Will Trump Strike Iran or Strike a Deal?

The new administration faces a changed regional environment, which could make dealmaking more appealing than a renewed sanctions campaign.

By Jonathan Panikoff, the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council and a former U.S. deputy national intelligence officer.

In December, as the Assad regime was collapsing in Syria, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump made clear his view that the United States should not get involved. This happened while I was attending the Doha Forum, where, in the same building, the Iranian, Turkish, and Russian foreign ministers were scurrying to engage in an impromptu meeting to discuss rapidly advancing Syrian opposition forces.

The developments left Middle East experts to ponder how far Trump’s sentiment might extend beyond Syria in a second term—for example, would it include Iran?

For a dozen years, I spent my professional career working mostly on Middle East issues in the U.S. intelligence community, analyzing how foreign leaders’ behavior and domestic and regional politics drive their policies. I have briefed Trump in the Oval Office and seen up close the benefits and drawbacks of his trademark unpredictability on U.S. national security.

As the new administration takes shape, foreign-policy experts are trying to read the tea leaves of Trump’s cabinet and White House appointments to decipher what they might mean for his Iran policy. Instead, they should focus on his statements: Trump is in many ways the most transparent president in decades. His rhetoric often reveals his intentions, even as decisions made by both foreign adversaries and allies can influence his plans.

In an interview last October, Trump said, “I would like to see Iran be very successful. The only thing is, they can’t have a nuclear weapon.” That could portend three possibilities: a broad deal related to all issues the West has with Iran (its nuclear program, proxies, and ballistic missile program); a narrow deal related only to its nuclear program; or a military strike to eliminate the program.

What does this mean in terms of strategy?

While senior officials around Trump disagree on an approach to Iran, more likely to drive his initial policy is how he prioritizes two competing instincts: the desire to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear program versus acting on a personal grievance—Tehran trying to kill him. At minimum, the expectation should be that Iran’s assassination efforts will be forefront on Trump’s mind, even if he ultimately prioritizes a deal. The more traditional foreign-policy hawks in his administration will not let him forget it.

The path Trump chooses—dealmaking or revenge—will shape U.S. policy and reverberate across the Middle East.

Both options will require Trump to significantly increase actual pressure: new sanctions and better enforcement of existing ones, ousting Iran from U.N. bodies whose purpose it consistently violates, and more joint U.S. military exercises with Israel. They will also require the threat of pressure, including working with European allies to invoke snapback provisions and reiterating explicitly that the United States will use military force to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapons capability if necessary.

Those who see additional pressure on Iran as unnecessary because Tehran has already stated its willingness to engage in nuclear talks might be correct if a new deal was solely about the nuclear program, but that would be a mistake. Rather, what is needed is a broader deal that also addresses Iran’s regional malign influence—its provision of weapons as well as financial and training support to terrorist organizations—and requires a verifiable commitment to not rebuild Hezbollah or Hamas.

If Trump leans toward a deal focused solely on Iran’s nuclear program, it could alienate not only traditional Republicans, moderate Democrats, and many within his administration—such as Secretary of State-nominee Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor-designate Mike Waltz—but also Israeli officials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in June 2023 that “Israel will not be bound by any deal with Iran and will continue to defend itself.”

Even those who favor negotiations would likely be alarmed at a narrow focus on the nuclear program, especially as Iran faces a growing economic and energy crisis. I should know: For much of the past two years, I led an effort to forge bipartisan consensus on a new U.S. policy toward Iran, not dependent on who won the U.S. election.

Among the key conclusions was that any future deal with Iran cannot address its nuclear program alone or there will be “insufficient levers of influence and assets available for [future] negotiations regarding Iran’s regional malign influence.”