logo
Live Updates: Israel and Iran Trade New Attacks and Brace for More

Live Updates: Israel and Iran Trade New Attacks and Brace for More

New York Times15-06-2025
news analysis
Photographs of some of the officials and military leaders killed during Israel's attack on Iran, in Tehran on Friday.
If war is diplomacy by other means, diplomacy is never finished. While Israel and Iran are in the midst of what could be an extended war that could spread, the possibility of renewed talks to deal with Iran's expanding nuclear program should not be discounted.
Negotiations are on hold while the war continues, and the future of diplomacy is far from clear. Iran will feel compelled to respond to Israel, and the Israeli campaign could last for days or weeks. For now Washington does not appear to be doing anything to press both sides to stop the violence and start talking again.
But the Iranians say they still want a deal, as does President Trump. The shape of future talks will inevitably depend on when and how the fighting stops.
'We are prepared for any agreement aimed at ensuring Iran does not pursue nuclear weapons,' the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told foreign diplomats in Tehran on Sunday. But his country would not accept any deal that 'deprives Iran of its nuclear rights,' he added, including the right to enrich uranium, albeit at low levels that can be used for civilian purposes.
Mr. Araghchi said Israel did not attack to pre-empt Iran's race toward a bomb, which Iran denies trying to develop, but to derail negotiations on a deal that Mr. Netanyahu opposes.
The attacks are 'an attempt to undermine diplomacy and derail negotiations,' he continued, a view shared by various Western analysts. 'It is entirely clear that the Israeli regime does not want any agreement on the nuclear issue,' he said. 'It does not want negotiations and does not seek diplomacy.'
Image
Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, center, in Lebanon this month. On Sunday, he said that Iran remained open to negotiations on nuclear weapons.
Credit...
Hassan Ammar/Associated Press
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has argued that the attack on Iran was to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, even as a sixth round of talks to prevent that very outcome was scheduled between the United States and Iran.
While Israel argues that it had to strike now to prevent an Iranian race to bomb, American and European judgments were that Iran was still many months away from building a bomb and has not yet decided to do so.
Mr. Netanyahu believes that a deal that would allow Iran to enrich uranium would mean a nuclear-armed Iran in the future, and he has been bent on preventing that outcome. He has apparently judged that a U.S.-Iran deal would have kept him from his goal of destroying Iran's nuclear program, and, perhaps, he hopes, bringing about the fall of the Islamic Republic.
But Israel is considered highly unlikely to meet the goal of destroying Iran's nuclear program without active American involvement, which Mr. Trump has so far resisted.
The president continues to say that he wants negotiations to succeed. He seems to believe that the attack will bring Iran back to the table in a weaker and more conciliatory position, ready to accept his latest demand that it halt all enrichment of uranium. But Iran insists that it has the right to enrich for civilian uses under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Mr. Trump clearly sees the war as a form of diplomacy. On Friday, he wrote: 'Two months ago I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to 'make a deal.' They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn't get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!'
Early on Sunday, Mr. Trump warned Iran against attacking American forces in a message on Truth Social. 'However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict,' he said. Whether Israel would accept such a deal, if Iran is allowed to enrich at all, is an open question.
At the same time, Mr. Trump, who has said he knew about the Israeli attack beforehand, has done nothing in public to restrain the Israelis. When Washington announced last week that the talks would continue on Sunday, it is not clear whether it knew when Israel would attack, but the Iranians are convinced that Washington was complicit in trying to fool them into believing that any Israeli attack would come afterward.
A quick deal now that would give up enrichment would be seen as a surrender, said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who served in the State Department during the Obama administration. That could make the Iranian government more vulnerable at home. 'They won't give up enrichment, not this easily,' he said. 'They're not going to surrender.'
Image
People in Rehovot, Israel, on Sunday amid the ruins of buildings destroyed by an Iranian missile attack.
Credit...
Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
For now negotiations with Iran are on hold, said Robert Malley, a former U.S. official who negotiated with Iran on the nuclear issue under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But their future shape and timing will depend on the length of the Israeli attack and what it achieves.
'When Iran feels comfortable to come back to the table with the United States, which it believes is deeply complicit with the attack, and in what position Iran comes back depends on how significantly Israel has degraded its nuclear program,' he said.
For now, Washington is backing the Israeli operations, but 'at some point, better sooner than later, they will try to exercise some restraint' to limit the conflict, Mr. Malley said. Mr. Trump still seems eager to get a deal and avoid being dragged into the war.
Karin von Hippel, a former State Department official and former director of RUSI, the London-based defense research group, agrees. 'We'll get back to the table eventually but at what cost to Israel and the region?' she said. 'The challenge is going to be that the Iranians want a face-saving way to get back to the table,' while Mr. Trump prefers 'to back people to the edge and get them to capitulate.'
Unless the Iranian government collapses — or Israel tries to kill the political and clerical leadership of Iran, as it did with Hezbollah — any deal is likely to be very similar to the original 2015 nuclear pact negotiated under President Barack Obama, and which Mr. Trump, in his first term, abandoned in 2018.
'It will probably be a very similar deal as the one with Obama, but Trump will want to put his own spin on it,' Ms. von Hippel said. 'Trump can declare victory no matter what. And if the deal has enough safeguards on Iran he can get away with it,' she said, even if some Republicans and Israel criticize it for not ending Iran's enrichment altogether.
Mr. Trump has miscalculated in thinking Israel's attack would force Iran to accept a deal based on zero enrichment, said Rajan Menon, professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York, in an email post and an article in The New Statesman. Mr. Trump is unlikely to miscalculate again and join Israel's war, but 'this much is certain: Netanyahu wanted to scuttle the U.S.-Iran negotiation, and he has succeeded,' Mr. Menon said, at least for now.
But Iran clearly wants to come back to negotiations, since a deal is still the best protection it has from continuing or subsequent Israeli attacks on a country that has lost most of its own air defenses and has limited ways of striking Israeli territory.
Image
Smoke billowing from the Shahran fuel and gasoline depot, seen from Tehran on Sunday.
Credit...
Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Even if the government is not about to fall, it is weakened and at profound risk, for the first time since Iraq and Saddam Hussein invaded in 1980, said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution.
A pathway to a deal is unclear for now, but the Iranians must still consider diplomacy as 'the best way to extricate themselves from what is an existential crisis,' she said.
There will inevitably be a sharp debate inside the Iranian regime about whether to accept a diplomatic solution out of weakness or to continue to try to strike back and even race for a nuclear weapon, Mr. Malley said.
The alternatives, of course, include widening the war by damaging regional energy assets of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, closing the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, assaulting institutions and even synagogues abroad or attacking American troops and interests in the region. But there is probably no surer way of bringing the United States into the war, which Mr. Netanyahu deeply desires.
For their part, the Europeans who were instrumental in the 2015 nuclear deal, and who have been sidelined by Mr. Trump, say they are ready to hold talks with Iran on its nuclear program. 'I hope that's still possible,' the German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said late Saturday in Oman. 'Germany, together with France and Britain, are ready,' he told the German broadcaster ARD.
Iran must never have a nuclear weapon, he said, but other than wanting the violence to end, he indicated no European move to pressure either side to desist. 'There's a shared expectation that within the next week, a serious attempt must be made on both sides to interrupt the spiral of violence,' he said.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Six months in, Trump's numbers are stronger than in his first term
Six months in, Trump's numbers are stronger than in his first term

