Framed as a strike on “evil,” Washington and Tel Aviv’s attacks leave Iran with few off-ramps. Tehran’s incentives now point toward escalation as a matter of survival.

Framed as a strike on “evil,” Washington and Tel Aviv’s attacks leave Iran with few off-ramps. Tehran’s incentives now point toward escalation as a matter of survival.

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    3·
    9 hours ago

    Israel has made a calling card of using the prospect of peace as a tactic to prosecute wars against its enemies. In June, during the last round of US-Iranian negotiations over the nuclear file, Israel killed Tehran’s chief negotiators and tried to decapitate the civilian government on the first day of its twelve-day war against Iran, which the United States joined on the last day. In September, when diplomacy over the Gaza war was nearing a ceasefire deal, Israel attacked Hamas’s political wing in Doha.

    From the US perspective, negotiations with Iran have been framed by Trump’s desire to win a deal more advantageous to the United States than the “terrible” deal Barack Obama finally negotiated in 2016, after over a decade of diplomacy between Tehran and the world powers. During his first term, Trump unilaterally exited the deal and has since assumed a maximalist position in negotiations with Tehran consistent with the long-standing Israeli demand that Iran must be denied its right to enrich any uranium.