Something is missing from President Trump’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran: a credible military threat. Without it, these talks, which will soon enter their sixth round, have little chance of achieving their stated goal of ensuring Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.
The Trump administration has effectively used U.S. military power to draw Iran into negotiations. Officials bulked up the already robust military posture in the Middle East with a second carrier strike group, B-2 stealth bombers, and more air-defense assets. The bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen demonstrated some resolve and helped convince Iran to jettison its usual delaying tactics.
But once at the table, the U.S. team sent contradictory signals, both about its goals in negotiations and its willingness to use force if they cannot be achieved. Under pressure from Senate Republicans, Trump officials eventually landed on a position: Iran must give up all uranium enrichment, to ensure it has no means to produce a nuclear weapon.
But will Trump will hold that line? Reports persist that he is considering compromises that will allow Iran to retain an enrichment capability, much like the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Trump criticized and withdrew from in 2018.
Iran is sticking to its longstanding position that it is entitled to, and must, retain an enrichment capability. Increasingly the talks appear to be headed for stalemate, or worse, U.S. acquiescence.
What would cause Iran to bend toward the U.S. demand?
Additional sanctions? Unlikely. Iran has weathered economic crisis after economic crisis. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has embraced a “resistance economy,” even as his citizens suffer the consequences. The regime has brutally stymied protest movements spurred by widely loathed official corruption and mismanagement and after an array of disasters from water and power shortages to the explosion of missile fuel at the Shahid Rajaee port. If talks fail, and European countries initiate the “snapback” of sanctions available under the JCPOA due to Iran’s violations, Iran has threatened to respond by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or expelling international inspectors.
How about Trump’s reputed dealmaking prowess? U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff says that the president is endowed with a “force of personality” that will persuade Iranian leaders to abandon a critical plank of their regime-survival strategy: their status as a nuclear threshold state, able to produce a weapon at a time of their choosing.
This underscores Witkoff’s inexperience. No one with knowledge of Iranian leadership or the history of nuclear negotiations believes that. Trump’s vaunted persuasiveness has not convinced Vladimir Putin to accept a ceasefire in Ukraine, much less end the war. It is unlikely to have any different effect on Khamanei.
The leverage that remains is the threat of a military strike. Here, the message from Trump and his orbit has been inconsistent. The president has stated on a number of occasions that “there will be bombing” unless Tehran agrees to a deal that prevents a nuclear weapon. But he has not publicly tied that threat to a demand for no enrichment, and he has hastened to add, “I don’t want to do it.”
Meanwhile, influential voices cast doubt on any U.S. strike. Tucker Carlson, a tribune of the isolationist camp of Mr. Trump’s supporters, posted in April that “it’s clear that now is the worst possible time for the United States to participate in a military strike on Iran. We can’t afford it. Thousands of Americans would die. We’d lose the war that follows. Nothing would be more destructive to our country.” Several of the more-hawkish members of Trump’s national-security team have been pushed out of leading roles, like former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, or constrained to stifle their long-held views, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The Iranians have reason to believe that those who resist deeper U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, led by Vice President JD Vance, are ascendant. The abrupt and inconclusive end of U.S. strikes against the Houthis reinforced that conclusion.
Trump’s attitude toward regional partners also informs Iranian thinking. Recently, he has limited coordination with Israel on key matters, surprising them on the Houthi ceasefire, negotiations with Hamas, Syrian sanctions relief, and more. Repeated leaks betray U.S. discomfort with Israel preparing its own military option against Iran. On the first overseas trip of his second term, President Trump emphasized economic deals with Arab Gulf partners, who have all sent their own clear signals that they do not favor military action against Iran and have been conducting their own de-escalation efforts.
Without a change of direction, the nuclear negotiations are headed for a deadlock, with the only way out being U.S. backsliding to accept Iranian enrichment, or acquiescing to an interim deal that kicks the can down the road but solves nothing.
To keep the talks from reaching these unfortunate conclusions, Trump needs to refocus on the military option. Here’s how:
First, adhere to consistent messaging. Both inside and outside the negotiating room, U.S. officials should leave no ambiguity: the goal is full dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program, which the United States prefers to achieve through talks, but is prepared to achieve through force.
A military strike against Iran’s key nuclear sites is arguably more feasible today than at any time in recent decades. Israel’s destruction of key Iranian air-defense assets last October and the weakening of Tehran’s proxy network — particularly Lebanese Hezbollah — make it much harder for Iran to defend against, or retaliate for, a military strike. Having suffered these blows, Khamanei, cautious by nature, should want no part of strikes by the United States or additional strikes by Israel. So it is critical to make the military threat credible — both by demonstrating that there are assets available, and by communicating willingness to use them.
Here’s why the messaging matters: If Iran believes the United States is deterred from taking that action, it is the surest way to weaken Trump’s ability to get a good deal. For the negotiations to succeed in ending all Iranian enrichment, Iran must fear these strikes, and believe they are a realistic possibility. Any successful negotiation will very likely need to reach a crisis stage in which Iran is forced to contemplate the fear of failure and the strikes that would follow.
Second, improve coordination with Israel. It is clear that there are regular consultations between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and their teams. But the leaks emerging from these talks are all about the United States warning Israel not to act and to give the talks time. While U.S. negotiators can use that narrative to warn Iran that Israel may act on its own if there is no deal, these reports also tell the Iranians they have split the United States from Israel.
Trump needs to counter that impression. Without giving Israel any green light to act at this stage, he should demonstrate that the United States and Israel are consulting on next steps should talks fail. Send the commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Erik Kurilla, to Israel for publicized talks with the IDF brass. Consider joint exercises, like the Juniper series the U.S. and Israeli air forces have conducted in the past, with messaging that leaves no doubt what is being rehearsed. Those exercises normally take months to plan, but a modified version could be conducted more quickly. Even while privately urging Israel to wait, Trump should restate that the United States will not tell another state how to act when it faces an existential threat to its security.
Third, update U.S. war plans to account for Iran’s degraded air defenses. Those updates have likely already taken place, but the Pentagon should hold briefings that describe them in general terms — but go beyond Trump’s blustery statements about bombing. The U.S. military should begin preparations to defend U.S. forces from the most likely Iranian retaliatory threat: close-range ballistic missiles against bases in the Gulf. Those preparations will shorten timelines necessary to prepare for U.S. strikes and an Iranian response. The United States should also sustain, and where possible increase, air-defense assets in the region that defend U.S. partners. Some of these preparations will be visible, which is not a bad thing. They will demonstrate seriousness, which may have a deterrent effect on Iran, or contribute to 11th-hour concessions that help avoid a strike.
Fourth, game out the timing of a possible strike. If talks do not convince Iran to end enrichment, strikes might follow Europe’s “snapback” sanctions, which must occur by October. The U.S. military will need time to flow the requisite forces into the region to conduct strikes, while sustaining the necessary forces to meet requirements in other theaters.
If talks fail and Trump faces the decision point on strikes, there will be numerous other decisions to be made, including, most critically, how to limit the Iranian response and avoid escalation. But that may be weeks or months away. The purpose of taking these steps now is indeed to ensure a credible military option is a reality, and is on the Iranians’ mind in the talks. But chiefly, it is to increase the odds that negotiations succeed, so there is no need to use it.
Daniel B. Shapiro, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, has served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East.
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