The Hill

time23 minutes ago

  • The Hill

Six months in, Trump's numbers are stronger than in his first term

Six months into his second term, President Trump and Republicans are in better shape than eight years ago. Unquestionably, President Trump remains a divisive political figure. However, he has expanded his base and continues to hold it. In contrast, Democrats have been unable to capitalize on Trump's political vulnerabilities and have lost ground compared to 2017. With the House's passage of his rescission package, Trump scored another major win. He has had many, both at home and abroad: a successful strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, enactment of the ' big, beautiful ' budget reconciliation bill, a multitude of favorable Supreme Court decisions, DOGE's cuts, closing the border and deportations. Trump is doing what he promised. His base should be pleased. It is a striking contrast from 2017 when he had a much more mixed record: enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act but an Obamacare fiasco. However, while today's accomplishments play well to his base, how is Trump doing overall? The answer is important because Republicans took a beating in 2018's midterm elections, Democrats gaining 41 seats in the House and the majority. Trump's ability to pass legislation was derailed, his administration was continually dogged by House investigations and he was impeached twice. Trump remains divisive. That hasn't changed and clearly never will. Six months after his inauguration, according to the July 20 RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Trump's net job approval rating was minus-6.6 percentage points. His average approval rating of 45.5 percent is 4.4 percentage points below his share of the 2024 popular vote. However, Trump is well ahead of where he was at roughly the same point in his first term. On July 19, 2017, Trump was at minus-16 percentage points in his job approval: 39.7-55.7 percent. Further, Trump's current job approval-disapproval rating is 50 to 48 percent in Real Clear Politics' only poll (Rasmussen) of likely voters — which is tied with his share of 2024's popular vote. Trump's comparatively favorable showing is carrying over to congressional Republicans. In the July 22 RealClearPolitics average of national generic congressional vote polling, Democrats lead by 3 percentage points. To put this into historical context, we can look back at the earliest generic vote polls in July of the even years before each of the last six congressional elections, Democrats led in all six, yet the subsequent elections were a different story. Democrats lost either House or Senate seats in five of those elections. Looking more closely at today, the Democrats' average lead in likely voter generic polls (Rasmussen and Cygnal) — again the ones who matter most — Democrats' average lead is just 2.5 percentage points. A lot has changed in eight years. back in 2017, Trump's 2016 presidential victory was still being dismissed by some — including some Republicans — as a fluke, a factor of Hillary Clinton's weakness more than his strength. Not so much this time. Trump's 2024 victory was decisive and even quite impressive, considering the obstacles he faced — including but not limited to Democrats' lawfare, two assassination attempts and a concertedly negative establishment media. In office, Trump looked less in control, especially early on. Congressional Republicans reflected this and appeared to be in disarray, as exemplified by their failed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. The results reflected this — particularly their loss of 42 House seats in 2018. Of course, there are caveats about projecting too much from such an early look ahead to 2026. Today's generic numbers come from a much more greater number of polls than had been taken in some of those six previous elections. Republicans' numbers could yet slide. But they could also improve. Trump's approval ratings could slide too. But the same upside potential applies here as well. Invariably, there will be more polling of likely voters as the 2026 election nears — again, the ones that count (or rather, vote) — among whom Trump has historically outperformed among them. Many new issues will arise in the year and a half before 2026's midterms. Yet none may be larger than the negative one on Democrats' horizon: Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's nomination as their candidate for mayor of New York City. Should Mamdani win, he will draw attention away from Trump and onto a set of controversial policies and positions that many Americans view as extreme. He will also exacerbate fissures among Democrats. Although Trump is divisive, he is not dividing his base. And Trump's base is far bigger than it was eight years ago. Democrats are not capitalizing on Trump's divisiveness. They remain leaderless and look more divided than Republicans. J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, 'Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America's Socialist Left' from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades' experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management, and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.

