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October 2025 – when the global sanctions snapback threat and limits from the 2015 nuclear deal on Tehran’s centrifuges expire – is just over the horizon.
By YONAH JEREMY BOB JANUARY 20, 2025 18:27
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting at the IRGC Aerospace Force achievements exhibition in Tehran, Iran November 19, 2023.
(photo credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS)
A new game of grand and climactic proportions regarding Iran and its nuclear program starts as President Donald Trump entered the White House again on Monday.
Top Israeli officials, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Defense Minister Israel Katz, to top IDF officials, have made a flood of statements to seemingly start the drumroll and countdown to a potential overt and dramatic Israeli air force attack on Iran's nuclear sites.
October 2025 – when the global sanctions snapback threat and limits from the 2015 nuclear deal on Tehran’s centrifuges expire – is just over the horizon.
There seems little question that sometime in the next eight or so months, and from the tone of Israeli officials’ public statements very possibly in the first half of 2025, there will be a faceoff, and possibly a judgment day.
Tehran's way forward
At some point in the near future, Trump, Israel, and other members of the West will likely reopen a path for the Islamic Republic to negotiate its way out of being attacked and out of sanctions if it majorly rewinds its nuclear program.
Based on the fact that the E-3 – England, German, and France – have already held multiple rounds of negotiations with Iran in recent months, including again last week, some kind of negotiations with Trump’s new approach to Iran injected into the process, seems like a foregone conclusion.
The big questions are: whether these negotiations have any chance of succeeding, how long Trump will let them run for before demanding concessions from Tehran, and who – whether just Israel or also the US – would attack Iran if the negotiations fail?
There is always also the possibility that the Mossad will be unleashed on Iran’s nuclear program in a more covert way, like it was accused of by the ayatollahs during the July 2020-June 2021 period. But that would simply be moving from diplomacy more in the direction of war by other means (as opposed to open war from the air force.)
Israeli public officials’ statements made by Netanyahu and the defense officials came after Israel destroyed most of the |Islamic Republic’s advanced air defense systems on October 26 in retaliation for a second direct massive ballistic missile attack by Tehran on the Jewish state on October 1.
A majority of the Israeli statements drew attention to the start vulnerability of Iran's nuclear sites should Israel or the US pull the trigger.
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Into this mix comes the latest report by Al Arabiya of a senior European diplomat saying Israel has already decided to strike Iran, and the only issue left to debate is the timing.
“We believe Israel has taken the decision to attack following the developments in the Middle East over the last several months,” he said.
Whether true or not, the European diplomat made a decision, likely in consultation with other key players, to make the public statement.
In other words, the negotiations with Iran in the Trump era have now begun.
Instead of the threats the Biden administration wielded against Iran: 1) possible condemnation at the IAEA, which happened three times during Biden’s four years; and 2) possibly referring the issue to the UN Security Council to active the global sanctions snapback – the E-3 negotiators will be telling Iran ‘cut a deal with us now or we will not be able to hold back Israel, and maybe Trump himself.’”
Such a viable military threat has been missing the last several years and has been a large reason why neither the Trump administration in the later years of its first term, nor the Biden administration, succeeded at getting much in terms of concessions from Oran.
Rewinding back in time to the 2010-2012 period, one reason that Iran agreed to sizable concessions in the 2015 deal, was because the whole world, even China and Russia were united against it regarding sanctions.
This time it is far less likely that China and Russia will truly put pressure on Tehran, given how much their alliance has grown and how much more disconnected they are from the West than 13-15 years ago.
However, a second and possibly even larger reason that the Islamic Republic cut a deal in 2015 was it really believed Israel was ready to attack.
Netanyahu gave ultimatums in famous UN speeches and the US under Obama started telling the Iranians that they could not guarantee holding back the “crazy Israelis.”
This theme is now back and with a vengeance. Iran had fewer facilities and was less advanced in the 2010-2012 period. But after October 26’s Israeli air force attack on Iran along with its April 19 attack and five attacks on Yemen’s Houthis, the ability and confidence of the air force to pull off an attack on the nuclear facilities is at an all-time high far exceeding the 2010-2012 period.
If Trump gives or even talks publicly about giving Israel bunker buster bombs, the pressure on Iran will hit the roof.
This may finally set the conditions for a better nuclear deal.
Alternatively, Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly miscalculated with overconfidence throughout this was and he may do so again.
After over 20 years of nuclear negotiations and various deals and understandings, this could finally lead to an actual attack on Iran’s nuclear program and a short but extremely dangerous mini-war between Israel and Iran that everyone has sought to avoid until now.
Hoping to avoid these darker scenarios, European diplomats are trying to get the hint out early to Khamenei.
Now it remains to be seen if he takes the hint.
English (US) ·