Trump's latest high-stakes gambit

At the time of writing, the chances of a major U.S.-Iran military confrontation appear higher than at any point since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. More than a month after Iran's brutal crackdown on protesters, estimates range from 7,000 to 30,000 dead, the United States has deployed to the Middle East the largest military force since the Iraq War, including two carrier groups. President Trump is demanding a deal that forces Iran to end its nuclear program, halt support for regional proxies and significantly reduce its missile capabilities, or face a possible massive attack. This represents a major escalation from previous negotiating positions, which focused solely on the nuclear question.

Iran appears under no illusions about the threat. The regime has reportedly shored up succession and command and control weaknesses apparent in the June 2-25, 2025 war with Israel, and fortified security forces to suppress further uprisings. Tehran's calculation, consistent with its behavior during past confrontations, is that capitulating to external demands poses a greater threat to regime survival than absorbing military strikes. Supreme Leader Khamenei has dismissed any agreement with Trump's additional terms, even as talks in Oman continue. According to Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump was "surprised" that Iran has not capitulated in the face of overwhelming force. If this is genuinely what Trump believes, this could be the basis for a disastrous miscalculation.

The limits of military action and the dangers of regime change

The idea of regime change is magnetic, given an aggrieved and angry population and a regime battered by the June War with Israel (and the U.S.). In contrast to Obama's unfulfilled "red line" on Assad's use of chemical weapons in Syria, Trump explicitly promised Iranians that "help was on the way" after the uprisings began on December 28, 2025. But anything beyond limited surgical strikes, certainly focused on nuclear sites and Iran's ballistic missile stockpile, carries risks, the magnitude of many of which are likely unknown, as reflected in senior U.S. military officials' public signaling against a significant attack.

The January uprising provided a wealth of information about some of these risks: Despite a crescendo of anticipation, there was no quick collapse as happened with Tehran's former client Bashar al-Assad; there were no signs of military or political defection or competing voices within the regime itself. This indicates a degree of discipline and coercion that would be very difficult to overcome with air strikes alone. Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah and the opposition's most visible figure, served as a unifying rallying point for Iranians inside and outside the country, yet he did not change naysayers' minds about his capacity to lead a country he hasn't been in since the age of 17. And for obvious domestic political reasons Trump will almost certainly be unwilling to deploy U.S. ground troops, which means that even if the U.S. does topple the regime, it has limited influence over what comes next. The most likely outcomes are the shift from a theocracy to a military dictatorship formed from non-ideological regime remnants, or widespread disorder. As several analysts have noted, the least likely outcome is a Pahlavi-led Iranian constitutional monarchy.

A general view of the Port of Kharg Island Oil Terminal, 25 km from the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf and 483 km northwest of the Strait of Hormuz, in Iran on March 12, 2017. Source: Reuters.

Already stretched thin operationally, the U.S. would find it hard to disengage under these circumstances given the ways a chaotic Iran would impact the rest of the Middle East and, not least, oil prices, which could spike dramatically if Iran decides in a death spiral to bomb Gulf oil fields and block the Strait of Hormuz. Then there's what havoc Iran's remaining proxies are able to cause. The evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel from Lebanon this week was an ominous move.

Gulf countries have signaled their concern regarding the direct risks to them of a sustained attack on Iran, by denying U.S. use of their airspace, which is a major logistical constraint. And not least, the U.S. is also stretched thin, short on the munitions and interceptors required for a sustained campaign, and vulnerable to a sinkhole that takes attention off other critical theaters like the South China Sea.

In short, multiple interconnected factors make a sustained attack on Iran difficult to defend, even if one argues this represents a turning point where inaction allows a brutal regime to regroup and rearm.

The path to a negotiated deal: Concessions and the Abraham Accords

But there is another possibility: that Trump's maximalist demands are in fact a negotiating tactic. Push Iran's leadership to the brink, then settle for meaningful but achievable concessions. If so, there's some chance we may be seeing progress, rather than regression.

Iran has reportedly signaled willingness to consider serious concessions, including returning to international oversight of its nuclear program, reducing enrichment levels, exporting portions of its uranium stockpile, and potentially participating in a joint enrichment program under international control. If these can be locked in, admittedly a big if, they would address key weaknesses of the original 2015 JCPOA (Iran Deal), which contained sunset provisions that expired after 10-15 years depending on the specific restriction. If this could be done in direct consultation with and participation of the Arab Gulf states, it would give the rest of the region direct participation in the region's nuclear future.

The worst aspect of the original JCPOA wasn't the agreement itself it was the Obama administration's self-imposed restraint on confronting Iranian regional aggression. Obama treated the nuclear deal as too fragile to coexist with pushback on proxies, effectively giving Iran a free hand in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon.

If it's not a negotiating wedge, Trump's approach of bundling proxy support into nuclear negotiations is both redundant and unhelpful. Making proxy withdrawal a precondition for any deal simply ensures Iran won't accept as the Supreme Leader has said. The better approach: lock in nuclear restrictions, then develop a separate, forceful policy on proxies that doesn't hold the nuclear agreement hostage.

Still, the most effective long-term constraint Trump has against Iran isn't military, it's the Abraham Accords he brokered in 2020. The Accords' unspoken but clear objective was creating an economically and militarily integrated coalition to contain Iranian expansion. Israel, UAE, Bahrain, and potentially Saudi Arabia forming a regional bloc that marginalizes Tehran unless Iran wishes to participate, which would require significant internal changes.

But the Accords are now in serious jeopardy, wounded first by the Iran-backed Hamas attack on Israel, and then by Israel's war in Gaza and ongoing land grabs in the West Bank.

Reviving the Abraham Accords requires the U.S. to finally commit to making a Palestinian state a reality. Much of the original "Abrahamic" promise of regional economic, scientific and environmental integration is being rechanneled elsewhere, as Saudi Arabia leans into the role of defender of Palestinian statehood moving, for the moment, away from the Abraham fold. Real movement on the Palestinian issue would accomplish one thing military strikes cannot: it would strip Iran (and its Houthi clients in Yemen) of a prevalent legitimizing narrative that they alone defend Palestinian rights when no one else will.

A nuclear deal that caps Iran's program, combined with a revitalized Abraham Accords anchored by Palestinian statehood, would create genuine strategic containment. Iran would face regional isolation, economic and security integration that excludes it, and the loss of a tool with which to split the Arabs and Israelis.

Trump has two paths. He can launch strikes that carry the risk, if not certainty, of widespread, protracted regional instability that makes the condition of the Iranian people worse. Or he can push for an improved "JCPOA", which may be within reach, while reviving his previous term's most significant foreign policy achievement. The maximalist demands may be working as pressure. The question is whether Trump recognizes when to close one deal and seal a previous one.