In April 2024, during a meeting of G7 foreign ministers on the Italian island of Capri, the then Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba put a provocative question to his Western counterparts. Days earlier, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other allies had helped intercept drones and missiles launched by Iran at Israel, demonstrating a level of military intervention capability that Ukraine had been asking for for more than two years in the face of Russian attacks. According to a diplomatic source familiar with that meeting, Kuleba asked why Kiev’s allies had never done the same to protect Ukrainian cities. He reminded them that Western governments had described the Russian invasion as an existential threat to European security, yet they resisted intervening directly against Moscow’s missiles and drones. The difference proved particularly hard to explain because Israel’s defense had just shown that Western powers possessed the military means to carry out such an operation. The comparison was still more painful given that Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself against those kinds of attacks on its own.
“Western governments described the Russian invasion as an existential threat to European security, but they resisted intervening directly against Moscow’s missiles and drones.”
The ultimate reason, therefore, was to display unequivocal political support. The comparison did not erase the strategic differences between the two wars, but it laid bare a political reality: Israel occupied an exceptional position within the Western security framework. Kuleba himself wondered whether the difference lay in Russia having nuclear weapons and Iran not having them. “If that is the case,” he told the G7 ministers, “I can assure you that Iran will not have them for long.”
That meeting also revealed something about Iran. For decades, the Islamic Republic had built its security strategy on the belief that it could deter Israel through a combination of missiles, allied organizations, and threats of regional retaliation. Yet the April attack demonstrated that Israel possessed an international protection network capable of neutralizing a substantial portion of the Iranian offensive. Tehran had discovered that its adversaries could act in concert and that its own deterrent capacity was not as effective as it had assumed. The reflection that Kuleba had voiced aloud carried an additional dimension for Iranian officials: Russia possessed nuclear weapons, while Iran did not. That difference fed a debate that had been present for years in Iranian security circles about the limits of its military strategy.
Two years and a half later, the United States and Israel face a different problem. Iran has suffered an extraordinary military and economic weakening, but the regime remains resistant and retains instruments to threaten regional stability. Donald Trump arrived at the midterm elections of November 3 with a war whose economic consequences affect Americans, while Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to form a government after elections that left his bloc with 53 seats, eight short of the majority needed to control the Knesset. Both leaders agree on the need to prevent Iran from regaining its military and nuclear capacities, but it is not clear that they share the same political objective. For Trump, a weakened and willing-to-negotiate Iran could represent a sufficient victory; for Netanyahu, the disappearance of Iran’s capacity to threaten Israel for generations could justify a much longer period of pressure. That strategic difference, still restrained by the alliance between the two countries, could become the main problem of the next phase.
To understand how this situation has come about, Agenda Pública has reconstructed the evolution of the nuclear negotiations with diplomatic sources who participated directly in them and maintained high-level contacts with Iranian and American authorities. Their testimonies allow examining the miscalculations that contributed to the failure to restore the nuclear deal in 2022, the divisions within the Iranian regime, and the different conceptions of the regional order that American administrations have advocated. They also offer an unusual perspective on Spain’s and the European Union’s role in negotiations that constituted one of the main successes of European diplomacy. The account combines firsthand, intimate episodes, strategic interpretations, and information received from other actors—levels that deserve distinction. Their principal contribution is to show that the Iranian problem was never solely nuclear: it was also a contest over the regime’s survival, Israel’s security, and the distribution of power in the Middle East.
The Lost Opportunity of 2022
In August 2022, after months of negotiations in Vienna, European diplomacy believed it had managed to recover the nuclear agreement with Iran. The proposal was nearly final, and the United States had accepted a formula that would allow a return to the pact abandoned by Trump four years earlier. Iranian negotiators had also signaled that they could accept it, although Tehran’s political authorities’ final approval remained necessary. But, according to our sources’ reconstruction, a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council altered the outcome and the authorities demanded two additional modifications to the text agreed in Vienna. They were not two small refinements to the text for Tehran; they were two amendments that destroyed the document’s balance completely.
