Iran is quietly weaving a web to entangle President Barack Obama in negotiations that will improve its position without delivering much in terms of changes within Teheran’s nuclear program.

The talks with Iran in Geneva ended on a positive note as far as a new session is scheduled on November 7-8, 2013. This is very quick and shows that the detailed issues that Teheran is willing to lay on the table are fundamental enough to deserve some cautious optimism.

Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s High Representative (similar to a foreign minister), who is leading the negotiations from the non-Iranian side under a UN Security Council mandate, said as much at a brief media event today, “This is important. It’s new that we have had the opportunity to talk, as I have already indicated, in much greater details than ever before”.

She refused to give details but to dispel confusion, added, “When we have been talking in these last days, we know that we have to look for a first step, a confidence building step. And we also have to be extremely clear on what it is – we consider to be – the last steps. And to do that within the context of what the objective is overall. That is a kind of framework that we have always worked within and it’s a framework – I will say to you – a pretty good description of the sort of approach that we will take”.

Ashton was speaking for United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who came in a wheel chair because of severe back pain, noted that the six powers had “exhibited the necessary political will in order to move the process forward”.

The caution and secrecy on all sides are understandable but the unelaborated signals are for outcomes that may give more comfort to Teheran than to Washington, if the negotiation do not break down. Ashton’s reference to last steps without prior clarification of the first confidence building steps that Teheran is required to take, indicates that the West may not be able to stop Iran from enriching uranium altogether as the price for a full removal of sanctions.

Both sides seem keen not to lose the momentum created by Obama’s direct phone call to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for the start to an agreement. Russia and China also seem as resolute as the Western powers to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions but it is not yet clear whether the limits are the same as those sought by Washington and the EU in the end game.

The red lines are far apart. Washington and its allies want to end uranium enrichment in Iran and get it to export some of its existing stocks for storage in a foreign country. Teheran is adamant about retaining its national prerogative of enriching uranium without building a nuclear weapon.

So far, all six powers are standing behind Ashton but the real views of Russia and China are not known. Do they want Teheran to stop enriching uranium altogether, as do Washington and the EU? Or do they want to preserve Iran’s right to uranium enrichment technology while renouncing only the nuclear weapon?

This is a key issue. Russia and China may not be willing to push Teheran far enough to make construction of a nuclear weapon impossible. To avoid a US military strike or wider war, they might simply acquiesce to Teheran not building one while preserving the technology to assemble a weapon later.

Meanwhile, Obama will become enmeshed in negotiations that he will find hard to reject if Teheran says it will not build a weapon but avoids unwinding the technology necessary to do so.

The end games are very different; therefore, agreement on Ashton’s last steps will be difficult to achieve. The carrot for Teheran’s acquiescence is lifting of sanctions; so the core issues for the West are how to get compliance without humiliating Iran’s national pride and obtain concrete concessions that do not look like a defeat for Iran. For China and Russia, the core issue is preventing military strikes or war that might bring a spillover of Islamic terrorism to their territories. For them, Iran is the near neighborhood.

The need to avoid a public perception of defeat for Iran makes the nature of the first confidence building steps vitally important. Washington may look upon the first steps from above, as one who holds the upper hand and can demand a nibble of humble pie from the other who is being punished with sanctions.

But Teheran’s rulers see Washington as the bully who caused much suffering in Iran since the Second World War’s end. Washington deposed a democratically elected regime, imposed a tyrannical Shah and tried to make Iran do its bidding until the 1979 revolution. After that, it supported Saddam Hussein’s war, including use of chemical weapons against Iranians, for nearly a decade.

Then an American President, who took vital help from Teheran early in the war against the Afghan Taliban, called it a part of the axis of evil alongside communist North Korea. The deeply religious theocrats felt profoundly insulted at being lumped together with “godless” communists, as if they were a cabal of amoral atheists.

Now, they are looking for first confidence building steps from Washington to convince them of goodwill that can be trusted as reliable. The economic sanctions are causing pain but the greater pain would be the nation’s humiliation.

Some in Washington and the EU may see the negotiations as the last steps before threatening military strikes. Similarly, some in Teheran see the talks as the final chance for Washington and its allies to show that they are no longer perfidious.

As theocrats, Teheran’s mullahs have already declared that they abhor the nuclear weapon because of it would be offensive to their religion. But they do want acceptance and respect for their right to be a theocracy. Above all, they want to protect their country as a home of the minority Shiite religion against hostile Sunni regimes, which are Washington’s local allies.

So, the Geneva negotiations though well begun will have to walk a fragile tight rope.