This article is published as part of the Perry World House workshop “U.S.-Iran Relations Under Trump 2.0: Lessons Learned and Likely Scenarios.”
Possibly the most significant and damaging misreading of U.S.-Iran relations over the past two decades has been Washington’s fixation on Iran’s nuclear program. The disagreement between the United States and Tehran is not, at its core, a nuclear disagreement, and never has been. If President Trump is savvy, he will recognize this fact and seek a broader realignment of U.S.-Iran relations in 2025—an outcome that is not as far-fetched as might initially appear.
I believe 2025 will prove to be a critical year for the U.S.-Iran relationship—possibly even a ‘make-or-break’ year. To understand why, though, we have to first understand the evolution of Iran’s nuclear program over the past few decades.
The biggest unresolved question on the Iranian nuclear program comes from the 1990s and early 2000s. Since 2003, Iran has verifiably suspended the military dimensions of its program, and there has been an unprecedented amount of ‘eyes’ on its program, from across the international community, both in the form of espionage and formal International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, to ensure this remains the case. Moreover, at least until recently, there does not seem to have been any political will in Iran to rush for a nuclear weapon—despite the fact that the country clearly possesses the technical ability to do this if it wanted to.
There is a tendency in the United States to see all of Iran’s actions through the lens of its relationship with the United States and the western powers. So in 2003, when Iran voluntarily suspended its program, the debate here was largely over whether it made this choice in response to pressure and military threats from the Bush administration or in response to diplomacy from the European powers—without acknowledging that Iran probably felt relief in 2003 that its arch-enemy Saddam Hussein had been neutralized and thus felt less need for a militarized nuclear program.
Whatever the case, in 2003 Iran had a grand total of 167 first-generation nuclear centrifuges. Though this was a significant issue for the IAEA to address, it never needed to become the international crisis that it was turned into by the Bush administration from 2003 to 2009. In 2005, after just a few months of negotiations, the Europeans achieved an important breakthrough with Iran and a verifiable suspension in its nuclear program—only to have their efforts dismissed by a hawkish Washington. This, in turn, provoked a colossal self-fulfilling cycle, in which Tehran and Washington kept raising the stakes. And the result, today, is an Iranian nuclear program that has gone far beyond the capacity that it had 20 years ago.
From 2003 to 2015, as Iran found itself more and more in the crosshairs of the United States, Israel, and the P5+1 negotiating group, and especially as it recognized that the Obama administration was keen on finding a resolution to the ‘crisis’, the country’s leadership began espousing a more maximalist approach to its nuclear program—ramping up enrichment and upgrading to newer, and larger numbers of, uranium centrifuges, in part (though not entirely) as a form of leverage. For those paying close attention, however, it was clear that Iran consistently maintained its political decision not to pursue a nuclear weapon. Most likely, this was because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continued to believe that Iran’s best option was to stay within the rules of international law and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), rather than to take the ‘North Korea option’ of withdrawing from the NPT and racing for a bomb. Fundamentally, the calculation in Iran over the past two decades has been that the country is better served by nuclear ambiguity than any kind of rush for a bomb—which would have invited massive international attention and probably a U.S. military invasion.
Now, though, things are changing. For the first time, for a wide array of reasons, Iran finds itself in a position where it is not clear that nuclear ambiguity is the best national security policy. More and more hardline voices in Iran can be heard musing why the country has even bothered with the NPT or the legalistic approach, given that it has gained nothing in terms of international legitimacy or relief from (especially) U.S. sanctions. In the coming months, this could increasingly foster a ‘might as well go for it’ approach to the nuclear program. After all, if Iran has come this far, and a bomb is so easily within reach, it is easy for hardliners to make the case that Iran would simply be foolish not to take the final steps across the finish line.
Moreover, the regional tensions in the Middle East over the past year and a half have fundamentally altered Iran’s security landscape. Increasingly, as Israel has encircled and neutered many of Iran’s allies in the region, and overt military skirmishes have taken place between the two countries, Iran finds itself with less and less reason not to build a bomb—a situation radically different from the one that pertained two or three years ago.
The most unpredictable element in all of this, of course, is the new U.S. president. Donald Trump’s instincts appear to lean away from starting wars overseas—and it is much less clear today than it was a few years ago that if Iran raced for a bomb, the United States would necessarily carry out a military invasion. Iran knows this and might feel tempted to seize its moment—particularly if the United States seems distracted by some other urgent international crisis.
Having said all that, Trump also clearly wants a deal with Iran, which he could tout as being better and more durable than the one Obama did in 2015—and, in the (almost certain) event that he’s not able to get one, he might feel more tempted to inflict a military strike on Iran, even if only to avoid the appearance of incompetence or ineffectiveness.
All of this adds up to one of the most dangerous landscapes in U.S.-Iran relations in decades. A meaningful new nuclear deal with Iran is almost impossible to achieve, following Trump’s precipitous withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 and the considerable advancements in Iran’s program since then. U.S. deterrence and decision-making are more erratic than ever. Military strikes on Iran are unlikely to accomplish much in the way of setting back the country’s nuclear program—and are likely to precipitate even greater regional turmoil. And Iran seems less reticent than ever about crossing the nuclear threshold if it perceives its back to be against the wall.
With all these factors in confluence, it is hard to imagine emerging from 2025 without some major new turning-point in the U.S.-Iran relationship. The only question is: will this be a landmark diplomatic deal? A war? Or something else entirely?