Obviously, Washington considered them unacceptable. In other words, Tehran was not prepared for an agreement at that moment. The negotiations were blocked just when they seemed closest to concluding successfully. That decision does not by itself explain the subsequent war, but it helps explain how a chance to rebuild the diplomatic mechanisms that had limited confrontation for years disappeared. One European interlocutor later offered a revealing explanation of how the Islamic Republic operates. According to that account, a portion of Iran’s leadership was convinced that Trump would return to the White House and would break any commitment reached with the United States again. Preferring to forego immediate economic gains rather than exposing itself to another American withdrawal and political humiliation.
The memory of 2018, when Trump unilaterally abandoned the nuclear deal, had undermined much of the trust that Iranians could place in Washington’s commitments. Joe Biden could promise the lifting of certain sanctions, but not guarantee that his successor would maintain that policy. The negotiation had reached a point where political distrust outweighed the technical terms of the agreement.
“The negotiation had reached a point where political distrust outweighed the technical terms of the agreement.”
In reality, the Iranian calculation ended up contributing to the very scenario it sought to avoid. Trump effectively returned to the White House, but found an Islamic Republic far weaker than in 2022. The network of Iranian regional allies had suffered substantial damage as a result of the Israeli attacks after October 7, the economy faced fresh hurdles, and social discontent had eroded the regime’s legitimacy.
The decision not to accept the agreement did not automatically trigger these events, but it deprived Tehran of a mechanism that could have reduced tensions with the West. It also weakened Iranian factions that favored pursuing a negotiated path and strengthened those who argued that the United States would never honor its commitments. The result was a dangerously compounded scenario: less diplomatic trust, greater military pressure, and a power structure increasingly dependent on its security sectors.
Javier Solana and Europe’s Prominence in the Nuclear Negotiations
The story of European diplomacy with Iran began long before the 2015 agreement. In 2003, reports of undeclared Iranian nuclear activities led France, Germany, and the United Kingdom to begin talks with Tehran. The three governments quickly understood that any effective sanctions policy needed to encompass the European Union as a whole, because trade ties between Iran and several European countries remained important. Germany, Italy, and France maintained industrial and commercial links with the Islamic Republic, and European companies sold cars, machinery, and manufactured goods in a market that still had meaningful international connections. Without Brussels’ involvement, economic restrictions would have limited reach, and the Iranians could exploit differences among member states. The nuclear negotiations thus became a European matter not only for security reasons but also because of the need to coordinate the instruments of economic pressure.
Javier Solana, then High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, became the interlocutor who could bring Europeans together and act with Iranian authorities. His background as Secretary General of NATO and his personal relationships with the leading Western officials gave him a credibility particularly useful in negotiations of that kind.
Solana knew the leaders of the great powers, and they trusted him, a circumstance that allowed discreet discussions even when official relations were strained. Personal trust was one of the main resources of that negotiating architecture. Diplomacy did not operate solely through documents, sanctions, and public statements, but also thanks to people able to speak with interlocutors who distrusted one another deeply. That combination of experience, political authority, and personal knowledge enabled the European Union to exert influence far beyond its military capacity.
“That combination of experience, political authority, and personal knowledge allowed the European Union to exert influence far beyond its military capacity.”
The role subsequently passed to Catherine Ashton, Federica Mogherini, and Josep Borrell, although political conditions changed. The EU acted as the coordinator of negotiations between Iran and the major powers, but the decisive terms ultimately depended on Washington and Tehran. On occasions, substantial progress occurred through discreet bilateral contacts, while Brussels took on the task of turning them into acceptable multilateral commitments.
That position might have seemed subordinate, but it proved indispensable when the two main parties were not willing to negotiate openly. The European influence lay precisely in offering a channel that allowed ongoing dialogue even in moments of maximum distrust. It was a form of diplomatic power that depended less on force than on the usefulness that other actors attributed to European mediation.
