Why the US appears to have given up on nuclear deal with Iran
President Donald Trump has searched over recent months for ways to end a war with Iran that has turned increasingly unpopular with the American public.
But now, as the conflict initiated by the United States and Israel enters its seventh month and the U.S. midterm elections approach, the president appears to have made two decisions that could prolong the war.
One is in making the civilian nuclear deal the Trump administration has signed with Saudi Arabia. The other is indicated by the mounting evidence that Mr. Trump has given up on negotiating a nuclear deal with Tehran, and instead intends to address its ambitions by military means alone.
Why We Wrote This
Trying to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons was one of the key aims of the U.S.–Israel war in the Middle East. But now there are growing signs the Trump administration may have given up on an agreement with Tehran.
First, the Trump administration has submitted to Congress a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that includes a pathway to the kingdom’s eventual enrichment of uranium to just short of the threshold for producing the fuel for a nuclear weapon.
Such a deal raises the possibility of a further nuclearized Middle East and hands to the Saudis the nuclear capability the U.S. seeks to deny the Iranians. That seems likely to encourage Iran to keep fighting, analysts say.
“The impact is significant if, in the midst of this war, you are giving the Saudis precisely what you have been trying to deny the Iranians for 40 years,” says Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington.
Then there are mounting hints from the U.S. administration that bombs, rather than talks, will be the way of the future for addressing Iran’s nuclear program.
“Could not care less”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has suggested that the administration may no longer even seek to reach a nuclear deal with Iran – preferring instead to nip in the bud by military means any restarts of Iran’s nuclear activity.
The remarks followed an earlier social media post by Mr. Trump stating that he “could not care less” if he reached a nuclear deal with Iran – even though as recently as July a negotiated nuclear agreement was still a U.S. condition for ending hostilities.
The combination of the Saudi nuclear deal and what looks like an administration decision to address Iran’s nuclear activity militarily can only add to Iranian determination to keep the war going, other analysts say.
“The Iranians are calling the Saudi deal ‘strategic hypocrisy’ and a blatant double standard, and any fair and reasonable observer would say they have a point,” says Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Arlington, Virginia.
“Instead of ‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,’ what the U.S. is saying here is that the goose gets something different from the gander,” he says. “We can’t know if that switch midstream [in a war] is another factor prompting the Iranians to keep this fight going, but I think you have to worry that it might be.”
The Saudi nuclear deal presents the specter of an “arc of anguish” of nuclear powers and wannabe nuclear powers across the greater Middle East, Mr. Sokolski says, adding that such a future is something Iran is no doubt considering as it weighs its next steps in the war.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP/File
Extended military deployments into 2027
Added to that are Trump administration signals that it no longer considers the Iranian leadership a viable negotiating partner. Citing Energy Secretary Wright’s statement that a nuclear agreement “may await a next administration in Iran,” Dr. Parsi says that “there is no way the Iranians hear that any way other than regime change. So of course, that’s more reason to pursue the war.”
President Trump told journalists Wednesday that he now expects the war to continue through the midterm elections – an escalation he said reflects Iran’s desire to damage Republicans’ prospects among voters unhappy with the war’s economic impact, particularly on gas prices.
He also predicted the war will cease “immediately” after the elections because a spent Iran will no longer be able to fight.
But that prediction contradicts recent comments from unnamed administration officials claiming that the White House is in fact considering ramping up the war with renewed infrastructure bombing – and perhaps even a ground offensive to take an Iranian island or other territory – once the midterms are out of the way.
In one sign of preparation for that option, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently extended the deployments of warship crews, air-defense units, and paratroopers into 2027.
Perhaps the surest conclusion that the Iranians are likely to have reached after six months of war with the U.S. and after the nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia is that they need a nuclear weapon for their security and survival, Mr. Sokolski says.
“The Iranians didn’t get a bomb over the decades of their nuclear program,” he says, “but now we’re rapidly stripping away the reasons they might continue to hold off.”