The US and Israel vs Iran

Sustainable Peace Settlement or Short-Term Truce?

Hall Gardner is a professor of International Politics at the American University of Paris. He received PhD from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University.

After ordering the bombing of Iran nuclear sites (Fordow, Natanz, Isfahan)―an attack that was then followed by a limited Iranian counterattack on US military bases in Iraq and in Qatar―President Donald Trump realized the US needed to step back from the brink.

This is a major reason why Trump suddenly called for a Israel-Iran ceasefire on 24 June 2025 and began to walk back on his own demands for regime change―a position that was opposed by neo-liberals and neo-conservatives, as well as by hardline Republican Christian conservatives such as Lindsay Graham who claim that Iran will never give up its supposed religious mission to destroy the Jewish state of Israel. Lindsey Graham Breaks With Donald Trump Over Iran - Newsweeks

Also impacting Trump’s decision was the fact that Trump opted to use major military force against Iran without the approval of US Congress. This military action at least initially worked to diminish his support among the American people and even among some of his own constituency. Donald Trump approval rating: New polls show shakeup over Iran bombing - masslive.com

At first, Trump’s calls for a ceasefire only lasted some 4 hours. In the morning of June 24, both Israel and Iran accused each other of violating the cease fire accord. Iran US Live: Israel's chilling threat after ceasefire 'violated' with missiles - World News - Mirror Online

Then, after a presumed Iranian strike on Israeli territory, for which Tehran claimed it was not responsible, Israel responded with “intense strikes.” Trump lambasted both sides: "Basically, we have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f*** they're doing. Do you understand that?"

Will the Ceasefire Last?

Much as was the case for previous ceasefires that Trump had hoped to achieve between Israel and Hamas, and between Russia and Ukraine, the question remains as to whether this conflict that Trump has dubbed the “12 day war” could pick up once again after a hiatus of several months?

Despite Trump’s claims of “total obliteration”, the dilemma is that Israel does not entirely believe that the US and Israeli bombing campaign has achieved all of its goals in eliminating Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities and that Iran will remain an “existential threat” to Israel―that is, until Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s dreams of forceful Iranian “regime change” can come true.

In addition to infiltrating the country and striking Iran’s military capabilities, Israel has assassinated high ranking military officials and nuclear scientists, and struck Iran’s infamous Evin Prison in Tehran, seen as a symbol of regime torture and repression, as well as the Headquarters of the Basiji who are the paramilitary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)―in an effort to spark dissent and popular resistance. And Trump claims that he prevented Israel from assassinating the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to prevent the country from disintegrating so that “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.” Trump told Israel not to kill Iran’s supreme leader - POLITICO

According to still evolving estimates, the combination of Israeli and US strikes may have set back Iran’s nuclear program by as little as six months to as much as 2 years―as it is argued that Trump’s call for ceasefire came before either Israel or the United States could fully destroy a number of underground nuclear enrichment facilities, including those near Natanz, Isfahan and Parchin. Exclusive: Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, sources say | CNN Politics Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that his country will not give up its nuclear enrichment program and must study ways to safeguard its facilities.

Nevertheless, 6 months to 2 years still provides Trump with a breathing space to reinitiate negotiations that had been making progress just before Israel attacked Iran and tried to draw Trump into supporting Netanyahu’s dubiously achievable quest for Iranian regime change. Trump, however, finally realized that US military actions against Iran―combined with Netanyahu’s unilateral military actions―risked drawing the US into a wider long term regional conflict.

Trump soon demanded a cease fire in the concern that US and Israeli strikes against Iran and dangerous demands for forceful regime change could eventually provoke Iran into engaging in regime remilitarization and further repression, while destabilizing the entire region.

Iran could drop out of the NPT treaty, so there would no longer be any nuclear enrichment inspections. Iran could further engage in acts of regional, if not global, terrorism, including against targets in the USA. ICE Arrests 11 Iranian Nationals in US Amid Fears of Secret Terror Cells - Newsweek.

