A 60-day deadline for Iran to make a nuclear deal with the threat of US military force looms as President Donald Trump says he hopes for a deal even with Iran’s leadership remaining defiant and Israel pushing for military action.
Sound familiar? While déjà vu is technically an illusion of the mind, the above has happened once before. It is both where the Middle East is today, and where it was in April 2025, in the weeks before the first Israeli strikes on Iran last year, and the US attack on its nuclear facilities. The past year may resemble a circle in US-Iranian relations back to the same place, but the trajectory has spiraled downwards, for the US and the region as a whole.
To recap: Trump wrote to then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, in March 2025, suggesting a two-month deadline to make a nuclear deal, or force could follow.
His envoy, Steve Witkoff, flew to Oman in April 2025 to foment diplomacy. The entire project fell apart when Israel’s “Operation Rising Lion” imposed force as the path ahead on June 13. A 12-day war followed, in which Israel took out a large part of Iran’s security apparatus and claimed to have damaged its missile capabilities. The US then struck – and claimed to have “obliterated” – Iran’s nuclear program.
