Iranian-US tensions are boiling after Trump threatened to bomb Iran following its rejection of direct talks over a new nuclear deal. He also ordered the Pentagon to move six B-2 stealth bombers, which CNN assessed to be a full 30% of the US’ stealth bomber fleet, to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. The Iranian Supreme Leader responded by promising strong retaliation if the US attacks while one of his chief advisors warned that their country would then have “no choice” but to build nukes if that happens.
Although the US Intelligence Community’s latest Annual Threat Assessment claimed that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”, there have been long-standing concerns that it could quickly do so if the decision is made due to its nuclear program allegedly have a rapid breakout potential. This makes it no different in principle than Japan’s, which could begin churning out nukes in a matter of months, but neither the US nor its regional allies consider Japan to be a threat, unlike how they view Iran.
The US’ renewed bombing campaign against Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen might have been partially intended to send a message to the Islamic Republic aimed at getting it to enter direct talks over this issue by signaling that Trump 2.0 does indeed have the political will to initiate military action if it refuses. Despite Iran’s recent rejection of his demand, Trump might still hold off on this for now due to the likelihood that Iran could inflict unacceptable retaliatory damage to the US’ regional bases and allies.
Furthermore, diplomacy hasn’t yet been exhausted since Iran didn’t reject indirect talks of the kind that Russia offered to mediate after reportedly being asked by the US to do so, which was discussed here. Therefore, it would be premature for the US to seriously consider bombing Iran at this time, yet that option isn’t off the table if indirect talks fail to reach a deal. Iran lacks the leverage for a fair deal with the US, however, so it’ll either have to accept a lopsided one or prepare for a major war that it might lose.
Iran is a proud civilization-state that’s loath to subordinate itself to anyone, hence the difficulty in getting it to agree to drastic curbs on its nuclear energy program that would enshrine its status as a second-class country in this regard, all while abandoning any chance of nuclear weapons in the future. From Iran’s perspective, this could embolden Israel into one day launching a large-scale conventional or even nuclear war against it, which Iran believes has only hitherto been deterred by dangling this Damocles’ sword.
That said, while Iran could inflict unacceptable retaliatory damage to the US’ regional bases and allies (first of all Israel) if it’s attacked over its refusal to agree to a Russian-mediated lopsided deal, it cannot inflict such damage to the US’ nuclear triad and would thus likely be destroyed. Iran couldn’t count on Russia intervening to help it either since their newly updated strategic partnership doesn’t include mutual defense obligations and Moscow doesn’t want war with Washington or West Jerusalem.
Even though the US could survive a major war with Iran, it still prefers to avoid one. So long as the US’ demands remain limited to drastically curbing Iran’s nuclear energy program and don’t expand to include curbs on its support for regional allies or its ballistic missile program, then creative diplomacy could prevail. For that to happen, Russia would have to devise a set of incentives for Iran that the US approves of and Iran then agrees to, but that’s still a far way off and Trump might strike first if he loses patience.
