How Trump can counter Iran’s nuclear ambitions
If hard-line diplomacy doesn’t work, he’ll likely need to let Israel bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Donald Trump looks on during a campaign rally in Pittsburgh and Ali Khamaenei speaks in Tehran.
Will Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei agree to nuclear negotiations with President Trump? According to the Justice Department, the cleric’s minions tried to assassinate Mr. Trump during the campaign. But given the Islamic Republic’s precarious standing in the Middle East, its ever-worsening economy tied to a collapsing currency and shortages of energy and gas, and a foreboding among many regime loyalists about their grip on Iranian society, Mr. Khamenei might be willing to make compromises in his nuclear aspirations in return for softened U.S. sanctions. After all, he has already made Iran a nuclear-threshold state.
The more important question: If Mr. Trump agrees to nuclear negotiations with Iran, how will he approach them? Will he firmly deny Iran the capacity to enrich uranium and retain deeply buried centrifuge facilities and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles? Will he demand that the International Atomic Energy Agency inspect all suspected nuclear sites in Iran and have access to all nuclear-related paperwork and personnel? Will he insist on all the things Barack Obama should have demanded but didn’t when he approved the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015?
Or will Mr. Trump take a more conciliatory approach? Will he agree to billions in sanctions relief in return for a temporary halt in Iran’s production of 60%-enriched uranium and the transfer of its existing stockpile to Moscow for “safekeeping”? Will he soften sanctions in exchange for an extension of Obama-era prohibitions on Iranian nuclear production, which would again leave in place atomic-weapons infrastructure?
Whichever path Mr. Trump takes, unless he connects nuclear talks to Iran’s regional behavior, he will find himself in Mr. Obama’s predicament: Any sanctions relief will fund Tehran’s nefarious actions, including the supply of arms to regional terror proxies that have killed Americans and Israelis. This would fundamentally compromise the Jewish state. Among all the painful things the Oct. 7, 2023, attack revealed, the worst was that Mr. Obama’s decision to address Tehran’s nuclear intentions while ignoring its other regional activities gave the regime carte blanche to arm and fund Israel’s enemies.
To be fair to Mr. Obama, when he first reached out to the supreme leader in 2009, many Americans and even some prominent Israelis wanted to believe that the nuclear talks could be transformational. They assumed that the power of Iran-backed Palestinian and Lebanese militants had been sufficiently checked, so Iranian subventions to these groups didn’t really matter—especially if Mr. Obama’s deal gave everyone a 10-year surcease from nuclear anxiety.
But these nuclear negotiations never made any sense unless Washington was prepared to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities if the clerical regime refused U.S. demands. Without enforceable red lines, Tehran has an insuperable advantage. Whenever the U.S. gives ground to Iran, diplomacy turns into extortion.
Many in Mr. Trump’s America-first movement would probably rather see Iran go nuclear than have the U.S. pre-emptively destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. As JD Vance put it before the 2024 election, referring to the U.S. and Israel, “sometimes we’re going to have overlapping interests, and sometimes we’re going to have distinct interests. And our interest very much is in not going to war with Iran.” Trump supporter Tucker Carlson recently questioned whether the U.S. should view the clerical regime as a serious threat and said in 2014 that a deal, “even a phony one” as he described Mr. Obama’s, would be better than U.S. military strikes against Iran.
Would Mr. Trump approve of Israel’s trying to take out Iran’s nuclear program, an option it’s reportedly considering? Would he block such an attack if Jerusalem’s assessment of tolerable risk differed significantly from Washington’s? Mr. Trump said in October that he’s in favor of Israel’s targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities—will he maintain this perspective as president?
Assuming diplomacy goes nowhere, Mr. Trump might need to back Israel militarily to maximize the destructiveness of a strike. He could decide to give Israel the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which would require a B-2 or possibly a B-52 bomber for delivery and is powerful enough to obliterate Iran’s underground Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.
Such a “lend-lease” program, which would require extensive training for Israeli air crews, would be controversial. With anyone other than Mr. Trump in the White House, it would be impossible. Even with Mr. Trump, the necessity of the “lend-lease” program highlights the severe military problems for our allies when Washington decides against intervention.
Since any Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear sites could trigger Iranian attacks on Persian Gulf oil, Washington could also soon face the risk that Arab Gulf states drift entirely out of the U.S. orbit. Mr. Trump’s decision not to intervene against Tehran in 2019, after the Iranians let loose a barrage of missiles and drones on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, shook Gulf states’ confidence in the U.S.
If Mr. Trump were to stand down after another Iranian attack, it could dissuade Saudi Arabia from ever joining the Abraham Accords—an achievement Mr. Trump ardently wants. Worse, the stature of China and Russia, influential allies of the Islamic Republic, would skyrocket. This is assuming that Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program didn’t succeed in debilitating the regime.
Israel knows its role in the Middle East, but it’s unclear the same is true for the U.S. Israel’s future is now inextricably tied to whether Americans, especially Republicans, learn quickly that skirting the Middle East is neither advisable nor possible.
Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Dubowitz is the foundation’s CEO.
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Business NewsGlobalHow Trump can counter Iran’s nuclear ambitions
First Published:23 Jan 2025, 07:42 AM IST
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