Obama Wanted to Trim His Footprint in the Middle East; Trump Wanted to Reorder It
The 2015 nuclear deal responded to a U.S. strategy that extended beyond Iran. Barack Obama believed that the United States should gradually reduce its involvement in the Middle East to redirect more political and military resources toward Asia, especially in light of China’s rise. But that withdrawal required ensuring Israel’s security and preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons—two conditions Washington considered essential to avoiding a new regional war. The deal known as the JCPOA sought to set verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program and create inspection mechanisms that reduced the risk of military confrontation. It did not aim to turn the Islamic Republic into a democracy or to resolve all regional conflicts. Its objective was to manage a concrete threat through a commitment that would allow the United States to reduce its strategic exposure. It also gave Europe a relevant role in the deal’s architecture and hence the EU position as mediator and facilitator in the negotiations of 2021 and 2022.
The strategy contained a contradiction that the Gulf monarchies identified immediately. An Iran freed from some sanctions could recover economic resources and use them to bolster its regional influence, especially through allied armed organizations. Saudi Arabia and its neighbors feared that the agreement would resolve a U.S. concern while increasing their own insecurity.
The Western expectation that economic integration would help moderate Iran’s behavior did not convince those who had faced Tehran for decades. The subsequent experience of Western relations with Russia and China reinforced doubts about the idea that economic growth and trade integration necessarily lead to political moderation. The problem was not only how much uranium Iran could enrich, but what it would do with the resources and international legitimacy it would recover thanks to the agreement.
“The problem was not only how much uranium Iran could enrich, but what it would do with the resources and international legitimacy it would recover thanks to the agreement.”
Trump arrived in the White House with a different view of the regional order. Instead of managing the balance among Iran, Israel, and the Arab monarchies through diplomatic commitments, he bet on strengthening Israel’s position and building a network of political and economic ties between the Jewish state and the Arab world. The Abraham Accords were the most visible expression of that orientation, which aimed to turn Israel into a central military and technological power for regional security.
Normalizing relations should offer economic incentives to Arab governments and gradually reduce Israel’s isolation. Iran would be weakened and have less capacity to influence its neighbors’ decisions. The problem with such an architecture was that it depended on Tehran’s acceptance of its loss of influence without preserving sufficient tools to destabilize the region.
The Regime That Weakens Without Falling
For decades, Iran had developed a strategy known as forward defense, based on building a network of allied organizations capable of keeping opponents away from its borders. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and various militias in Iraq and Syria formed part of that framework, though their relations with Tehran were not identical. The logic was to raise the cost of any attack on Iranian territory by threatening to open multiple fronts simultaneously. But on October 7, 2023, a fundamental vulnerability became evident: the organizations backed by Iran had their own interests and could make decisions that compromised the regime’s security.
Israel’s response to the Hamas attack allowed Netanyahu to progressively widen the confrontation against different components of the Iranian network. What had been conceived as a system of deterrence began to become a source of strategic exposure. The military crisis coincided with an economic deterioration that had been eroding the Iranian state’s capacity for years. U.S. sanctions hindered access to foreign currency and increased pressure on the commercial and financial circuits linking Iran with intermediaries in the United Arab Emirates and other countries. Among former diplomats there is a hypothesis that the United States has improved the identification of these networks through advanced data analysis and artificial intelligence.
Financial restrictions reduce the availability of dollars, put pressure on the national currency, and raise the cost of imports. Inflation and the loss of purchasing power have contributed to fueling social discontent in a society that already carried deep tensions with the religious authorities. Economic pressure does not act in isolation but magnifies a legitimacy crisis that has repeatedly manifested itself on Iranian streets.
“The economic pressure does not act in isolation, but magnifies a legitimacy crisis that has repeatedly manifested itself on Iranian streets.”
The protests sparked after Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022 showed how much a significant portion of society rejected the regime’s religious and political impositions. Diplomats who had regularly traveled to Tehran observed years of social changes that authorities seemed unable to understand, especially among young people and women.
