Don’t give up on diplomacy with Iran, by Ali Vaez
…to avoid a wider war, America should push for a nuclear deal
On June 13, Israel initiated a series of airstrikes and covert operations against Iranian nuclear sites and military officials. Dubbed Operation Rising Lion, this sophisticated and multilayered campaign followed days of speculation about an impending assault. So far, the attacks have damaged Iran’s Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities and killed a number of Iranian scientists. They have also claimed the lives of scores of civilians and injured dozens more, razed apartment buildings, and blown up parts of the country’s energy infrastructure. Israelis, meanwhile, have found themselves rushing to shelters as their own cities come under attack.
Right now, there is no indication that the fighting will stop. Both Iran and Israel have signaled that they are willing to keep striking each other. Israel’s defense minister even promised that “Tehran will burn” if the attacks don’t end. The United States, meanwhile, has done little to stop the bloodshed. Instead, U.S. President Donald Trump has sent mixed signals about whether he wants the fighting to cease. His administration has positioned military assets in the area, and according to multiple news reports, U.S. forces are helping Israel shoot down Iranian drones and missiles.
Despite his equivocations, however, Trump has said he still wants to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, and Tehran has left the door open to talks—provided that Israel lets up. The U.S. administration, then, may still have space to forge an agreement.
If Trump wants to avoid a U.S. war with Iran, he should seize it. So far, Israel has inflicted significant but not total damage on Iran’s nuclear program. Even if the fighting drags on, it is unlikely to succeed at wiping out all of it. Elements of Iran’s nuclear program are deeply buried underground, including at the Fordow enrichment site, and the country’s leadership may now have more of an incentive than ever to build the ultimate deterrent. That means if the fighting stops without a deal, Tehran could well make a run for a nuclear weapon that only heavy bunker-busting American bombs can seriously delay, at least in the near term. Even then, to truly assure that the threat has been curtailed, the United States would need either a presence on the ground or sustained rounds of military strikes carried out with exhaustive knowledge of Iran’s nuclear operations.
A diplomatic settlement represents the best and most sustainable way for Trump to avoid both a nuclear Iran and a protracted military entanglement. In fact, it may be the only way to avert an unacceptable outcome.
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump had suggested that he wanted to reach an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. Israel has made clear its preference for a military solution, however, unless Iran completely capitulates over the program. Israel also made clear that it believed that now was the time to act. Tehran’s defensive capabilities did not recover after a series of pinpoint strikes that Israel carried out last October. Iran’s proxies, including Hezbollah, are still on their knees after months of Israeli attacks. The Israeli government thus saw a golden opportunity to debilitate its nemesis.
Israel’s current campaign against Iran is far broader than its previous ones. Approximately 200 Israeli aircraft targeted around 100 sites, including nuclear facilities and military bases, in the initial wave of strikes last week. Covert operations by the Mossad targeted Iranian leaders, resulting in the deaths of key figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and prominent nuclear scientists. As the exchanges between the two countries have grown more severe, and Iran has retaliated with drones and missiles, both sides have broadened their targets.
Given the breadth of Israel’s assault, Iranian leaders likely concluded that Israel wants to wipe out not just their nuclear program but also their regime itself. Although Iran lacks the capabilities of its enemy—its intelligence is no match for Israel’s, and its airpower is nonexistent—Tehran felt it had no choice but to retaliate as forcefully as possible. So far, at least in the opening days, this has largely been confined to a bilateral conflict. But Iran may opt to externalize its costs—hitting U.S. bases in the region, striking energy infrastructure in the Gulf, and targeting shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, for example—which would plunge the region into turmoil. By doing so, Iranian officials might hope they can get Washington to lean on Israel to stop.
Trump will benefit if the fighting stops, and suffer if it expands.
But if the war expands, Iran and the United States might find themselves fighting directly, especially if American assets and interests come under fire. In repeated statements, U.S. officials have warned Tehran against such attacks, lest American forces, in the words of Trump, “come down on you at levels never seen before.” Should Iranian attacks or attacks by Iran’s nonstate partners lead to American casualties, the pressure on the U.S. president to act decisively and enter the war would increase dramatically.
