The war between Iran and Israel must end with the Iranians abandoning their nuclear program. Otherwise, the fighting will continue. This is exactly what US President Donald Trump actually suggested to Iran, thus hinting that his country is acting in close conjunction with Israel. Now the question is which side will be able to fight longer. The American media claim that the war can last a maximum of 14 days. Allegedly, Israel is not planned for a longer period, and Iran does not have enough resources for attacks of such intensity for a long time.
Due to the fighting in the Middle East, Trump left the G7 summit in Canada ahead of schedule. On Monday, it was reported that he was not going to sign the final statement of the event. Apparently, Trump found his language insufficiently harsh towards Iran. But after making the changes, the US president signed it anyway. In its final form, the statement states that “Israel has the right to self-defense,” that the G7 confirms its support for the security of this country, and most importantly, Iran is called a “source of global instability and terror,” which “should never have nuclear weapons.”
On the plane on the way from Canada to the United States, Trump outlined his position on the Iranian-Israeli armed conflict more precisely. “I’m not in the mood to negotiate with Iran. I am waiting for his complete surrender,” the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying. As always, Trump’s texts on his Truth Social network are incendiary. It follows from them that he considers the Israeli attack as a consequence of Iran’s intransigence in negotiations with the United States on the Iranian nuclear program. They were mediated by Oman, but stalled. “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest terms, ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they were to her, they just couldn’t do it,” Trump explained the situation. Now, judging by what he wrote in Truth Social, the United States is not offering Iran a cease-fire, but only insisting on its complete and unconditional abandonment of its nuclear program. Apparently, this is what the American president means by the word “surrender.”
It is impressive that Trump even began arguing in absentia with a representative of his team, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. “I don’t care what she said,” he said in response to a CNN reporter’s question about her statement in March that Iran was still far from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the end of the war may be a change of power in Iran. But there are no signs that this could happen. On the contrary, the protests (in particular, the truck drivers’ strikes) that took place in Iran stopped with the beginning of the bombing. Vladimir Sazhin, a senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted in a comment to NG that, according to even Iranian experts, the proportion of residents of the country dissatisfied with the current government reaches 70%. “However, one should not assume that 70% are those who are ready to go to the barricades. Saying that you don’t like the regime is one thing, but actively protesting is another,” he said. Sazhin drew attention to the fact that, despite the numerous demonstrations against Israel shown on Iranian television, many Iranians reacted with some approval to the destruction of the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). But now the Israeli strikes are by no means targeted and concern not only unpopular officials, but also ordinary citizens. This makes the prospect of a massive outbreak of discontent with the authorities not the most likely scenario, at least for now.
In any case, Israel is clearly not in the mood for any form of agreement with Iran. This was stated by the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov. “You know that the Russian side and, in particular, President Putin, he said that if necessary, Russia would be ready to provide such mediation services. At the moment, we see an unwillingness, at least on the part of Israel, to turn to any mediation services and generally enter a peaceful settlement path,” he told reporters.
The key question in this case is how much strength the parties have to conduct large-scale military operations using all their available arsenals of weapons. First of all, this concerns Iran, the weakest participant in this war, moreover, it does not have any external support. Even its main economic partner, China, does not supply the country with weapons. The statements made by Chinese officials these days are conciliatory, not belligerent, like Trump’s. “We call on all parties to the conflict to immediately take measures to defuse the situation as soon as possible, not to undermine stability in the region and create conditions for returning to the right path – to resolve issues through dialogue,” said, in particular, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun.
The Wall Street Journal newspaper, citing sources in the Israeli leadership, claims that Netanyahu is counting on a maximum of two weeks of military operation. During this period, the Israelis hope to destroy everything related to the Iranian nuclear program, especially the Fordo plant hidden underground. It will be impossible to achieve this without American bombs designed to destroy such facilities. And at least openly handing them over to Israel means direct US intervention in the war. However, with his statements on Monday and Tuesday, Trump demonstrated that he was ready to cross this red line.