Tehran could also try to rebuild its “axis of resistance” proxies (Hezb’allah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis) even in the aftermath of Israeli assassination efforts―while concurrently seeking to speed work on hypersonic and other advanced missile systems with more powerful conventional warheads. Such a path would make more sense than seeking to develop nuclear weapons―although Tehran could still seek that option in the hope that the threat to possess nuclear weapons would somehow permit Iran to bargain with the US so as to stabilize the regime and sustain it in power.

Ironically, Israel never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)―but Iran did sign and abide by the NPT treaty at least until Trump himself dumped the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear accord in 2020 that had taken years for the US and Europeans to negotiate with Iran. (R) Contrepoints | hallgardner[i]

The question remains as to whether Tehran will remain in the NPT and eventually accept International Atomic Energy Agency inspections―now that both the US and Israel have attacked the country? Or will Iran eventually drop out of the NPT, as it has threatened to do, as did North Korea―even at the risk of further antagonizing the US, Israel as well as Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Egypt―that would most likely seek to acquire a nuclear capability as well if Iran does?

Trump will not admit it, but he is largely responsible for the Iranian backlash and the war!

The Palestinian Question

Iran’s threat to develop nuclear weapons is not the only issue preventing peace between Israel and Iran. In many ways, the Israeli and first term Trump administration refusal to deal with the Palestinian question worked to check efforts to bring Saudi Arabia into the 2020 Abraham accords established between the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Israel―one of Trump’s first term accomplishments.

Although Saudi Arabia did bargain, but not very precisely, for some form of resolution to the Palestinian question in exchange for normalization of relations with Israel, it is not surprising that Hamas, backed by Iran, engaged in war on October 7, 2023 versus Israel (an action of revanche expected by Tel Aviv)―just as it appeared that Israel and Saudi Arabia were on the verge of signing an agreement to normalize relations that were seen as excluding the interests of Hamas and Iran.

In effect, the Biden administration's subsequent efforts to support the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia in support of the Abraham accords were subsequently seen by Tehran as a step towards its isolation―as forming an encircling Israeli-Saudi-UAE alliance against Iran, backed by the US. https://www.meer.com/en/76597-resolving-the-gaza-crisis.

The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, that was seen by Israel as a Pearl Harbor event backed by Iran, consequently led Netanyahu to seek the total eradication of Hamas, Hezb’allah and other Iranian-backed proxy groups that are in conflict with Israel. Yet nothing Hamas did ethically justifies the persecution / starvation/ democide of the general Palestinian population―in what has become a new Nakba of 1948.

Like Pearl Harbor for the Americans, the question remains as to whether Netanyahu, who was purportedly warned by Egypt of a potential Hamas attack, knew precisely when and where the Hamas attack would take place. And if he did know the precise details, given Israel’s proven panoptic intelligence and surveillance capabilities, what were the real reasons, other than the engagement of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the West Bank, as to why the IDF did not intervene sooner to protect Israeli citizens from the Hamas attack?

Toward a Long-Term Peace Settlement

It is thus crucial that the Trump administration not only begin negotiations with Iran over nuclear enrichment issues, but Trump must also seek to implement a regional arms and missiles reduction/ elimination pact, while finding ways to end the conflict with Hamas―and thereby implement a two-state solution going beyond absurd proposals for a US-owned “Gaza Riviera.”

The danger is that the failure to implement a sustainable peace process in the coming weeks could soon set off an explosion between Israel and Iran―fueled by apocalyptic Christian Conservatives and Israeli Zionists versus Iranian Shi’a millenarists.

If the ceasefire collapses, continued active US miliary support for Israel vs Iran could lead to a tit for tat Iran-Israel war of attrition―in which it is not certain Israel can win without significant US military and financial support.

Yet even assuming the US and Israel can “win” versus Iran, it will prove a pyrrhic victory. Such a conflict will not result in some form of pro-western Iran “regime change”―but more likely in a dangerous regime destabilization.

Such a regime destabilization would not only negatively impact air transport, shipping and energy prices, but it would also provoke regional civil strife that would spill over Iranian borders and prove very difficult to contain. There is moreover a possibility that Hezb’allah could reenter the fray, even after Israel assassinated much of its experienced leadership. And the Houthis, who have been recruiting militias, could reengage in military actions in the Red Sea area and against Israel.