Hamas says ceasefire talks expected to resume next week after U.S. and Israel recall negotiators
Hamas says ceasefire talks expected to resume next week after U.S. and Israel recall negotiators

The Hill

time23 minutes ago

  • The Hill

Hamas says ceasefire talks expected to resume next week after U.S. and Israel recall negotiators

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel are expected to resume next week, a Hamas official said Friday, as Israeli strikes continue across Gaza and experts warn Palestinians are on the brink of famine. Hamas official Bassem Naim said on Friday that he was told an Israeli delegation would depart for consultations early next week. Previous talks had been held in Qatar. His comments come a day after the United States recalled its negotiating team from Qatar and after President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Hamas' latest response to the negotiations showed a 'lack of desire' to reach a truce. Witkoff said the U.S. will 'now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza.' He did not elaborate on what those options might be. Earlier on Thursday Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu's office also recalled his negotiating team in light of Hamas' response. In a brief statement, Netanyahu's office expressed appreciation for the efforts of Witkoff and the other mediators, Qatar and Egypt, but gave no further details. A breakthrough on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has eluded the Trump administration as humanitarian conditions worsen in Gaza. Israel has come under mounting pressure for the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza and reports of people dying from causes related to malnutrition. In recent days more then two dozen Western-aligned countries and more than 100 charity and human rights groups have called for an end to the war, harshly criticizing Israel's blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out. The charities and rights groups said even their own staff were struggling to get enough food. On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognize Palestine as a state, saying, 'The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved.″ Hamas said that Witkoff's remarks were meant to pressure the group for Netanyahu's benefit during the next round of talks and that in recent days negotiations had made progress. Naim said several gaps had been nearly solved, such as the agenda of the ceasefire, guarantees to continue negotiating to reach a permanent agreement and how humanitarian aid would be delivered. Israel's government didn't immediately respond to whether negotiations would resume next week. The sides have held weeks of talks in Qatar, reporting small signs of progress but no major breakthroughs. Officials have said a main sticking point is the redeployment of Israeli troops after any ceasefire takes place. The deal under discussion is expected to include an initial 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up, and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting ceasefire. The talks have been bogged down over competing demands for ending the war. Hamas says it will only release all hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal and end to the war. Israel says it will not agree to end the conflict until Hamas gives up power and disarms. The militant group says it is prepared to leave power but not surrender its weapons. Hamas is believed to be holding the hostages in different locations, including tunnels, and says it has ordered its guards to kill them if Israeli forces approach. Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza but fewer than half are believed to be alive. Their families say the start-stop talks are excruciating. 'I thought that maybe something will come from the time that the negotiation, Israeli team were in Doha,' said Yehuda Cohen, whose son Nimrod is being held hostage. 'And when I heard that they're coming back, I ask myself: When will this nightmare end?' Meanwhile Israeli strikes continued across Gaza. At least 22 people were killed since Thursday night, according to hospital records at Nasser Hospital where the bodies arrived. Some were killed in strikes, others and others were killed while seeking aid, said the hospital.

Why Americans love conspiracy theories
Why Americans love conspiracy theories

Washington Post

time24 minutes ago

  • Washington Post

Why Americans love conspiracy theories

It's been weeks since the Jeffrey Epstein saga returned to dominate our political discourse. This is unusual. Trump scandals typically have short half-lives, burning bright before fading into the background noise of American politics. Yet here we are, still parsing documents and connections with the kind of dedicated attention usually reserved for major legislative battles that actually impact people's lives. There's something about conspiracy theories — and the Epstein story is nothing if not conspiratorial — that captures our imagination in ways that policy debates rarely can.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store