But there is a fundamental difference between social rejection of the regime and the capacity to replace it with a stable political system. The Revolutionary Guards maintain a military, economic, and territorial structure that could play a decisive role in the event of the regime’s leadership’s eventual disintegration. After Ali Khamenei’s death in the attacks of February 28, 2026, Mojtaba was named supreme leader on March 8, with the backing of the Revolutionary Guards.
A crisis of the Islamic Republic could lead to an authoritarian reorganization of power in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards’ military sectors, not necessarily to democratization. This possibility deeply complicates the calculations of those who believe military and economic pressure can produce a political change favorable to the West.
The Bomb Problem and the Logic of Deterrence
The nuclear question introduces an additional difficulty because the gap between possessing highly enriched uranium and having an operational nuclear weapon cannot be reduced to a matter of weeks. Manufacturing a weapon requires passing through several technical stages, from obtaining fissile material to the design and integration of a device capable of functioning as a weapon. The possibility of mounting it on a delivery system adds new requirements, and the real capabilities of a program cannot be assessed solely by the amount of enriched uranium. The negotiations of the nuclear deal confronted precisely the evolution of Iran’s technology and the emergence of centrifuges with capabilities far beyond those initially contemplated in the 2015 pact.
Negotiators had to establish complex technical equivalences to determine which facilities could stay operational and under what conditions. The problem was to guarantee that the constraints would be verifiable and remain effective despite advances in the Iranian program. Attacks on nuclear facilities do not automatically prove that Iran has lost the capacity to rebuild its program. The destruction of buildings and infrastructure does not necessarily mean the elimination of the knowledge, materials, and human resources necessary to resume certain activities. The consulted diplomatic source believes it possible that the military offensive reinforced among regime factions the belief that only the effective possession of nuclear weapons can guarantee its survival.
It is a strategic interpretation, not an Iranian decision confirmed, but it responds to a logic recognizable in other international conflicts. North Korea has preserved its regime while developing a nuclear arsenal, while other states lacking such capacity have been subject to military interventions. The pressure aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining the bomb could therefore increase incentives for some leaders to try to acquire it.
The Gulf’s Most Worrisome Scenario
Possible outcomes of the war can be grouped into three broad scenarios. The first is the survival of an Islamic Republic deeply weakened, without the capacity to rebuild its nuclear program or project regional power. Israel and the United States could present that outcome as a victory, even if the regime continued to govern Tehran and retained part of its security structures. The second scenario is the collapse of the Iranian state, which could remove one of Israel’s main strategic adversaries for years, but trigger an extraordinarily difficult regional crisis. Iran has more than 90 million people, significant national minorities, large energy reserves, and deeply embedded military organizations across the territory. Its disintegration could reproduce some of the problems that followed Saddam Hussein’s fall in Iraq, but on a considerably larger scale.
“Its disintegration could reproduce some of the problems that followed Saddam Hussein’s fall in Iraq, but on a considerably larger scale.”
The third scenario would be a leadership change that would allow negotiating a new balance with Washington. Not necessarily a democratization, which cannot be ruled out given Iranian society’s educational level, but the rise to power of leaders willing to curb Iran’s regional ambitions and accept economic and security deals. This possibility seems more aligned with a transactional interpretation of Trump’s foreign policy, which could consider enough to merely modify the regime’s international behavior without reconstructing the state. But Iran is not Venezuela, and the Revolutionary Guards combine economic, ideological, and military interests that make any pact-drafting reorganization deeply difficult. Moreover, the confrontation with the United States and Israel has a historical and nationalist dimension that makes negotiation presented as a capitulation especially costly. The weaker the regime becomes, the more it may rely on the sectors least inclined to make concessions.
Netanyahu, the Evangelicals, and Israel’s Power in Washington
The relationship between the United States and Israel cannot be understood solely through military cooperation. During the first Trump Administration, Mike Pence played a prominent role in an alliance that also rested on religious convictions deeply rooted in segments of the Republican electorate. The Spanish diplomatic source recalls an episode during an international Iran conference held in Warsaw, where Pence delivered a speech about the Iranian threat and the need to protect Israel. At one point, according to his recollection, the vice president departed from his prepared text and explicitly invoked the authority of the Scriptures to justify his stance. For some European representatives, used to interpreting the conflict through legal and strategic categories, that intervention was perplexing. The scene illustrated how American policy toward Israel could also respond to religious beliefs that have no direct analogue in European diplomacy.