The violent collapse of the Islamic regime would accentuate fissiparous tendencies within Iran. Kurdish, Turkish, Arab, Azeri and Baluch political movements could demand autonomy or independence, perhaps supported by external regional state actors. Al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State might see a window of opportunity to strike their Shi’a arch-enemies. Supporters of hardline elements in the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the People's Mujahedin (MEK), and allies of the Son of the former Shah, Reza Pahlavi, among other opponents of the regime, could all fight it out, in seeking external supports.

And there is no way that the US and Israel would or could occupy the country. Iran is not Iraq in 2003!

Ayatollah Pervigilation

Another reason Trump has at least appeared to have moved away from supporting Netanyahu’s dubiously achievable wet dreams for pro-western Iranian “regime change” is that there are presently and unfortunately no legitimate “democratic” opposition forces to the present clerical regime that could assume power despite the valiant non-violent struggle of civil society and women's movements against the repressive regime that still exercises power. Even if the Son of the Shah seems to possess US, European, and Israeli support, it appears dubious that he could easily be imposed upon contemporary, extremely fragilized, Iranian society―and particularly if he is seen as supported by the US and Israel.

As a forced pro-US and European regime change in Iran appears dubious, this means the US must deal with the current regime―at least until a new religious leadership is chosen. In many ways, the future governance of Iran will depend on who eventually takes the role of the Ayatollah Khamenei. One option is Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the father of the Islamic revolution. He is seen as an ally of the reformist faction that favors the easing of social and political restrictions, but who presumably commands respect among senior clerics and the Revolutionary Guards. Another option, but one who has already been said to be ruled out, is Ayatollah Khamenei’s 56-year-old son, Mojtaba, who is seen as a hardliner. Who knows who might pop out of the hat! As an Iranian saying goes, the Ayatollahs “tend to die in their sleep.”

Assuming no pro-western regime change in Iran, the course of the Israeli-Iran conflict, whether it will come to an end, will largely depend upon Israeli governance and the fate of Netanyahu who faces charges of corruption and imprisonment and who has tried to deflect domestic Israeli and international attention away from his own unethical and illegal domestic actions by engaging in extreme violence, if not state-supported “terrorism,” abroad. It appears dubious that Israel will radically change policy if Netanyahu and his allies remain in power.

From this perspective, in order to safeguard to the Israeli-Iran ceasefire and prevent the conflict from eventually intensifying and expanding, much as was the case for the Iran-Iraq war of cities of the 1980s, Trump will need to restrain Netanyahu for the sake of Israel and the world! And because the US does not want to be drawn into a conflict that could embroil the entire region!

Concerted Multilateral Cooperation

The only hope for regional and global peace thus requires pursuit of U.S.-Israel-Iran reconciliation with help of mediation by Oman, Qatar, the UAE, Türkiye, Russia and China, among other states.

These states all oppose regime change in fear of regional destabilization and war. For their part, Russia and China see Iran as a positive member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS. Iran impacts Russian policy in the Caspian sea as well as China’s Belt and Road initiative. Both Russia and China support Iran’s civil nuclear program. Moscow has offered to enrich Iran’s uranium as a means to mediate tensions over Iran’s potential use of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Türkiye sees Iran as a friend/enemy as both are trading partners and also geopolitical rivals in Syria since the fall of the regime of Al Bashir. While Iran supports Russia, Türkiye supports Ukraine, with competing drone sales. And despite Türkiye’s strong criticism of Israel’s democide in Gaza, none of these states really want to alienate Israel.

Beijing does not want to destabilize a region that is critical to its economic and energy strategies due to China’s massive dependence on Middle Eastern energy, including roughly 13% supplied from Iran. It thus appears dubious that Iran would block the Straits of Hormuz, as the Iranian parliament has threatened to do, as it would hurt China and other Iranian trading partners more than the US.

And even Trump, despite his strong sanctions policy on China, seems to have signaled that he could suspend or waive US sanctions imposed on China so that Beijing could purchase its energy from Iran, as well as from the US―as Trump would evidently prefer. Trump Says China Can Buy Iranian Oil, but Urges it to Purchase US Crude If so, this could prove to be a major step toward a US settlement with both China and Iran―particularly if Trump can eventually reach a nuclear enrichment accord with Iran with China’s assistance.

