Europe
Live updates: Israel attacks Iran nuclear sites, Tehran retaliation, US position
Israel’s attack on Iran is unlikely to push Iran toward a weakened position at the negotiating table on nuclear talks, Iran experts said, adding that it is more likely to trigger a war the Trump administration has sought to avoid.
“It is difficult to believe that Israel would and could have attacked at this scale without US knowledge and green light,” US foreign policy expert and former US State Department adviser Vali Nasr said on X.
US President Donald Trump “may have calculated this will soften Iran’s position, but just as he was wrong that maximum pressure will bring Iran to the table he will (be) proven wrong that Israeli attack could give him a diplomatic win,” he said.
Nasr added: “He may end up getting the war that he and the MAGA base have said they don’t want.”
Washington has long sought to limit Tehran’s nuclear capacity, with the most recent negotiations in Rome last month ending with no agreement. A sixth round of US-Iran talks had been scheduled for Sunday in Oman — and it’s not clear if it will go ahead.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute in Washington, DC, said today’s strikes were “not a pre-emptive attack on Iran alone,” but rather Israel “seeking to kill Trump and America’s chance to secure a deal with Iran that prevents” Iran from building nuclear weapons.
Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group’s Iran project director, said that Israel’s attack likely “blew up Trump’s diplomacy with Iran.”
“What Trump does next could determine whether his presidency will be consumed by another war in the Middle East or not,” he said.
Vaez added that Israel’s strikes have opened the door to further suffering on both sides.