U.S. President Donald Trump’s strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan with stealth bombers and submarine-launched Tomahawks may be cast by supporters within his movement, some lawmakers, and longtime proponents of regime change in Iran as a tactical win. In reality, it has endangered U.S. troops and diplomatic posts throughout the region and incentivized Iran to exit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which would drive its nuclear program further underground and eliminate any prospect of future verification.
It has also trapped the United States in a cycle of escalation with both Israel and Iran. Most damaging of all, the strike has squandered the ability of Washington to conduct difficult but vital diplomacy with adversaries going forward.
Trump claims Iran had just 60 days to make a deal and brought war upon itself by failing to do so. But it was Trump who tore up the Iran nuclear agreement—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—in 2018 and then ordered the assassination of Iranian military leader Qassem Suleimani less than two years later. Despite that, Tehran still returned to talks.
Real diplomacy doesn’t happen on a countdown clock. Sixty days wasn’t a deadline; it was an excuse.
In the days leading up to the strikes, Trump boasted on Truth Social and X of “complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” suggested he knew Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s location, and called, in all caps, for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” Reports swirled that the administration was weighing military strikes.
These threats, along with Israel’s deep penetration of the Iranian state, pushed Khamenei to go into hiding, making him largely unreachable and ultimately frustrating last-ditch diplomatic efforts facilitated by Turkey.
At best, Trump saw this combination of threats and bombast as pressure; at worst, it’s reviving the regime-change boondoggles that drained U.S. power and credibility during the George W. Bush years. And even if Iran capitulates under the threat of further U.S. and Israeli aggression, any agreement reached in fear will be fragile, short-lived, and likely to lead to cheating, not compliance.
During his first term, Trump was initially seen as an anti-diplomacy president, pulling the United States out of several major international agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership just days after taking office in January 2017, announcing his intention later that year to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, and the JCPOA on May 8, 2018.
Yet Trump also pursued bold diplomatic initiatives that previous presidents had avoided. He became the first sitting U.S. president to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, holding three summits, including one at the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea. He authorized 18 months of direct negotiations with the Taliban; appointed Afghan-born Pashto speaker Zalmay Khalilzad to lead the talks; and allowed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to be photographed with senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. And he promoted the idea—controversial in Washington—that building a more positive relationship with Vladimir Putin’s Russia could be in the interests of the United States.
Much of this was rightly criticized as unsophisticated, unpolished, lacking a sequencing that could build on U.S. leverage, and more about photo-ops and grandiose claims of deals than actual agreements. He tore up the JCPOA simply because it wasn’t his—only to call for a similar agreement four years later.
Trump’s assassination of Suleimani and his maximum pressure campaign hurt Iran’s economy and removed a key link between Tehran and its proxies. But in the end, Iran returned to the same negotiating table—this time having had more years to advance its nuclear program and lose further trust.
Despite the historic optics, Trump’s summits with Kim yielded no concrete disarmament steps, no binding agreements, and no meaningful denuclearization progress. Trump’s negotiations with the Taliban succeeded largely because both sides wanted the same thing—the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
While Khalilzad and his team hoped intra-Afghan talks would follow, Trump repeatedly made clear that the United States was leaving regardless, even floating a withdrawal before the end of 2020. The result was not a comprehensive peace agreement but a quiet understanding not to shoot U.S. troops on the way out. His willingness to end a failing war was commendable. But the deal signed in Doha was no triumph of diplomacy; it was an exit wrapped in negotiation.
Trump’s willingness to talk was initially on display during the first few months of his second term. He met recently with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, followed by sweeping sanctions relief for Damascus and the appointment of his U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Thomas Barrack, as special envoy to Syria—an acknowledgment of Ankara’s pivotal role in shaping Syria’s future. Trump has authorized direct talks with groups long considered beyond the pale, including Hamas and the Taliban, even sending his hostage envoy to meet the latter’s foreign minister in Kabul. U.S. hostages were released by the Taliban, Russia, and Hamas.
The tragedy is how much more was possible—particularly with Iran. A truce with the Houthis, brokered in early May, has largely held. Until the strikes, many believed a deal between Washington and Tehran was within reach.
Unlike much of official Washington, Trump doesn’t appear to hold deep institutional hostility toward Iran. As recently as February, he posted on Truth Social, “I want Iran to be a great and successful Country, but one that cannot have a Nuclear Weapon.” In his second term, unburdened by the norms and caution that have constrained traditional presidents and backed by near-total support from his party, Trump had the space—and arguably the mandate—to strike a historic agreement. Instead, he chose the spectacle of bunker-busting bombs and Tomahawks, urged on by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and neoconservative lawmakers such as Sen. Ted Cruz, who, just days ago, failed to name basic facts about Iran in an interview with podcast host Tucker Carlson and mocked Carlson for even asking, despite openly calling for regime change.
Despite his hawkish rhetoric, Trump consistently demonstrated a willingness to engage personally or through envoys with America’s adversaries, often without preconditions and with the explicitly stated aim of cutting a deal. It could have led to a renewed nuclear deal with Iran and eventual normalization, giving Tehran more to gain from playing a constructive regional role than from confrontation. Such an outcome could have advanced stability and regional integration.
Instead, Trump is approaching diplomacy like a gambler who folds on a winning hand in the last round. He is guided by instinct; moments from a breakthrough, he sabotages the outcome through impulse. Whether the recent escalation remains isolated—something that will be very difficult to achieve—or marks the beginning of another costly war, the long-term effect on diplomacy will be that U.S. adversaries around the world will become even more duplicitous; rogue states like North Korea will have every reason to increase their deterrent capacity; and future diplomacy will be harder, slower, and far more dangerous.
Despite the corner Trump has backed himself into, de-escalation remains wiser than escalation. That would require acknowledging that U.S. and Israeli interests in the region are not identical, that fleeting military gains are not worth the long-term costs, and that Iran will not simply capitulate. A deal is still the best outcome—but that now feels further away than ever.
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