In working in concert with the above states, the US should seek to ameliorate regional rivalries between Israel, Iran and their neighbors―in large part by seeking to restrain Israel so as to prevent Israeli miliary actions from further destabilizing fragile Arab regimes and that directly or indirectly help to recruit both pan-Islamist and rightwing terrorists who oppose the Jewish state.

It is Time to Stop Appeasing Israel

Peace can be achieved by immediately de-escalating tensions between Israel and Iran and by pressing Israel to work with the Palestinians to implement a neutral demilitarized Palestinian state protected by international peace keepers under a general UN mandate by way of dissolving Hamas and forming new Palestinian political parties.

Such a peace settlement could possibly include a mixed international and Arab peacekeeping force made up of countries acceptable to both sides, with the political and financial backing of the wealthy Arab states of the Arabo-Persian Gulf for Palestinian reconstruction and for the establishment of a confederal version of the two-state solution, under a general UN mandate.

Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” proposal―that appears to be inspired from US experience with US Indian reservations―is absurd. Trump has incredibly proposed moving Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to Egypt and Jordan, arguing they would be “better off”―much as the American government removed native peoples to US federal reservations. But in the US case, at least some Native American Peoples possess ownership over those casinos and over the lands that were given them. Yet ownership does not appear to be the case for Trump’s plans. Why do Native Americans Own Casinos? - EconoTimes

With the assistance of China, Russia, and the Europeans, the US will need to bring Iran back into the 2015 Iran Nuclear accord (JCPOA), albeit in a new and strengthened form that provides Iran the legal possibility to enrich uranium for civil and medicinal purposes while reducing economic and other sanctions if Iran cooperates. At the same time, a joint technological partnership in renewable energy can help Iran develop alternative energy sources. The US, Europeans and China could thus foster the joint development of alternative energies, such as solar and geothermal―in an effort to reduce Iran’s demand for nuclear power which is a risky source of energy in a country subject to major earthquakes.

New multilateral treaties would seek to establish an agreement over the “no-first use” of Weapons of Mass Destruction that would be applicable to all regional actors, including Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. As it is dubious Israel will give up is regional nuclear weapons monopoly in accord with its policy of “strategic opacity,” this approach could help restore some trust and confidence and permit arms reductions/ eliminations.

The US could also boost efforts to implement a regional Missile Technology Control Regime that would limit hypersonic and cruise missile capabilities of all the actors in the region, most importantly Iran and Saudi Arabia. Trump, the dragon slayer. In parallel, the U.S. should consider reducing its own nuclear and missile arsenal and work with global powers—including Russia, the EU, China, and Japan and show Iran a viable path away from its presumed nuclear weapons ambitions. Perhaps an international inspection regime should be implemented for all states that possess nuclear enrichment facilities.

Trump claims that he wants to be known in history as a “peacemaker.” Yet peace will not be achieved through force and terror alone. US military intervention, no matter how precisely executed, carries unpredictable and catastrophic consequences. Real peace can only be achieved through a patient, multilateral process that builds trust and mutual respect. For the sake of global security, the US, in working with both allies and rivals alike, must choose dialogue and engaged diplomacy over destruction.

The dilemma is that Trump’s constant policy flip flips and lack of patience do not inspire long term trust and confidence among either friends or rivals. Trump’s approach to diplomacy must change radically if he is to implement a sustainable global “peace through strength” strategy that goes beyond a short-term truce―as he himself has claimed to be his goal with regard to Israel and Iran, Ukraine and Russia, China and Taiwan, among other disputes and conflicts. Otherwise, he risks initiating World War Trump.

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Praise for Hall Gardner’s ‘World War Trump’

This is what the former editorialist for the International Herald Tribune, Jonathan Power, said about World War Trump: “Not even Zbigniew Brzezinski or Henry Kissinger have written such a book…. Every foreign affairs student, journalist, academic, and policymaker should make reading it a priority.”

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