After over a month of mounting tensions, an unprecedented buildup of American forces, Israel’s accelerated defensive and offensive preparations, and a steady rise in threats and rhetoric from every direction, the region crossed into a new and uncertain phase.
With protest voices in Iran fading and diplomatic channels reopening, the United States and Iran were in indirect negotiations with the help of regional mediators. We now know what the round yielded. Each side had been broadcasting carefully crafted messages that in truth revealed little about what happened behind closed doors.
Yet the very fact that the dialogue continued until just hours before the strikes suggested that, beneath the public posturing, there was indeed something real at stake.
Trump’s goals and Middle Eastern realities
US President Donald Trump entered the Iranian crisis at a time of mass protests that ended with the regime and its agents killing tens of thousands of civilians, punctuated by his declaration that “help is on the way.”
Over the past year, Trump has learned that Middle Eastern affairs rarely unfold with the sharp, decisive moves and immediate results he prefers.
He saw this in the campaign against the Houthis, which, although it was formally concluded with a “ceasefire” after they accepted his conditions, such a description does not fully match the reality on the ground.
Trump is also seeing it in Gaza, where the announced end of the war and the rollout of a 20‑point reconstruction plan have yet to deliver core objectives: Hamas remains far from disarmed, and the establishment of an international force is still distant.
He saw it as well in his efforts to advance normalization between Israel and its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and Syria, which have produced limited progress.
Yet alongside these frustrations, Trump has also secured notable achievements: the release and return of all the hostages, the formal end of the war, the maintenance of the ceasefire in Lebanon, US participation in Israel’s 12‑Day War against Iran on June 25 with Operation Midnight Hammer, and the declaration of the “destruction of nuclear capability.”
Iran-regional power and regional destabilizer
Iran has long been and remains a central factor in questions of Middle Eastern stability and in efforts to advance peace and normalization throughout the region. It is also a primary driver of regional instability, through its support for proxy organizations across the Middle East and beyond (including as far afield as Venezuela) and through its pursuit of nuclear capabilities and long‑range ground‑to‑ground missiles with ranges reaching up to 5,000 kilometers.
Against this backdrop, the same President Trump who has repeatedly declared the “destruction of Iran’s nuclear project” now finds himself entering negotiations with Tehran over that very issue.
Iran enters this stage of tension at its weakest point since the 1979 revolution. Israel’s 12‑Day War (also known as Operation Rising Lion) exposed both its vulnerabilities and the fragility of the regional system it has spent decades constructing.
This comes after months of widespread, violent protests; economic sanctions that have severely constrained the functioning of the state and the daily lives of its citizens; and now the reality of having drawn the US into leading a coordinated campaign against it. Washington has deployed a significant, credible, and immediately accessible military threat, one unlike anything Iran has faced before.
Shared threats, diverging priorities
Negotiations between the United States and Iran may have exposed the underlying disagreements and conflicting priorities between Washington and Jerusalem.
During Trump’s first term, Jerusalem worked to undo the nuclear agreement signed under the Obama administration. Even though Iran did not violate the deal in the early years of the agreement, Israel also later blocked attempts to revive an agreement after the conflict in June.
The United States has now placed the nuclear project at the top of its negotiating agenda and will likely try to incorporate the missile program as well, despite the absence of any real precedent or enforcement mechanism for monitoring such capabilities, aside from a limited effort in Iraq after 1991.
Israel views the missile threat as no less critical than the nuclear. As a result, we may reach the end of these talks with a US-Iran agreement focused solely on nuclear issues, without consensus on missiles or Iran’s support for regional proxies.
Israel would be wise to reach an understanding with the US because an agreement focused solely on the nuclear file would leave Israel free – and perhaps compelled – to address the ballistic‑missile threat on its own, a threat that could evolve into something Israel could not tolerate.
We now see what emerged from the negotiation process, a process that had been marked by defiance, manipulation, sudden turns, flare‑ups, and threats. The days ahead will be complex.
The strikes have begun
On the morning of Saturday, February 28, the Israeli and American strike began.
The combination of Iran’s public posture at the negotiating table, the widening gap between its statements and what is unfolding behind closed doors, and President Trump’s demonstrated resolve in crisis management, together with the unprecedented US military buildup, all made it clear.
The question is now what the objectives will be, how Iran will respond, and how the entire region, including Israel, will absorb the shockwaves.
These are the questions for which we may soon begin to receive answers.
The writer is a retired brigadier general and former Israel Air Defense Forces Commander.