After America announces a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, big questions remain
Jun 24th 2025|WASHINGTON, DC
HE CAME, he bombed, he ended the war—or so President Donald Trump wants the world to believe. Two days after a fleet of stealthy American bombers struck deeply buried Iranian nuclear facilities, Mr Trump announced a “complete and total” ceasefire in the war between Israel and Iran. “I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR,’” he wrote on his Truth Social site.
Reports said Mr Trump had first secured Israel’s agreement to the ceasefire, then sent the proposal to Iran via Qatari intermediaries. Mr Trump said Iran would halt hostilities first, followed by Israel 12 hours later. Each side “will remain PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL,” he explained. He later told NBC News he expected the ceasefire to last “forever”. Shares rose and oil prices fell as Iran’s foreign minister said there was no formal deal but said Iran would stop if Israel did. But as the deadline expired an early morning volley of Iranian missiles was reported to have killed three people in southern Israel, in what it must be hoped was a defiant final salvo.
The announcement is the latest in a series of startling twists since Israel launched a surprise assault on Iran on June 13th. Israeli jets and intelligence cells cleared away many of Iran’s air defences, assassinated nuclear scientists and generals, and began to destroy a widely dispersed nuclear programme that had brought Iran to the threshold of acquiring nuclear bombs. America swept in on June 22nd with “Operation Midnight Hammer”. B-2 bombers flew a 37-hour mission from Missouri to drop 14 GBU-57 “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” (MOP) bombs on uranium-enrichment sites at Natanz and especially Fordow. Perhaps 30 submarine-launched Tomahawks cruise missiles also struck a complex of nuclear facilities in Isfahan.
Iran responded the following day with token retaliation, firing 14 missiles—one for each American MOP—at the American air base at al-Udeid in Qatar. All but one was intercepted and, thanks to Iran’s early warning, nobody was injured,” posted the president. Two hours later he proclaimed the ceasefire.
J.D. Vance—the vice-president, who was in a Fox News studio when Mr Trump made the announcement—said the American raid had met its objectives. “We know that they cannot build a nuclear weapon.” Iran’s stock of enriched uranium had probably been buried in the attacks, he claimed.
Three questions now hang over the region: can the ceasefire hold; will there be a follow-on diplomatic deal to restrict Iran’s nuclear programme and will the Middle East become more stable after the war?
Begin with the ceasefire. Neither Israel nor Iran have formally confirmed the cessation of hostilities, but both have good reason to stop fighting. The theocratic Iranian regime has long chanted “Death to America”, but has for decades sought to avoid a direct confrontation with the superpower, preferring instead to rely on proxy militias and occasional diplomacy. It is unpopular at home, its armed forces seem powerless against Israel, and its allies across the region have been weakened. With America’s entry into the war, Iran may now prefer to lick its wounds.
As for Israel, it is unlikely Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, will defy Mr Trump after hailing his historic military intervention. Moreover, Israeli military sources reckon they have destroyed nearly all of the targets on their list. Indeed, some suggested Israel might declare victory and stop attacking Iran, even without a formal ceasefire. Mr Netanyahu may now feel he has achieved a legacy-defining victory against Israel’s arch-enemy. Mr Trump, for his part, will not want the war to drag on, having reassured Americans that he was not getting them into another “forever war” after those in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he has long denounced.
As for the nuclear programme, Iran will not unlearn the technology it has mastered. Humiliated and resentful, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could yet decide that his regime needs nuclear weapons for survival. Even if most of its facilities have been destroyed, the programme might resume in secret. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says it does not know the whereabouts of Iran’s official stock of 400kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU), concentrated to 60% purity. If Iran has hidden enrichment centrifuges, it could make weapons-grade fissile material (usually 90%) relatively quickly. That would be enough for ten bombs.
A nuclear deal signed by President Barack Obama in 2015 allowed Iran a limited enrichment programme, under international inspections. It was intended to keep it about a year away from being able to make a bomb’s worth of fissile material. Mr Trump abrogated the agreement in his first term and, on the eve of Israel’s assault, Iran was reckoned to be days or weeks away from such “breakout”. The fear was accentuated by intelligence reports that it had begun work to speed up the process of making a nuclear warhead to fit on a missile.
In recent negotiations with Iran, Mr Trump has demanded something closer to “zero enrichment”. His special envoy, Steve Witkoff, proposed a face-saving deal that would allow Iran to enrich uranium as part of a regional consortium outside the country. It is not clear whether such a deal is still on the table, or whether Israel or Iran would agree to it.
Last is the broader question of regional stability, and whether it can be established for as long as the revolutionary mullahs remain in power in Tehran. If Israel detects a clandestine nuclear programme, it will feel compelled to return, with or without American help. It will also want limits on Iran’s conventional weapons, and its support for militias, after more than a year spent fighting the regime’s allies and proxies, and parrying missiles from Iran, Lebanon and Yemen.
Some in Israel and America think calm can ultimately be guaranteed only by the downfall of Mr Khamenei. On June 23rd Israel tried to undermine the regime’s instruments of repression by bombing the notorious Evin prison and the headquarters of the Basij militia that has suppressed anti-regime protests. Iranians did not heed Israel’s calls for them to rise up against the ageing mullahs. That was always fanciful while the bombs fell. But if the fighting ends, and Iranians begin to count the cost of the ayatollah’s errors, there might still be a backlash. Until then, Israel and Arab allies will want America to keep underwriting the security of the region.
With Operation Midnight Hammer America demonstrated its indispensable role. But many in the Trump administration want America to retreat from being the world’s policeman or at least concentrate its resources in the Pacific to contain China. Mr Vance, an important voice among such “restrainers”, said the nature of Iran’s regime is a matter for the Iranian people to decide. But, he added, “If Iran is desperate to build a nuclear weapon in the future, then they’re going to have to deal with a very, very powerful American military.” A dramatic intervention followed by a dramatic ceasefire does not—yet—amount to a lasting peace. ■
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