Israel’s devastating attack on Iran on June 13 could hardly have been more telegraphed: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had talked about it for a decade and openly threatened it for months. Israel then systematically destroyed much of the nation’s air defenses in preparation for the attack over the course of the past year. But the top echelon of Iran’s nuclear chain of command was apparently caught off-guard. When Israeli munitions struck, they found the top three military officials and an array of key scientists in their homes or other vulnerable locations rather than in secure bunkers. Why? One explanation is that Iran foolishly assumed the United States would have the will and ability to restrain its ally. The short-term setback is likely only to accelerate Iran’s long-term nuclear ambitions. But Iran should have known better: Neither the Israeli nor the American leader is ever planning for the long term.
Netanyahu has spent his entire career not planning for the long term. He has thwarted all attempts to achieve a two-state solution for the problems created by his nation’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but has never seriously considered the fate of the five million Palestinians who live there. In 2015, when US President Barack Obama painstakingly forged a multinational agreement to contain Iran’s nuclear weapons programme (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), Netanyahu plotted with Republican Members of Congress to try to subvert it — without presenting any plausible alternative.
Israel’s attacks have the stated goal of terminating Iran’s nuclear programme, but they cannot achieve this objective: Thousands of centrifuges and hundreds of pounds of highly enriched uranium remain safely protected at underground facilities at Natanz and, particularly, Fordow. The only conventional munitions capable of destroying such strongholds are 30,000-lb “bunker buster” GBU-57 bombs, which the US has not provided. It is possible that Netanyahu aims to leverage America into delivering these weapons, or perhaps joining the attack directly. It’s also possible that his real aim is regime change, hoping that Iranians under attack will overthrow the Islamic Republic. But Netanyahu’s primary motivation is probably far more limited: After a disastrous occupation of Gaza and several pending court cases for corruption, he is likely seeking any short-term distraction from his own political and legal woes.
Trump isn’t playing for the long term either: “Long term” is not a concept in Trump’s mental vocabulary. The US president does not base decisions on long-range American national security, economic, or geopolitical interests. He bases policy choices on his ever-changing whims. His overall drivers remain constant: Personal profit, vengeance and self-aggrandisement. But such a limited set of imperatives falls far short of anything that could be considered a long-term strategy.
Iran’s remaining leadership has almost certainly absorbed that lesson by now, and is highly unlikely to give up its nuclear dreams: The only thing that could have prevented this attack would have been the threat of nuclear retaliation. Iran was ambivalent about its nuclear planning before this, publicly disavowing any intention of developing weapons and moving more slowly than it might have along the path towards weaponisation, while retaining the capability of a near-term “break out.” Going forward, Iran is likely to seek a credible nuclear deterrent as speedily as possible.
Soon after taking office in January, Trump opened nuclear negotiations with Iran. These were always a flim-flam: The JCPOA had achieved greater containment than any other accord would have been likely to achieve, and Trump unilaterally reneged on that in his first term. The real purpose of Trump’s negotiation, like that of all of his deals, is vainglory.
Why does Trump want to re-create a nuclear deal he himself rejected? Because one of his grandiose ambitions (unrealistic as it might sound) is to be awarded a Nobel Prize. This honour was given to Obama in 2009, and it still irritates Trump endlessly. This explains his newfound emphasis on negotiating peace treaties across the world — even when such treaties are entirely fictional. Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, he vowed to bring peace between Russia and Ukraine on his first day in office, and in a February Oval Office meeting, he publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an unsuccessful attempt to bully him into accepting Russia’s terms of surrender. After India responded militarily to Pakistan-backed terrorism at Pahalgam, Trump claimed to have “mediated” a ceasefire, only to have India slap the boast down.
The same dynamic is at play in the Middle East. After the Israeli attack, Trump said, “Iran and Israel should make a deal, and will make a deal, just like I got India and Pakistan to make, in that case by using TRADE with the United States.” This narrative is clearly false: India was definitely not induced to cease Operation Sindoor by American pressure, let alone by “TRADE” concessions (which, in any case, have not actually materialised). For Trump, none of that matters: The Art of the Deal is merely the art of claiming a deal.
Iran won’t bargain away its ability to weaponise its nuclear programme in the future, and it may not have to. International weapons inspectors made regular visits to Natanz and Fordow until the Israeli attacks, and Iran can tolerate them continuing to keep tabs on a programme that it insists is for civilian use only. It can spirit away whatever assets it wants to keep secret (perhaps declaring them to have been destroyed by Israel), and turn over key items necessary to enable Trump to claim victory. How much delay this will cause to Iran’s nuclear timeline depends entirely on what it is able to negotiate.
Agreeing to a permeable deal is likely Iran’s best bet. Israel has already decimated Hezbollah and Hamas, the two most potent Iranian partners in fighting asymmetrical warfare through terrorism. The fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad deprived Iran of a key regional partner. Its other allies, like the Houthi forces in Yemen and Shi’a militias like the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, can project little power beyond their own nations. Iran’s own ability to strike Israel militarily is extremely limited: Its air force cannot even control the airspace over Iranian territory, and its ballistic missile and drone attacks are scarcely able to pierce Israel’s air defenses.
In the long term, even if the US enables Israel to devastate underground facilities at Fordow, Iran will likely be able to gain nuclear weapons capability. As was demonstrated two decades ago by Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear proliferation ring and North Korea’s linked arms trading, any nation with Iran’s resources can find willing vendors of nuclear and ballistic missile technology. The best long-term option is a return to the JCPOA: A status that contained Iran’s nuclear programme, without forcing Tehran into precisely the sort of choice it faces today. After seeing what happens when one doesn’t possess a nuclear deterrent, why would any sane Iranian leader not race full-out for a bomb?
Long-term planning requires trade-offs. If you’re the leader of a powerful nation, you might have to forgo a flashy-but-transitory headline today in order to seal a boring-yet-substantial treaty that will benefit your successor. Neither Netanyahu nor Trump are that kind of leader. Which is why their decisions will make Iran’s nuclearisation less immediate — but, eventually, more certain.
The writer is is author of Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana Through India and Mullahs on the Mainframe: Islam and Modernity Among the Daudi Bohras
