Israel’s Dangerous War Against Iran Is Escalating — With Donald Trump’s Tacit Blessing

A firefighter calls out his colleagues at the scene of an explosion in a residence compound in northern Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 13, 2025. US President Donald Trump proclaimed on Saturday afternoon that the new war in the Middle East, initiated by Israel against its longtime foe Iran, “should end.” But as the Israeli offensive enters its third day, the conflict is expanding, with little sign that the US will use its leverage as Israel’s chief military and diplomatic backer to halt the assault on Iranian targets. This has spurred retaliation by Iran and increased fears that American military sites and crucial global trade routes will soon be hit.Trump has repeatedly said he wants a deal with Iran to sharply limit its nuclear program in exchange for relief from punishing economic sanctions led by the US. Some supporters of Israel’s assault claim it will make Iran more willing to compromise and eager to quickly reach an agreement. Instead, Saturday brought a confirmation from Oman — the Middle Eastern nation which hosts indirect negotiations between American and Israeli officials — that the planned upcoming round of talks has been cancelled. Experts in nuclear diplomacy said they saw dwindling chances of Tehran agreeing to a deal soon.Meanwhile, fresh signs emerged of Israel’s determination to deal even greater damage to Iran while the Trump administration struggles to craft a response to the crisis. Israel twiceattacked Iran’s energy infrastructure, a core component of the country’s economy, indicated a willingness to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and pushed Washington to join a strike on Iran’s most sensitive nuclear site, which Israeli forces are not equipped to attack on their own.“I do not think the Israelis will stop,” an Arab diplomat told HuffPost on Saturday condition of anonymity. The diplomat noted that regional governments close to the US — including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and others — had condemned the Israeli campaign and said officials from some of those nations were exploring efforts to de-escalate tensions. Qatar and Oman, which have deep mediation experience, are attempting some outreach in coordination with the US, while Saudi officials are encouraging diplomacy through a different channel, the diplomat added.Still, they argued that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had used the campaign against Iran, which began on Thursday with a dramatic wave of strikes on military leaders and nuclear targets, to score a number of wins already. France and Saudi Arabia have postponed a high-profile conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was planned for next week and expected to pressure Israel for a resolution in its war in Gaza. Meanwhile, attention has been redirected from ongoing Palestinian suffering, US-Iran diplomacy has been put on ice and Israel’s deep intelligence capacity in Iran has been demonstrated, emboldening opponents of the regime within the country’s own borders. “Why stop now?” the diplomat asked.The risks posed by the war are becoming more clear, however. Israeli strikes in Iran again hit the densely populated capital of Tehran on Sunday morning local time, and Iranian missiles have repeatedly hit Israeli cities. So far, at least 80 Iranians, including children, have been killed, in addition to at least seven Israelis. War analysts note that rounds of violence can create their own self-perpetuating logic of vengeance and constant escalation.Washington’s position is critical. US officials and others tracking the Middle East increasingly say the conflict could fuel violence outside Iran and Israel, potentially in the waterways of the Persian Gulf or against the 2,500 American troops stationed in Iraq, or the tens of thousands elsewhere in the neighborhood. Even unintentional bloodshed could dramatically increase tensions and fuel a bigger tit-for-tat.A woman carries belongings past rubble and debris in Rishon LeZion, Israel on June 14, 2025. An Iranian missile strike targeted the central city overnight, injuring several and causing widespread destruction according to Israeli authorities.“Our military bases and dependents there are on a state of high alert. If anything happens to them because of, say, a stray missile coming from Iran or a drone or some other misfortune… that is on this administration — you can’t put that solely on Netanyahu and you can’t put that solely on the” Iranian military, a former US official told HuffPost.The Trump administration is so far showing limited capacity to prevent a widening disaster, even if doing so aligns with the president’s long-standing narrative he stands for “peace through strength.”The current episode is extremely unlikely to conclude with the Iran nuclear deal Trump continues to demand, argued Ali Vaez, a researcher at the International Crisis Group think tank.Trump had previously denied Netanyahu’s suggestions of an attack on Iran, reiterating