Forget ‘total obliteration’ — experts say Iran and U.S. need to negotiate : NPR

People have flags from Iran and Hezbollah as well as posters of the Supreme Chef Khamenei while the Iranians descended into the rue du downtown Enghelab (Revolution) in Tehran, Iran, on June 24, 2025, to celebrate the ceasefire after a 12-day war with Israel.

NEGAR / Middle East / AFP images via Getty Images

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NEGAR / Middle East / AFP images via Getty Images

President Trump has doubled on his claims that the United States is struck in Iran last weekend “erased” his main nuclear installations, rushing into the reports of a disclosed intel assessment, which indicated that the Iran’s nuclear program had only been delivered by “a few months”.

Addressing journalists when participating in the NATO summit in the Netherlands, Trump said he was convinced that the conflict between Israel and Iran was over. The two parties suddenly agreed with a ceasefire after Trump said one on social networks on Monday evening.

Trump said at the summit that he intended to speak with Iran next week, but said he did not think it was necessary to conclude an agreement with Iran to abandon his nuclear ambitions.

“We can sign an agreement,” he said, but added later “I don’t think it’s necessary”, reiterating the success of American strikes.

President Donald Trump, Center, is expressed at a press conference at the NATO summit in Hague, the Netherlands, on Wednesday, June 25, 2025.

Matthias Schrader / AP

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Matthias Schrader / AP

But experts in the region and the Iranian nuclear program say that regardless of the amount of damage caused to Iranian nuclear installations, deliberate negotiations leading to a lasting agreement are crucial. Otherwise, a resumption of war – which could include the United States – seems inevitable.

“This ceasefire, in my opinion, will be very short for the Israelis and the Americans, unless there is a very serious political strategy, and President Trump essentially takes this jump,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, main scholarship and expert in Iran at the European Council of Foreign Relations.

Dana Stroul, who was the highest official of the Pentagon in the Middle East between 2021 and 2023, said that the need for negotiations as soon as possible was “absolutely critical”.

“This is a very unusual way of approaching a cease-fire,” said Stroul, now research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “There is nothing written, nothing articulated, no calendar and no mechanism identified on how to mediate cheating accusations.”

A “head of the head” two weeks

Trump’s comments were the last Wednesday of what Geranmayeh described a “two-week-old period” between Israel, Iran and the United States who left many observers in the region that fight to catch up.

It started with expected nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, which had already made several laps but were canceled when Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran in mid-June. The talks were initially going well, but had started stalling in more technical details.

The United States then struck several nuclear sites in Iran with massive bunker bombs last weekend, as the only country in possession of weapons and the delivery system to make such a strike.

Journalists take photos of a posted graph as the defense secretary Pete Hegseth and the president of the joint chiefs, General Dan Caine, speak at a press conference at the Pentagon in Washington, Sunday June 22, 2025, after the American army struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel’s efforts to destroy the nuclear program of the country.

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Alex Brandon / AP

Since this strike, several Iranian officials have openly discussed the continuation of the country’s nuclear program – which Iran maintains is peaceful, but which, according to Israel, aimed to build a nuclear bomb – in particular with regard to uranium, a key element for a nuclear weapon.

“President Trump must find a way to return to the nuclear negotiation table as quickly as possible,” said Vali Nasr, Iran specialist and professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Nasr stressed that time is not on the side of the United States at the moment.

“The Iranians may already be busy building a bomb, after realizing that they were simply invaded by two nuclear armed countries, and that, ultimately, you know, the only choice to face such a threat is nuclear weapons,” he said.

Iran can rebuild

Experts have long warned that Iran’s attack could have the opposite effect to what its opponents want – instead of detering its nuclear ambitions, it could accelerate them.

“I have highlighted this point for at least 30 years, that everything that matters is reconstruction,” explains Kenneth Pollack, vice-president of politics at the Middle East Institute, speaking of the reconstruction of the Iranian nuclear program.

Pollack says that there is simply no way to reduce the only military action.

“Regardless of the number of scientists that Israelis kill, they will not be able to murder Iran to nuclear ignorance. Knowledge is simply too widespread in the Iranian system,” he said.

He underlines the fact that there is still so much on the Iranian nuclear program which is unknown, especially after the most recent hostilities, including where a large stock of highly enriched uranium could be.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Monday that there was a chance that he survived the attacks, having been moved by Iran in advance – but said that the nuclear watchdog currently had no accounts.

Iran has limited its interaction with IAEA inspectors for several years, although they have always been authorized to monitor the declared nuclear sites. On Wednesday, the Iranian Parliament recommended a bill which actually suspended cooperation with the agency. Thursday, the country’s tutor’s council has fully approved it.

Iran clearly indicated that the suspension does not mean that it will withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but it will prevent the IEA inspections of nuclear installations bombed by Iran.

“The Iranian regime has invested decades in its nuclear program and also an unrivaled quantity of resources,” said Stroul, of the Washington Institute for the Middle East policy. “So, to think that after less than two weeks, they will simply take a knee and abandon their entire nuclear ambitions is probably a short -sighted approach.”

Discussions will not be easy

Trump reported that US and Iranian officials will meet next week.

Shira Efron, research director at Israel Policy Forum, a New York based research group, says that it is good news, if it is true.

“An agreement would deliver something much more sustainable than the cease-fire that we have,” she said. “The question is that these talks will come out? They cannot be conferences only for talks.”

These talks, if they occur, will be almost certainly complicated, given the extremely technical nature of the nuclear problem and the hardened positions on both sides.

“This is the real test for the art of agreement, right?” Said Nasr, by Johns Hopkins. “Do you really have diplomats with the power to negotiate, to do the big dupbage? Do you have the right team to do this? It is not only an intention, it is the ability to deliver.”

Geranmayeh, who consulted during the diplomatic track which led to the 2015 nuclear agreement under Obama, said in some respects that the agreement helped put a path for conferences today. But without international inspectors having access to Iranian installations, she says that it would be difficult to know exactly what to negotiate now.

“Even if we mainly know what solutions are and how you can put the Rubik cube back, the technical side has become more difficult,” explains Geranmayeh.

Like putting Rubik’s cube back together, she said.