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n June 26, US President Donald Trump said he would likely seek a commitment from Iran to end its nuclear ambitions. Speaking in The Hague where he attended a NATO summit, Trump said he did not see Iran again engaging in nuclear weapons development. The comments come days after a ceasefire took effect between Iran and Israel after 12 days of war.
Since the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has viewed the United States and Israel as existential threats. This perception, reciprocated in Washington and Tel Aviv, has fueled one of the most enduring and volatile rivalries in the modern Middle East.
At the heart of this adversarial dynamic, according to the United States, lies Iran’s nuclear programme. Tehran insists that it is peaceful. Its rivals fear that it could lead to development of nuclear weapons. Over the years, the issue has become the region’s most dangerous flashpoint and triggered cascades of sanctions on Iran. The latter’s growing nuclear capacity has long been designated a red line by Israel and a grave strategic concern by the US. The neighboring Arab countries, too, have expressed alarm at the idea of a nuclear-capable Iran, fearing it could spark a regional arms race and further destabilise an already volatile neighborhood. This collective anxiety has, for years, underpinned global efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Against this backdrop of mounting tension, diplomacy once offered a path forward. The diplomatic efforts reached a high point in 2015 when the Obama administration, working in concert with the European Union and other global powers, reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The deal imposed strict limits and monitoring on Iran’s nuclear facilities in exchange for sanctions relief and economic reintegration. It was, by most accounts, a major diplomatic achievement a rare convergence of interests among adversaries. However, the JCPOA was abruptly reversed in 2018 when the US, led by Trump, unilaterally withdrew from it, condemning it as a deeply flawed agreement that failed to address the threat from Iran’s missile programme and its growing regional influence.
In his second term, Donald Trump has embraced an even more confrontational approach towards Iran.
On June 22, the US launched precision airstrikes on Iranian uranium enrichment sites. These included the use of powerful bunker-buster munitions designed to destroy hardened underground targets. American sources have claimed that the attacks inflicted significant damage on key facilities involved in uranium enrichment. Iran claims to have evacuated critical materials before the strikes.
These airstrikes had unfolded in tandem with an escalation in Israeli rhetoric. Netanyahu portrayed American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as part of a broader effort to dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure once and for all. For much of the Global South, Netanyahu’s stance highlighted a deeply entrenched double standard where the military dominance of Western and aligned states is treated as legitimate, while similar strategic efforts by adversarial states are condemned, delegitimised and neutralised.
Soon afterwards Trump took to his Truth Social platform to announce that Iran and Israel had contacted him separately to request a ceasefire, casting himself as the architect of a regional truce like the one he claimed to have made between India and Pakistan in May. However, his decision to pause hostilities may also have been shaped by domestic politics.
On June 22, the US launched precision airstrikes on Iranian uranium enrichment sites. The strikes included the use of powerful bunker-buster munitions designed to destroy hardened underground targets.
In Trump’s own Republican Party, prominent voices have expressed unease over his drift toward another Middle Eastern military entanglement. Critics reminded him that his America First platform had promised to end, not start, foreign wars. The perception that he was veering into another costly confrontation in defence of Israeli interests did not sit well with libertarian and nationalist factions in the party. The political cost of escalation was becoming very high.
At the same time, massive protests have erupted across US cities in response to Trump’s hardline immigration policies. Civil society groups, university campuses and labour organisations have mobilised against what they see as a deeply unjust and xenophobic agenda. Had the administration intensified hostilities with Iran further aligning itself with Israel in a protracted regional conflict these demonsstrations might easily have taken on an anti-war dimension, thus amplifying public opposition and threatening Trump’s broader policy agenda. Confronted with resistance at home and war-weariness within his base, Trump opted for a ceasefire that offered a temporary reprieve.
Iran, for its part, agreed to the ceasefire, provided Israel did the same. This fragile understanding was quickly packaged as a strategic victory by the regime in Tehran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the episode a triumph for resistance and state-orchestrated rallies filled the streets of Tehran, Mashhad and Qom. Crowds waved flags and chanted anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans, bolstering the regime’s narrative of defiance. Whether this message resonates with a population suffering from economic malaise, political repression and diplomatic isolation remains an open question. In the immediate term, the leadership appears to have regained domestic momentum.
Israel, meanwhile, accepted the ceasefire reluctantly. Netanyahu initially opposed such a deal, viewing it as appeasement of a regime he calls irredeemable. Nonetheless, Israel’s deep dependence on American military aid and diplomatic protection ultimately forced Netanyahu to concede. However, questions about the status of Iran’s nuclear programme remain. Prior to the American strikes, Iran had reportedly amassed large quantities of highly enriched uranium approaching weapons-grade levels. While enrichment does not constitute weaponisation, it drastically shortens the breakout window. Some assessments have suggested that Iran may have been within weeks of producing weapons-grade material, though building a deliverable nuclear device would still require more time. President Trump has claimed that the US strikes caused a temporary halt. Prime Minister Netanyahu, on the other hand, insists that the Iranian nuclear programme has suffered “systemic damage and was set back years” during the 12-day strikes.
What is undeniable is that much of Iran’s scientific and institutional nuclear infrastructure remains intact. Not all the engineers, researchers and military planners responsible for the programme have disappeared; nor have the technological blueprints. Absent a robust and renewed diplomatic framework involving Washington, its European allies and regional stakeholders, Iran retains the capacity to resume its nuclear efforts in the future.
Ultimately, the confrontation between Iran and Israel underscores a fundamental fact of modern geopolitics: military strikes may delay proliferation, but only sustained diplomacy can prevent it. The Middle East remains locked in a cycle of provocation and retaliation, with no viable off-ramp in sight. Trump’s ceasefire may have temporarily cooled hostilities, but it did little to address the strategic drivers of the conflict. Iran’s nuclear ambitions, whether actual or exaggerated, are symptoms of broader regional insecurity, systemic exclusion and a global order that legitimises some arsenals, e.g. Israeli nukes, while criminalising others, e.g. North Korea’s.
Whether Iran’s programme is actually over or merely paused matters less than what Washington chooses to do next. If the United States once again prioritises force over dialogue, it will not solve the problem it will only postpone it. When the crisis returns, it is likely to be more dangerous, more complex and less containable.
The writer has a PhD in political science from Heidelberg University and post-doc experience at University of California, Berkeley. He is a DAAD, FDDI and Fulbright fellow and an associate professor at Lahore School of Economics. He can be reached at ejaz.bhattygmail.com