with results. But the second clause pivots fast: “I am happy that the talks are going on.” That’s the tell. He’s defending negotiation itself as a political asset, not just a diplomatic process. For an Iranian power-broker who spent decades managing rival factions, simply keeping talks alive can be a win: it buys time, lowers temperature, and keeps hardliners from declaring the whole enterprise a humiliation.

The most loaded phrase is the conditional warning: “It might have a negative effect if the United States joins.” On the surface, it’s procedural advice. In subtext, it’s a diagnosis of domestic and regional optics. US involvement can raise the stakes so sharply that compromise becomes politically radioactive. It invites accusations of capitulation, triggers conspiracy narratives, and hands spoilers an easy slogan: America is pulling the strings. It can also shift the balance among negotiating parties, turning a multilateral arrangement into a superpower showdown where face-saving becomes harder than problem-solving.

Rafsanjani isn’t anti-agreement here; he’s anti-theater. He’s arguing that progress requires a format that preserves plausible independence for Iran and manageable expectations for everyone else. The line is less about excluding Washington than about preventing negotiations from becoming a referendum on national pride.