The weight of conservative evangelicalism helps explain why support for Israel holds a singular position within the Republican Party. For a portion of that electorate, the existence and security of the Jewish state have a religious dimension that transcends traditional foreign policy interests. That does not mean there is a homogeneous position among American Jews, evangelicals, or Republican leaders, nor that Israeli influence can be attributed to a single organization.
Differences within American society are important, and support for Israel has become an increasingly contested issue, especially among Democrats. Trump must manage factions favoring a maximally pressure-based policy against Iran and others who resist new prolonged military interventions. The contradiction emerges when political solidarity with Netanyahu collides with the promise to avoid another endless war in the Middle East.
“The contradiction emerges when political solidarity with Netanyahu collides with the promise to avoid another endless war in the Middle East.”
The Israeli elections of October 27 introduced a new variable in that relationship. Netanyahu won the elections, but his bloc does not have a sufficient majority to form a government with his traditional allies, and his opponents do not have a straightforward parliamentary formula to replace him either. Before October 7, the prime minister faced strong opposition to his judicial reform and was entangled in corruption probes, while the war radically changed the political agenda by placing national security at the center of the debate. A new offensive against Iran could once again reinforce that centrality. Yet Israel may find it prudent to maintain prolonged military pressure on Iran, while the United States needs to assess how far that pressure remains aligned with its own interests.
Germany, Spain, and Europe’s Powerlessness
Israel’s influence over Western decision-making extends beyond the United States, though in Europe it operates through different mechanisms. Germany occupies a central position due to its historical responsibility stemming from the Holocaust and its commitment to Israeli security that spans much of its political system. The sources consulted say that after October 7, German support extended to concrete government decisions by Netanyahu that caused strong disagreements among European diplomats. Their testimonies describe especially tense discussions about the Gaza war and the treatment of the Palestinian civilian population, to the point of revealing deep differences about the limits of solidarity with Israel. But the episode reflects a structural difficulty: the EU has trouble building a common policy toward the Middle East when Germany and other member states start from very different conceptions of Europe’s obligations to Israel.
Spain represents a different position within that debate. Its diplomacy has traditionally advocated greater attention to the Palestinian issue and has tried to maintain relations with the various actors in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. However, Madrid’s ability to shift the regional balance on its own is limited, even when its positions find support in other European governments.
A coalition of countries willing to act together would also have difficulties if Germany maintained positions incompatible with those of its partners. The result is that Europe can make statements, develop economic relations, and participate in diplomatic mechanisms, but encounters obstacles when using tools of pressure capable of altering the decisions of the main players. The experience of nuclear negotiations shows that European influence was greater when Washington and Tehran needed an intermediary than when military confrontation began to dominate their strategies.
“The experience of the nuclear negotiations showed that European influence was greater when Washington and Tehran needed an intermediary than when military confrontation began to dominate their strategies.”
The situation is complex because Europe bears a significant portion of the war’s economic consequences. The energy crisis affects industrial competitiveness, prices, and the budgetary stability of member states, while a prolongation of hostilities could increase migration pressure and destabilize countries with which the EU maintains strategic relations.
For years, European diplomats knew Iran’s negotiators personally and developed a technical and political expertise that few powers could match. Today, however, this knowledge does not automatically translate into the ability to condition decisions by Washington, Jerusalem, or Tehran. The European Union remains a relevant economic power, but its diplomatic influence wanes when the major players believe they can achieve better results through force. The contrast between the Europe that negotiated the nuclear deal and the Europe observing the current war represents one of the major transformations in international politics of the last decade.
