A Day 1 Priority: Strategy for the Next Administration to Prevent a Nuclear Iran

From the day President-elect Donald Trump takes office, he will have almost zero time or margin for error to prevent a nuclear Iran. Whether or not he decides to engage Tehran in negotiations, his incoming administration must begin building a campaign of truly maximum pressure, including credible threats of force, to convince Iran to remain short of the nuclear weapons threshold.

Trump will need to consider Iran’s offer of talks seriously, if only to build support for much tougher U.S.-led pressure. At the same time, however, he should keep Tehran’s ulterior motives top of mind. Having recently lost key capabilities—its ballistic missile production facilities and proxies like Hezbollah and the Assad regime—Iran’s nuclear program is now more vulnerable than ever before, lending serious credibility and urgency to U.S. and Israeli military options. By the same token, Iran has every incentive to ensnare the United States in talks, continue its drive toward the bomb, delegitimize military options that would derail negotiations, and ultimately run out the clock on painful international sanctions.

To seize this unique but fleeting opportunity, Trump should join Israel in giving Iran an ultimatum at the outset of his presidency: agree fully and immediately to verifiably dismantle its nuclear weapons program, or invite its imminent and utter destruction.

Given Trump’s strong inclination for dealmaking, understandable reticence to risk new Middle East conflict, and desire to build legitimacy for forceful action later, it remains probable his incoming administration will decide instead to first engage Iran in negotiations. If so, he will have to replace his predecessors’ patient conciliation with determined coercion. He must drive a hard bargain, adhere to a strict timeline for diplomacy to yield results, and be prepared to walk away and employ more forceful options if Tehran balks. And he must do this well before the opportunity to “snap back” stringent sanctions, codified in multiple UN Security Council resolutions, on Tehran’s illegal nuclear activities and weapons proliferation vanishes by October 2025.

In advance of President-elect Trump’s inauguration and the potential resumption of talks, JINSA’s Iran Policy Project is issuing this report recommending a comprehensive strategy of U.S.-led pressure to keep Iran short of the nuclear threshold and rein in its other malign activities—regardless of whether the next president ultimately returns to the negotiating table. This new report also spells out important lessons from past U.S. diplomacy with Iran, and lays out parameters of an acceptable agreement that actually promises to prevent a nuclear Iran.

Click here to read the report.