Trump Forgives, the Ayatollah Survives: The Deal That Could Prevent a War
Despite surviving two assassination attempts, President Trump is showing great leniency toward Iran. Beyond his calculated mastery of media spectacle, he is offering a lifeline to a regime whose leadership faces imminent risk of elimination. In return, he demands only one thing: the surrender of their nuclear ambitions.
The Iranians are deeply unhappy with the offer, but if talks between U.S. envoy Witkof and senior Iranian officials continue, Tehran may find itself with little choice but to accept it.
One thing, however, is certain: with their seasoned negotiating skills, the Iranians will seek to extract maximum concessions, well beyond regime survival, which, if they stay the course, will effectively become a given.
Trump is now in a position to give everyone just enough to claim victory, based on the current military balance of power. Israel and the Pentagon get a non-nuclear Iran, while the Islamic Republic secures its continued existence.
Trump is masterfully keeping both Israel and Iran on a short leash as the Middle East approaches a critical juncture. He’s capitalizing on Israeli military successes with strategic finesse, leveraging Iran’s interest in dialogue, and doubling down on his own demands for unilateral surrender. At the same time, he’s acutely aware of growing pressure from America’s isolationist camp. Paradoxically, these seemingly conflicting forces are converging to create a rare opening - an opportunity for the president to :
1. Broker a diplomatic deal
2. Secure American and allied interests
3. Preserve U.S. credibility on the global stage.
The arrangement would aim to satisfy U.S., European, and Israeli concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, while allowing the regime to stay in power.
The likely losers? The Iranian people 75% to 80% of whom loathe the regime.
Yet, given their lack of action in the past week, there is little anyone can do for them.
With Washington seemingly paralyzed by the fear that four bombers hitting Fordow could trigger a full-scale war, this emerging compromise may soon appear to be the least risky scenario.
The deal appeases the isolationists and secures the avoidance of war, while still upholding the core principle that Iran must not go nuclear.
At present, the Ayatollah has no viable option but to abandon his regional dream of nuclear hegemony.
Iran gives up the nukes - that's the stick. It keeps the regime - that's the carrot.
Israel will not be fully satisfied, knowing that this regime will:
But Israel also understands that no one else is willing to go to war over these issues, and no one else has the power to prevent it from being drawn into a war of attrition 1,500 kilometers beyond its borders, or to deliver a diplomatic solution - except the United States.
True, an Iranian regime with significantly reduced ballistic power and no nuclear program will find it harder to maintain regional dominance and instill fear in its own population. It may well shorten the regime’s lifespan. But this is the cost of Iran's rush toward the bomb, Israel's crushing response, and America's measured patience - that have all together put an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and put the supreme leader's own life at risk.
The ballistic missile program issue will likely reach the negotiating table, but given the Iranians’ skill as negotiators, they may well manage to sideline it.
Iran’s emerging strategy is likely to follow this path: take what’s on the table, suspend the nuclear program, and wait. The regime is betting that isolationist forces in the U.S. will continue to gain ground, and that both the Trump and Netanyahu eras will eventually pass. Only then will Tehran reassess its position, closely observing how the Sunni axis and Israel respond to a post-Khamenei leadership.
Meanwhile, Israel may be growing fatigued by the ongoing war, and given its limited landmass and lack of a robust economic and logistical lifeline, sustaining a prolonged conflict would be difficult. From an American perspective, that means Israel too may have little choice but to accept the deal on the table.
All that being said, it’s important to note: when the isolationists argue that regime change is dangerous, they’re not entirely wrong. But Iran is not Iraq or Afghanistan —nations shaped far more deeply by sectarian Islamist currents, with little tradition of national democratic consensus. Suggesting otherwise reflects ignorance. The Iranian people, their political culture, and the realities on the ground are fundamentally different.
Iran already possesses a relatively broad -if heavily oppressed -national-democratic consensus. There’s no need to impose a George W. Bush style democracy on Tehran; unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, the foundations for self-governance already exist.
Perhaps tragically, America fought the wrong wars in the wrong places at the wrong costs. And now, when the moment has arrived for a precise, well-timed offensive - at the right price, with the "right people" - America is too scarred, too burned, and too exhausted.
You can’t entirely blame those who are alarmed by the prospect, given past experiences. But it’s hardly rational to expect a global superpower to step aside, especially when its adversary, one that tried to assassinate a president, is already on its knees.
In any case, for now, both Israel and the U.S. are smiling. Iran is exactly where it’s meant to be militarily, even if the Iranian people have, for now, failed to rise up and shift the balance in their favor.
Which means that, in the absence of a popular uprising, something that would render further talks or action unnecessary, and given the unpredictable military landscape and the not insignificant political cost of armed intervention, Trump will most likely opt for the non-offensive path.
But ironically, the final choice still lies with the Ayatollah himself:
Will he give up his life’s dream of destroying Israel and America and developing a nuclear bomb - just to preserve his regime?
Or does the regime, in his view, have no purpose unless it can eliminate the Jews and the American Empire of Infidels?
Soon we’ll find out whether he truly is the “Hitler of our time,” as Israeli Defense Minister Katz tweeted today, or whether that label was premature.