March 2, 2026

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Q. Last week, you thought there was a better-then-even likelihood of a US-Iran nuclear deal. Where were you wrong?

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A. The perceptual and conceptual gaps between Iran on the one hand and the US and Israel on the other were even wider than I imagined. To illustrate: The fact that a host of Iranian strategic leaders from Supreme Leader Khamenei on down seemingly took no precautions about their Saturday morning meeting--and accordingly, were assassinated in the opening attack--says it all about their overconfident approach.

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Did they not understand that their negotiating position with the US had backed them into a corner? Did they not realize that for President Trump, diplomacy and a military buildup were two sides of the same negotiating coin? Did they really believe they could draw out negotiations endlessly? Had they learned no lessons from the June 2025 Twelve-Day War opening salvo attack that decimated their military leadership?

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Q. So there is déjà vu here. But there is also a great deal of innovation, some of it seemingly reckless and ill-considered, not only on the part of Iran, but on the US and Israeli side as well . . .

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A. Let’s start with the deliberate assassination of Khamenei. While his hands were drenched in blood from terrorizing his own people, assassinating him--a political and religious leader of a sovereign country--is not exactly an acceptable act among nations. Nor is it a likely means of bringing down Iran’s Islamist regime, as Trump and not a few Israelis seem to assume: the regime is layered with redundancy; it is built around institutions that guarantee an orderly transfer of power and orderly functioning in an emergency. Nor, with all due respect to “Baby Shah” Pahlevi, is there an obvious alternative to Islamist rule in today’s Iran.

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What’s more, now Trump and Netanyahu have ensured that assassins from Iran and/or its proxies will continue to lie in wait for them and their successors for the foreseeable future. Israel’s Arab neighbors’ leaders will forever cast a suspicious eye on Jerusalem’s intentions and capabilities: not necessarily a productive formula for peaceful relations. Certainly an Iran-sponsored terror wave in the US and Europe is now more likely.

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Killing Khamenei has brought into the fray Lebanese Hezbollah--albeit an Iranian proxy much weakened by years of Israeli attrition and beeper-attacks and a hostile Lebanese government. Can the Yemeni Houthis be far behind?

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Let’s move from here to the very decision on the part of Washington and Jerusalem to attack. Was there still hope for the negotiating alternative? Iran certainly encouraged that impression. Alternatively, it was simply playing for time through delaying tactics. Certainly, it was embarrassingly unaware of the real tactics and intentions of the Trump negotiating team, backed by Netanyahu who clearly sought a military solution.

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This brings us to the biggest innovation from Israel’s standpoint. This is the first time a genuine US-Israel military coalition has launched and fought a war. Throughout its 78-year history, Israel has sought to be integrated into a western military alliance; until now, the closest it ever came was the 1956 Sinai Campaign. Back then, Israeli, British and French forces coordinated operations against Egypt in a highly controversial operation that invited combined Soviet-US pressure on Israel.

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Will Trump’s decision to act in concert with Netanyahu prove equally problematic in terms of US domestic politics? A solid majority of Americans currently do not support the American strike against Iran: Trump promised fewer wars, not new ones. Nor are Israel and Netanyahu exactly gaining in popularity with the US public after years of bloodletting in Gaza. As for the increasingly hawkish and messianic Israeli public, it is there that Trump just became even more popular.

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