Trump Signals Backing for New Israeli Strikes if Iran Advances Nuclear Program

By Kamaran Aziz

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – President Trump privately indicated support for potential future Israeli military strikes against Iran if Tehran resumes progress toward a nuclear weapon, while expressing a preference for a diplomatic deal, during talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a Wall Street Journal report detailing conflicting strategies among the U.S., Israel, and Iran following last month's attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The Wall Street Journal reported that during their White House meeting on Monday, Trump told Netanyahu he hoped there would be no more U.S. bombing of Iran, stating, “I can’t imagine wanting to do that.” However, in a private conversation, Netanyahu informed Trump that if Iran resumed moving toward a nuclear weapon, Israel would carry out further military strikes, and Trump responded that he favored a diplomatic settlement with Tehran but didn’t otherwise object to the Israeli plan.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited senior U.S. and Israeli officials describing the talks, these discussions underscored the conflicting calculations facing the three countries since last month’s Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The WSJ explained that Trump is counting on the threat of further attacks to pressure Tehran into an agreement that would foreclose it from building a nuclear weapon, while Israel is skeptical a diplomatic settlement would prevent Iran from secretly rushing toward a nuclear weapon, and Tehran is demanding guarantees it won’t face more bombing in return for resuming talks with Washington.

The Wall Street Journal noted that Israel wouldn’t necessarily seek explicit American approval to resume strikes on Iran, as stated by a senior Israeli official. But depending on how significant the Iranian attempt to rekindle its nuclear program was, Netanyahu could face pushback from Trump to preserve the diplomatic track with Tehran, the WSJ reported.

For Iran’s leaders, the stakes are even more momentous, according to the Wall Street Journal: If they rebuff Trump’s demand to give up nuclear enrichment and resume their nuclear activities, renewed attacks by Israel and even the U.S. could threaten the regime’s survival.

The WSJ reported that Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, like other top Iranian leaders, in recent days has said Tehran is open to resuming nuclear talks with the U.S. with assurances there will be no renewed attacks during the negotiations, and Iran will insist on what it says is its right to enrich uranium, he added.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House declined to comment on Trump’s talks with Netanyahu, and the Iranian mission to the United Nations didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Before last month’s strikes, Israel assessed that Iran could produce a crude nuclear device within a matter of months and construct a usable weapon within a year, the WSJ reported. Top Israeli officials said they thought the U.S. and Israeli military strikes had set back Tehran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon by up to two additional years, matching a recent Pentagon assessment, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ cited a senior Israeli official stating that Israel has concluded some of Tehran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade enriched uranium at Isfahan survived last month’s attacks and that with considerable effort Iran could recover some of the fissile material from that site. Tehran wouldn’t be able to retrieve the uranium from its two other nuclear sites at Natanz and Fordow because of the damage inflicted on those facilities by U.S. bunker-buster bombs, the official said, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Any effort by Iran to retrieve the uranium from Isfahan or revive the decimated nuclear program would be quickly detected by Israel, the senior Israeli official said, according to the WSJ.

“The Iranians are going to be extremely cautious,” said Dennis Ross, who served as a senior official on Middle East issues during Democratic and Republican administrations, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal. “They are going to take the threats the Israelis make very seriously.”

Israel can prevent Iran from sprinting toward a bomb in the short term, the senior Israeli official said, including by continuing covert operations targeting top Iranian nuclear scientists and other national leaders that already have inflicted major blows on Iran, the official said, per the WSJ report.

The danger for Trump is that Israel could effectively dictate the next moves against Iran, analysts said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“My sense is that Trump mostly wants the Iran problem to just go away,” said Gabriel Noronha, who worked on Iran policy at the State Department in the first Trump administration, as quoted in the WSJ. “He’s clear that there should be no enrichment or nuclear weapons. But he’s willing to be flexible on other things.

”Many experts think that if Iran does reconstitute its nuclear program, it won’t do so overtly through declared facilities but rather by using secret, underground enrichment sites to produce fissile material and to work on the technically complex aspects of building a weapon, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Israel has intelligence on where Tehran may secretly attempt to revive its nuclear work, the first senior Israeli official said, according to the WSJ. But Israel isn’t known to possess its own bunker-busting bombs that can penetrate deep underground where Iran often houses centrifuges and other nuclear facilities, the report noted.

No official date for formal talks between the U.S. and Iran has been set, and Western diplomats say Iran is still debating how to proceed, as per the Wall Street Journal.

The strikes almost certainly locked in the core Trump demand that Iran end its uranium-enrichment program as part of any deal, the WSJ reported. Washington might feel it has the military leverage to expand its goals, including by pressing Tehran to agree to tight limits on its missile program or cut ties with regional militias, according to the report.

“It was tough enough to achieve an agreement before the strikes. Now it will be tougher still,” said Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who was part of the U.S. team that negotiated with Iran under the Biden administration, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal. “Trump can’t back down on zero enrichment, and Iran will feel it can’t concede that as a result of being attacked.”

Iran’s move to suspend cooperation with the U.N. atomic agency needs to be addressed if Washington hopes to have long-term, on-the-ground monitoring of Iran’s enrichment and weaponization work, the WSJ reported. The two sides also need to agree how to identify and deal with Iran’s intact stockpile of enriched uranium, according to the report.

Iran’s missile attacks on Israel proved Tehran still poses significant offensive threats in the region, the Wall Street Journal noted.

Ali Vaez, Iran project director at conflict-resolution organization Crisis Group, says the group of Iranian officials arguing for serious diplomatic negotiations are in a minority following the attacks, per the WSJ. He says there is even greater mistrust of Trump and concern that he will change the goal posts for what Washington wants, and seeking a deal at any price—including one which would end Iran’s enrichment program—is unlikely, he said, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

European governments have reiterated their threat to reimpose sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal unless Iran cooperates with the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to the WSJ. An October deadline looms for Britain, France and Germany to decide whether to snap the old sanctions back in place, the report stated. Iran has said such a move could prompt them to withdraw from the nonproliferation treaty, which bars Tehran from working on a nuclear weapon, as per the Wall Street Journal.