Even if the United States avoids fighting in this conflict, without a deal, it risks getting pulled into a future one. Israeli military operations over the past year have logged successes against Hezbollah and against Iran itself, degrading many of its enemies’ air defenses. Still, most estimates suggest that Israel could set Iran’s nuclear program back by only a few months, or a year at best. It would take intense American military might to destroy much of Tehran’s capacity to build a nuclear weapon. And depending on how Iran has structured its program, stopping a bomb may require no less than a toppling of the Islamic Republic. That is why Israeli officials are more explicitly sounding the call for regime change. Yet they have paid little heed to what would actually replace the current system. In the absence of a viable, united, and organized alternative inside or outside Iran, the fall of the Islamic Republic might send the country into a period of civil strife—or lead to a military dictatorship determined to obtain nuclear deterrence.
For an American president who has sought to position himself as a peacemaker rather than a belligerent, the present situation ought to be ringing loud alarm bells. Many of Trump’s constituents oppose renewed U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. A massive war would also cause oil prices to spike, further burdening American consumers struggling with inflation. In fact, oil prices are already rising. Trump will thus benefit if the fighting stops, and suffer if it expands.
THE ART OF THE DEAL
Right now, Trump seems to hope that the combination of growing economic and military harm to Iran will force the government into agreeing to dismantle its nuclear program. But an all-or-nothing offer from the United States is unlikely to resonate with a regime that has rejected such terms for more than two decades—including in five rounds of negotiations with Trump’s administration. The only thing Iranian leaders view as more perilous for their self-preservation than the suffering wreaked by Israeli bombs is surrendering to American terms. Instead, the current onslaught will probably prompt Iran to keep responding with aggression until it can have at least a semblance of an acceptable off-ramp.
To avoid the worst-case scenarios, Trump will therefore need to take a different approach. He must first persuade Iran that he is not just a front for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by pressing Israel to stop fighting. To do so, he could threaten to suspend weapons aid to Israel. This is the most crucial source of leverage that Washington has; it would be extremely difficult for Israel to carry out military campaigns without it. Previous U.S. presidents, including Joe Biden, have been reluctant to use it. (Biden refused to wield such threats to pressure Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.) But now, American lives and Trump’s legacy may be at stake. The president might diverge from his predecessor if he decides that U.S. interests require containing rather than fueling the deepening crisis.
Trump will also need to cajole Iran. Outgunned by Israel and, at least for now, with degraded nuclear leverage, Tehran is probably open to returning to the table to save its neck. More important, it needs to save face. The White House should warn Tehran that further escalation could result in American casualties and suck the United States into the conflict. Yet it should also offer Iran a reasonable nuclear deal that includes significant and sustainable sanctions relief. Trump could, for example, promise to roll back nuclear-related U.S. sanctions and end the primary U.S. trade embargo if Iran wraps its uranium enrichment program into a multinational consortium with Saudi Arabia for that purpose—as Tehran expressed an openness to doing before Israel’s attacks. Such a consortium would provide fuel for nuclear reactors across the region while depriving Iran of the fissile material it could use for a weapon.
There is precedent for this kind of American pressure. In 1982, U.S. President Ronald Reagan twisted Israel’s arm to end its bombing of Beirut. In 1988, he intervened in the Iran-Iraq War, playing an essential role in persuading Tehran to accept a cease-fire. Such a course will not be easy for Trump. It would require the president to commit to difficult diplomacy while staring down fierce opposition in Washington from politicians and interest groups who see Israel’s campaign as an overdue comeuppance for one of the United States’ most bitter adversaries.
But if Trump is committed to a nuclear-free Iran, his best bet is to get the Iranians and Israelis to stop the war and bring Tehran back to the negotiating table. Without a deal, Iran’s frightened government seems more likely than not to sprint for nuclear weapons as conditions allow. Then Trump would have to either accept a nuclear Iran or join another Israeli assault on the country, risking precisely the kind of catastrophic Middle East entanglement he promised to avoid.
