U.S. military officials say they are prepared to “go far, deep and big” if negotiations over a nuclear deal with Iran go south. Meanwhile, Iran’s military is bracing for war. And while tensions between the two nations — three if you include Israel — are running high, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has already told President Donald Trump that Iran isn’t building nuclear weapons.
U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held talks in Oman on Saturday. U.S. officials described them as “productive,” and Iranian officials said they were “positive so far.”
On Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told FOX News’ Maria Bartiromo that Trump “is dead serious” about prohibiting Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Hegseth said his boss wants the deal done peacefully, but added that he’s open to doing it the hard way as well:
But he’s also dead serious that if we can’t figure this out at the negotiating table, then there are other options to include my department to ensure that Iran never has a nuclear bomb. We hope we never get there. We really do. What we’re doing with the Houthis, and what we’re doing in the region, we’ve shown a capability to go far, to go deep, and to go big.
.@SecDef: “[@POTUS is] dead serious that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon … He’s also dead serious that if we can’t figure this out at the negotiating table, then there are other options.” pic.twitter.com/oVwUw16AcC
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 13, 2025
Trump has lobbed a slew of military threats against Iran.
In September, during his reelection campaign, he said eliminating Iran’s belligerence could mean “We are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens.”
On March 30, he said that if Iran “[doesn’t] make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Trump also threatened Iran before approving attacks against the Houthis in Yemen earlier this month. He said:
Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN. And IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire.
Another round of talks is also scheduled to take place in Muscat, Oman, at the end of this week.
Iran’s Nuclear Program
Tehran says its nuclear program is solely for civilian use, mainly for energy and medicine production. But Western powers do not believe this, and given Iranian leaders’ past rhetoric, they’re not willing to take a chance.
Iranian leaders have made statements in the past implying that Israel should be wiped off the map. The best light in which those comments have been interpreted is to mean that the nation of Israel has no right to exist because of the deceptive and violent way it came into existence in the mid-20th century. The worse interpretation, and most common in the West, is that Jews should be wiped off the face of the earth. Moreover, Iran has a penchant for supporting terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. For these reasons, Israel and the West, among other nations, feel it’s best that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons.
The “Nuclear Deal”
Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPAO) deal — or better known as the Iran Nuclear Deal — signed by President Barack Obama in 2015 and ended by Trump in 2018, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67 percent purity. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran now has 275kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent, far beyond what’s needed for civilian use. Nuclear weapons need uranium enriched to 90 percent purity. Should Iran’s enrichment continue, many worry they could have everything needed to build a nuclear weapon within 18 months.
But on the U.S. side, the messaging seems almost contradictory. Late in March, DNI Gabbard said during a hearing held by the Senate Intelligence Community that Iran is not building nuclear weapons. She said:
The [intelligence community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapon program that he suspended in 2003. The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.
But Gabbard also admitted, in that same hearing, that Iran’s uranium enrichment was “at its highest levels” and was “unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”
What America Wants From Iran
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz has said that Trump wants Iran’s nuclear program to be fully dismantled. This is the only position Israel finds acceptable as well. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained what that looked like:
We go in, blow up the facilities, and dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision and execution.
However, Iran has indicated it will not consider getting rid of its nuclear program entirely. And on Saturday, Witkoff didn’t bring it up. Instead, it is said he prefers a “verification program” with restrictions that reduce fears of nuclear weaponization.
Israeli Influence?
Early last week, Trump reinforced the suspicion that at the center of this potential war lies Israel. He said:
If it requires military, we’re going to have military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that, be the leader of that.
Israel understandably feels threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran. As noted earlier, Iranian leaders have not been shy about their opposition to the Jewish nation.
But there’s a suspicion that Israel is trying to cajole the United States into doing its dirty work. Israeli leadership has painted Iran and its proxies as a threat not only to itself, but to the United States. On July 25, 2024, Netanyahu, while addressing the U.S. Congress, said, “Iran’s axis of terror confronts America, Israel and our Arab friends.”
Former Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich said Netanyahu told him years ago that Israel needed the United States to take care of Iran.
Also, U.S. B-52 bombers capable of delivering nuclear bunker-busting bombs have taken part in joint exercises with the Israeli Air Force in preparation for a potential strike at Iran’s underground nuclear sites.
And Trump’s decision to pull out of the JCPAO agreement is suspected to have been significantly influenced by Israel. Netanyahu has publicly excoriated the Iran Nuclear Deal and praised Trump at length for exiting it.
