America and Israel Won the Battle—But Iran Is Already Plotting the Next War

Decades of tensions with Iran culminated in the short but sharp 12-Day War in June. The United States and Israel won the battle, but this is just one round in the war Tehran still intends to win.

Iran’s atomic infrastructure is entombed in rubble. Many of its top military commanders and nuclear scientists are dead, and its air defenses and long-range missile launchers are decimated. The regime’s losses, and its unpreparedness, magnify its deeper failures to govern the country. The regime has been hit hard on other fronts, too, as the London-Paris-Berlin “E3” troika snapped back strict UN arms embargoes and tough economic sanctions last month.

Iran’s longstanding certitude, that merely feigning interest in diplomacy reliably kept pressure at bay, is now an open question after such foot-dragging triggered airstrikes and snapback. It likely never thought enemy kinetic and covert action would be so effective. Nor did it expect America and Europe to actually uphold their oft repeated redlines.

Fearing further Israeli attacks if it rebuilds too openly or rapidly, the regime could again seek to exploit the prospect of negotiations to freeze Israel’s freedom of action and buy precious time and cover to reconstitute. Especially as hardliners try to entrench control in Tehran’s postwar uncertainty, its leaders could be tempted to view U.S. military intervention as opportunistic piggybacking on Israel’s initial success, rather than representing a fundamental shift in posture.

Iran is already testing this proposition, and restoring leverage, by evicting nuclear inspectors and threatening implicitly, if unsubtly, to exit the Nonproliferation Treaty and finish the bomb. It prods its regional proxies to keep up the fight while reportedly conducting new work at undeclared nuclear sites, testing new missiles, and seeking China’s and Russia’s help to revamp its shattered arsenals.

The regime’s diplomatic defiance continues in parallel. As before the war, it refuses to negotiate directly with the United States or abandon enrichment. Now it demands upfront immunity from further military and economic pressure, plus compensation for wartime losses. And it asserts that renewed inspections, should it decide to grant them, will be far more limited than before.

To its credit, the Trump administration so far refuses to indulge Tehran. But other than insisting on a stronger agreement, the entire Iran issue seemingly has faded from America’s radar after the stunning successes of this summer and the inevitable pull of competing priorities.

Work remains to cement these recent achievements and prevent Iran from coming back stronger. Its regime exploits any perceived daylight from its adversaries to rebuild its shattered arsenals and reinforce its grip at home. In this vein, its official okaying of a Gaza ceasefire should not obscure its underlying motives to rebuild a proxy “ring of fire” threatening the entire region.

At the same time, the regime’s setbacks during the war, and its new appreciation for U.S.-Israeli threats, create opportunities to secure a nuclear agreement with much more stringent restrictions than the now-defunct JCPOA. The United States should give Iran a take-it-or-leave-it offer that rules out further inconclusive and open-ended talks. In exchange for lifting UN, U.S., and European Union sanctions, Iran must end its pursuit of nuclear weapons permanently and verifiably, including accepting zero enrichment. The same goes for its missile programs, terrorist and proxy military activities, and hostage-taking.

Concerted pressure on Iran’s regime will be crucial to maximize the chances for successful diplomacy. President Trump should coordinate explicitly with Israel in warning Tehran not to rebuild is nuclear and missile programs, and back up these threats by expediting the transfer of aerial refueling tankers that Israel purchased previously, reinforcing regional air and missile defenses, and ensuring U.S. and Israeli forces are properly equipped in advance of potential future tensions.

With UN sanctions snapped back, the Trump administration should fully implement “maximum pressure” by synchronizing American and European efforts to cut off Iran’s energy exports and enforce strict bans on its nuclear and military ties with China, Russia, and North Korea. Because this axis is working to undercut and delegitimize snapback, sanctions enforcement more broadly entails U.S. leadership through alternative mechanisms like the Proliferation Security Initiative.

Whether or not these steps convince Tehran finally to negotiate in earnest, they position the United States and its partners to stop the regime from snatching victory out of the jaws of this summer’s defeats. These same pressures can exploit the Islamic Republic’s innate weaknesses made even more obvious by the 12-Day War, ultimately encouraging its collapse.

Ambassador Eric Edelman is the former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Gen. Charles Wald, USAF (ret.), served as the deputy commander of U.S. European Command. They co-chair the Iran Policy Project at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), where they are Distinguished Scholar and Distinguished Fellow, respectively.

Jonathan Ruhe is Fellow for American Strategy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.