How Long Are We Going to Do This?

By Noah Rothman

Wednesday, June 04, 2025

 

In its latest dispatch on the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over its nuclear program, the Wall Street Journal appears to confirm reporting in Axios and the New York Times alleging that the Trump administration’s officials were not being honest when they insisted that they would not accept a deal that allowed Tehran to enrich uranium on its own soil.

 

The terms American negotiators presented to their Iranian counterparts would allow “temporary uranium enrichment in the country before ending it completely,” the Journal observed. In addition, the dispatch confirmed that even this display of pliancy from the U.S. failed to win over the Islamic republic’s theocrats.

 

“Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking Wednesday on the anniversary of the death of his predecessor, said the recent U.S. offer to Iran to resolve the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program breached Tehran’s principles of independence,” the report read. In the Journal’s estimation, the remarks indicate that Iran has “effectively rejected” the American overture.

 

How many times are we going to do this? How often can the U.S. encounter Iran’s frustrating recalcitrance before it takes “no” for an answer? The alternatives to a second Iran nuclear deal are hardly desirable, but the Trump administration has staked its credibility on this diplomatic process. If that process fails to culminate in a deal, the White House has been unambiguous about what the consequences would be for Iran. And yet, the U.S. will not be in a position to make good on those threats forever.

 

At the outset of this diplomatic offensive, the American posture in Iran’s neighborhood was intimidating. With two carrier groups in the region — and with the U.S.-operated base Diego Garcia congested with long-range bombers, refuelers, and military transport aircraft — the Iranians had every reason to believe that the American ultimatum was serious. In the interim, one of those carriers, the USS Harry S. Truman, has returned home following an extended deployment. The U.S. presence in the Indian Ocean remains robust and has been hardened against attack in recent weeks, but deployments at this scale are costly and resource-intensive. Iran knows that as well as anyone.

 

The very worst outcome of Trump’s approach to negotiations with Iran would be for Iran to call America’s bluff, exposing it as a bluff. If the United States turns itself into a paper tiger — liberal with the bombast but chintzy on the bombs — it would embolden our adversaries and spook our allies.

 

Consenting to a deal that legitimizes Iran’s nuclear stockpiles and allows it to enrich uranium on its soil would convey to America’s allies that it can live with an Iran that is, at the very least, a nuclear threshold state. In that event, Israel would likely be forced to take matters into its own hands, to Washington’s profound consternation. The schism that would yield could have far-reaching effects across the globe as America’s allies reassess their relationship with the United States and its adversaries prepare to make the most of America’s faintheartedness.

 

All indications now suggest that Trump wants a deal, any deal, so long as he can call it a deal. The terms he himself set and retailed to the American people appear illusory. So, too, do the president’s threatened consequences if his terms are unmet. If that is the outcome, we will have bought ourselves only a temporary reprieve. The post–Abraham Accords geopolitical order in the Middle East that Trump himself helped create would be lost, and the region would return to bloody form until the U.S. is compelled to intervene — at a time and place not of our choosing.

 

Hardly ideal.