Trump warns, Iran waits: is the next strike inevitable? Expert opinions on Caliber.Az

U.S. President Donald Trump stated that Washington may launch strikes against Iran again if Tehran refuses negotiations and continues developing its missile program. Speaking at the White House, he emphasised that a settlement in the Middle East would have been impossible without U.S. Air Force attacks on Iranian facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

According to Trump, Iran “may talk about trying” to continue pursuing its nuclear program.

“Well, you know, they can try, but it’s going to take them a long time to come back. But if they do want to come back, and they want to come back without a deal, then we’re going to obliterate that one, too. You know, we can knock out their missiles very quickly,” the U.S. president said.

In early November, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with Al Jazeera that the country’s leadership intends to continue enriching uranium for peaceful purposes and rules out the possibility of discussing the future of its missile program. He noted that “no sane person would agree to give up its military component.”

On the night of June 13, Israel launched a military operation against Iran. Less than a day later, the Islamic Republic responded with retaliatory strikes. The United States entered the conflict nine days after its escalation, carrying out attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. On the evening of June 23, Iran attacked the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, Al Udeid, in Qatar. Following this, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire. The ceasefire regime came into effect on June 24.

Many observers note that the summer war did not lead to decisive results. Iran did not acknowledge defeat and did not abandon its nuclear program, which preserved the risk of it acquiring nuclear weapons. Thus, the continuation of the confrontation appears inevitable.

The only question is when. At what point might the United States and Israel consider it convenient to deliver a truly crushing blow to Iran’s nuclear facilities? How feasible is such a task? Do they have sufficient intelligence to successfully carry out such an operation?

Well-known experts helped Caliber.Az shed light on the situation.

Professor and analyst Grigory Ioffe (USA) does not believe that “continuation is inevitable.”

“I think both sides will do a great deal to avoid it. Will they succeed? Quite possibly. There is certainly sufficient intelligence. However, at present there is a relative lull in this direction—I mean the Iranian-Israeli confrontation.

Moreover, congressional elections will be held in the United States in November 2026. If Republicans fail to retain their majority in the House of Representatives, many things could change, including foreign policy. Even if the majority is preserved, serious internal divisions within the Republican camp could limit the scope for actions that might be interpreted as unconditional support for Israel.

Under these conditions, it is extremely difficult—if not impossible—to forecast anything. There are simply too many unknown variables. And this is without even touching on the Iranian side, which does not fall within my area of expertise.

Therefore, I have no idea about the timing or scale of what some consider inevitable,” the professor said.

As noted by Israeli political analyst, Bar-Ilan University professor Zeev Khanin, Iran officially claims that its nuclear program has no military component.

“This is, of course, a lie. First, there is only one step from a civilian nuclear program to a military one.

Second, it has always been obvious that Iran views its nuclear program as a tool to create a sort of nuclear umbrella, especially in parallel with the development of its missile program—that is, delivery systems. This, in essence, contradicted the ‘P5+1’ agreements with Tehran, which were pushed through during Barack Obama’s administration.

From this perspective, it is clear that for Iran it is important to possess a nuclear umbrella that would serve as a barrier against its opponents, their allies, and proxies seeking to overthrow the ayatollah regime or at least sharply limit its geopolitical and military capabilities.

That is why, in my view, it is extremely important for Iran to maintain the possibility of continuing its nuclear program, especially considering that it has largely lost its positions in the Middle East. Its proxies are seriously weakened or on the verge of destruction—Hamas, Hezbollah, and others.

In addition, Iran has lost the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, where a pro-Turkish government led by al-Julani has come to power. Moreover, despite all disagreements with Jerusalem, Damascus does not rule out the possibility of ending the state of war. This is not yet about normalising diplomatic relations between Syria and Israel, but rather about terminating the formal state of war that has lasted since 1948 and has periodically been accompanied by military clashes.

In the same context, it is also worth mentioning U.S. efforts to weaken Qatar’s ties with Iran. At the same time, Qatar continues to play on all fronts, effectively ‘sitting on two chairs’: on the one hand, partnership with the United States and the status of a major non-NATO ally, and on the other, cooperation with Iran.

Overall, Iran has noticeably weakened, and in order to restore its capabilities and spheres of influence it needs a nuclear program—especially given that, de facto, both Russia and China are facilitating this. This raises the question: will Iran be able to respond, or at least refrain from retaliation, if the United States, Israel, and their allies decide to carry out an additional strike on Iranian nuclear facilities?”  Khanin said.

In his view, the United States and Israel have such capabilities.

“In this case, the question is solely whether the corresponding political decision will be made. It seems to me that both sides are currently trying to determine the very red line, crossing which would make the process irreversible.

At this stage, Donald Trump and his team, in my opinion, are still interested in maintaining the image of a peacemaker—a leader who came to power not to create new conflicts, but to resolve existing ones. Personally, this image is very important to Trump. Therefore, he currently has plenty of reasons to continue seeking mechanisms to restrain Iran without resorting to military action.

Especially since the situation in other areas is unfolding unfavorably for him. In Gaza, the second phase of the ceasefire agreement—including the return of the last Israeli hostage and the transition to the second stage of Hamas disarmament—has not been realised. In Ukraine, as we can see, hopes that he would be able to bring Vladimir Putin’s and Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s teams to the negotiating table have not yet been fulfilled in the way originally envisioned.

Thus, the emergence of another acute conflict is clearly not the scenario that the White House occupant would like to see. Especially since he has repeatedly stated that he managed to bring Iran and Israel to certain agreements. What exactly Donald Trump meant remains unclear—perhaps he was referring to some confidential arrangements that have not yet been made public.

Overall, in drawing a general conclusion, I would say that in the very near future, despite active discussions of this topic in Washington, Jerusalem, and Tehran, there is currently no talk of a new strike on Iran.

However, as we well understand, the situation changes very quickly, and making definite and final forecasts at this stage is pointless,” concluded Khanin.