The Price of War in the U.S. Elections
For Trump, the main difficulty is not demonstrating American military superiority but turning that superiority into a political result he can present to his voters. The Strait of Hormuz is one of Iran’s principal levers of pressure on the world economy because threats to maritime traffic and Gulf energy infrastructures reverberate in oil and gas prices. The Houthi offensive in Yemen adds risks to another of the major international trade routes and expands the economic consequences of the confrontation. Iran’s ability to prolong those disruptions does not depend on defeating the U.S. armed forces, but on maintaining enough means to threaten ships, facilities, and supply routes.
That asymmetry allows Tehran to raise the cost of war even when it loses successive military engagements. The United States can destroy facilities and reduce strategic capacities without forcing the Islamic Republic to accept the political terms necessary to end the conflict.
“The United States can destroy facilities and reduce strategic capacities without forcing the Islamic Republic to accept the political terms necessary to end the conflict.”
Diplomatic sources believe that financial markets and higher energy prices can condition Trump’s decisions more than traditional diplomatic objections. A significant stock market drop would directly affect the wealth of many American households and the economic expectations of a portion of his electorate, while higher fuel costs would have visible consequences on the cost of living.
In a midterm election in which the entire House of Representatives and part of the Senate were up for election, that cost took on an immediate political dimension. The Democratic victory in both chambers of Congress will complicate Trump’s agenda and strengthen parliamentary oversight of his administration from January 2027.
Trump needs a victory he can explain, but it is unclear that the outcome that would allow Washington to declare the war over aligns with what Netanyahu considers sufficient to ensure Israel’s security. The alliance between the two countries may remain militarily intact while showing growing differences about when to end the confrontation.
The War No One Knows How to End
The Islamic Republic possesses a survival strategy that does not require defeating any of its adversaries militarily. It suffices to maintain the capacity to resist, keep some pressure on energy routes, and raise the costs of war until Washington deems it more advantageous to negotiate than to continue attacking. For the United States, an agreement that limits Iranian capabilities and stabilizes the markets could be a acceptable victory.
For Israel, the same agreement could represent only a pause during which Tehran would attempt to rebuild its military power and recover some regional influence. That difference explains why sharing a common enemy does not necessarily equate to sharing a postwar strategy. It also helps explain why the true difficulty of the war is not about who has the greater military power, but about determining what political outcome may be considered sufficient.
The U.S. and Israeli elections will not by themselves decide Iran’s future, but they will condition the maneuvering space of the two leaders who have driven the confrontation. Trump faces a contradiction between his desire to project strength and his promise not to repeat his predecessors’ endless interventions, while Netanyahu needs to preserve Israel’s strategic superiority in a political system that remains short of a stable majority.
Europe has an interest in preventing both a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic and a disintegrated Iranian state that could destabilize the whole region, but it has fewer tools than ever to influence the outcome. In August 2022, a diplomatic proposal nearly became an agreement before Tehran’s political calculations thwarted the operation.
Today, after years of deterioration and confrontation, recovering a formula like that would be far more difficult. The war has shown that Israel and the United States can destroy much of Iran’s military capabilities, but they have not yet demonstrated their ability to turn that superiority into a stable regional order.
“The war has shown that Israel and the United States can destroy much of Iran’s military capabilities, but they have not yet demonstrated their ability to turn that superiority into a stable regional order.”
The question looming over Washington and Jerusalem is, therefore, who will be able to end the war and on what terms. Netanyahu may consider that any agreement allowing the Islamic Republic to endure leaves room for a future threat, while Trump must assess how much he is willing to pay to gain a victory he can present as definitive.
Meanwhile, Iranian leaders may interpret endurance of the regime as already a sufficient result against two militarily superior adversaries. The experience of nuclear negotiations shows that even when there is a technically viable formula, political calculations can prevent an agreement from being reached.
The 2022 failure left Iran without a diplomatic exit that could have reduced its isolation, and the current war threatens to eliminate the interlocutors capable of negotiating another. That is the paradox that may end up defining the conflict: the closer the United States and Israel get to a military victory, the harder it may be to find someone willing to bargain for peace.
