Donald Trump gambled. But has he won? He has bombed Iran’s nuclear program and immediately imposed a ceasefire on Israel and the Islamic Republic, and without a single American casualty. That is vindication over those who, like this newspaper, feared that Iran would lash out.
But the risks were only half the calculus: the other factor was whether America would be able to use a strike to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon.
The best way to accomplish that would now be for Mr. Trump to reach a full nuclear agreement with the regime. He can bolster it by pressing the Middle East to solve its problems through trade and investment, rather than preparing for wars. Those are daunting tasks, but if Mr. Trump even partially accomplished them, he would have secured a prize that has eluded his predecessors.
His efforts should begin with an assessment of how much his 14 bunker-busting bombs and 30 or so cruise missiles damaged three facilities in Iran.
Characteristically, Mr. Trump claimed to have “obliterated” the Iranian program. Within days he was contradicted by a leaked assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency that warned that Iran had been set back by only a few months. But it was preliminary and “low-confidence.” It, in turn, has been contradicted.
The furious row now unfolding must not obscure the central truth. Bombing alone was unlikely to verifiably destroy all Iran’s facilities and was never going to eliminate Iran’s nuclear know-how. Its purpose was to set back the program or, better, persuade Iran that a nuclear weapon was not worth pursuing at all. Regardless of how much damage has been done, Mr. Trump now needs to accept that this insight must be formalized in a nuclear agreement.
The president has more than American bombers to help him. His raid was the culmination of a 20-month Israeli campaign that has broken Iran’s two-decade strategy to extend its malign influence over the Middle East.
Its nuclear program cost tens of billions of dollars but, far from deterring a foreign attack, it provoked one.
Iran spent tens of billions more on a network of militias and clients across the Middle East. One purpose was to deter Israel from attacking Iran, but after being struck by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel took Iran’s proxy network apart.
Having been humiliated, Iran’s regime is at a fork in the road. It could chase a bomb, but if this was discovered the country would be isolated and face another round of attacks. It could also infuriate ordinary Iranians, who have endured hardship and repression even as their taxes have been frittered away by a regime that proved unable to defend them.
The alternative is for the military officers, who have increasingly elbowed aside the mullahs, to conclude that waging a revolutionary struggle against Israel and America is a fight the republic cannot win — and that their own prosperity and survival would be better served by peaceful engagement.
Mr. Trump can influence the regime’s choices by offering a nuclear deal in everyone’s interests.
America should demand that Iran give up its stocks of highly enriched uranium and submit to intrusive international inspections. Iran should be able to enrich uranium to reactor grade, but under tough terms that require it to be part of a consortium of countries working offshore. In exchange, the negotiations should be about lifting European and American sanctions, as well as threats.
Do not imagine this will be easy. The urgent question is what became of Iran’s 400kg of highly enriched uranium, which was targeted in the American strikes.
Nobody trusts Iran to tell the truth, but it will be very hard for the regime to prove what it doesn’t have, or for international inspectors to account for every kilogram after such extensive bombing. For its part, Iran trusts nobody, including the inspectors. The negotiations risk getting bogged down in recriminations.
That is why Mr. Trump should also change Iran’s incentives to go nuclear by trying to set a new direction for the Middle East.