his support for diplomacy led by his friend and business partner Steve Witkoff. But as the talks had by this month failed to bear fruit, Trump and Witkoff likely felt Iran “had too much nuclear leverage” and that with “a weaker hand,” Tehran would accept the most stringent demand for a deal, Vaez said: dismantling its capacity to enrich uranium. Instead, “the door to diplomacy is shut for the foreseeable future,” he continued. “They believe that the US is complicit in Israel’s attacks on Iran, so in addition to the fact that the Iranians never want to negotiate from a position of weakness, now there is even deeper mistrust in the Trump administration’s intentions.”The president also abandoned the previous Iran nuclear deal in 2018, driving the current dilemma by ending international limits on Iranian nuclear development and bringing it closer to being able to build a weapon — the factor Israel has cited to justify its attack. (Iran denies that it intends to build nuclear bombs.)Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said in a Saturday interview that his country will downgrade its already limited cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, a global watchdog.While some foreign policy hawks in Israel and the US claim the ongoing Israeli attack will aid Trump’s dealmaking, Vaez said Tehran will refuse to negotiate on the issue while it is under fire. Even once the current round of fighting concludes, renewing diplomacy will take time. If the war ends with “a draw, the Iranians have to regain some leverage,” including potentially by abandoning one of the remaining limits on their nuclear program, their membership of the international nonproliferation treaty, Vaez said. If Iran faces a major military defeat, with its nuclear program shattered, Tehran would see no benefit in an agreement Trump could promote, since it would not be able to win incentives from the US, he continued.Eliminating Iranian capabilities and even scientists is unlikely to decimate the decades-long institutional knowledge in the country, while bolstering voices in Iran who say it must focus on gaining a nuclear deterrent. “The only situation in which Iran returns to talks now is if the US keeps Israel checked and makes significant concessions to Iran on its program. Even then, it’s hard to overcome the lesson learnt that if they had a weapon this wouldn’t have happened,” Dina Esfandiary, the Middle East lead at Bloomberg Geoeconomics, wrote on X.Trump must negotiate a path forward amid disagreements with Israel and among his own staff members.The president could “push for restraint at this stage,” telling Netanyahu to claim victory rather than continue a prolonged, bloody war for likely unachievable objectives akin to the Gaza conflict, the former US official said, adding, “You can say you got your pound of flesh but you’re going to be better than [President Joe] Biden: you’re not going to let the Israelis do stupid shit.”A notable faction of conservatives believes the president should see the Israeli leader is pursuing a goal beyond a settlement and reject the idea of US intervention or providing major additional jets and bombs. “It’s beginning to look like regime change is the goal,” Reid Smith, the vice president of foreign policy at Stand Together, an organization founded by the right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, told HuffPost.Internally, some Trump personnel are “urging restraint and prioritization. They are understandably allergic to being drawn into another war of uncertain dimension in the Middle East when strategic emphasis should reorient attention to the Indo-Pacific and the Western Hemisphere,” Smith continued. Depending on how those debates go, “Israel will have to calibrate its expectations... based on what the U.S. is willing to provide.”More bellicose officials, Republican lawmakers and donors and anti-Iran pundits are cheering on the Israeli attack, however. And they appear eager to use the moment to push back against Trump-aligned figures who seek less US intervention in the Middle East — like Elbridge Colby, a senior official at the Pentagon, according to a Saturday night report in Semafor. Hawkish commentators have highlighted an interview Trump gave The Atlantic on Saturday in which he rejected criticism from Iran war skeptics like Tucker Carlson that he was abandoning his “America First” motto by permitting Netanyahu’s offensive.Given the president’s unpredictable nature, Vaez said his ultimate choice on whether to restrain Israel could be shaped by pressure from MAGA figures to conversations with Arab leaders to whom Trump has personal and financial ties, like the ruler of Qatar, whose joint gas field with Iran was hit by Israel on Saturday. For now, he anticipates the situation to “escalate further and get worse.”Related...Trump And Tucker Carlson Are Falling Out Over Trump’s Support For IsraelLabour Minister Refuses To Say That Israel Is An Ally Of The UKGovernment Warns Brits Not To Go To Israel Amid War With Iran

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