Iran, Israel, and the Death of Nuclear Diplomacy

For decades, the Middle East has been treated not as a region of sovereign states, but as a chessboard for Western fantasies and Israeli security obsessions. The June 13 Israeli assault on Iran was no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. It was not a warning shot. It was a culmination. Over 100 Iranian targets were struck, including nuclear facilities and military command centers. Fourteen nuclear scientists, twenty senior officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were taken out in one coordinated wave. And yet, the international community offered little more than bored platitudes. No outrage. No consequences. Just the sound of power rearranging the truth.

This is not about nuclear weapons. It never was. Every credible intelligence body, from the International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA) to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has affirmed that Iran is not building a bomb. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, signed in 2015, placed Iran under the most rigorous inspections in modern non-proliferation history. What Iran wanted was recognition, respect, and leverage. What it got was betrayal. In 2018, Trump tore up the deal, unleashing his maximum pressure campaign under the delusion that sanctions would spark surrender. Instead, they hardened resistance. By 2025, Iran had over 400 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60 percent. Still no bomb. But far more bargaining power.

What, then, does Israel want? Officially, to “neutralise” Iran’s nuclear capabilities. In reality, to fracture the Islamic Republic beyond repair. The logic is colonial in form and neocolonial in execution: if you can’t dominate a strong Iran, then dismember it. Sabotage its infrastructure. Assassinate its scientists. Seed unrest. Push it to lash out and then use the response as justification for open war. It’s regime change by a thousand cuts.

And this strategy didn’t come out of thin air. It was sketched out decades ago in A Clean Break, a 1996 policy memo crafted for Netanyahu by American neoconservatives. The plan was explicit: destabilise hostile regimes—first Iraq, then Syria, finally Iran. Netanyahu never let go of that script. For over twenty years, he’s warned the world that Iran is “weeks away” from a nuclear bomb. And for twenty years, it’s been a lie. But this lie has built policy. It’s armed lobbyists. It’s shaped wars. It’s bled billions. And now, it’s landed us here—on the edge of regional implosion.

The June 13 strike was timed to kill diplomacy. Just two days before, U.S.-Iran nuclear talks were scheduled to resume. But instead of negotiation, Iran got airstrikes. Instead of dialogue, deception. Trump—back in the Oval Office and flanked by pro-Israel hawks was briefed on the operation beforehand. He let it happen. Then he praised it. What followed was predictable: Iran struck back with precision. 

Ballistic missiles and drones rained down on Israeli cities—Tel Aviv, Haifa, and strategic installations, overwhelming the famed Iron Dome. The myth of Israeli invincibility cracked. And suddenly, Netanyahu was not the master of the chessboard, but the gambler on the verge of losing everything. His so-called “once and for all” doctrine, the idea that overwhelming force can permanently solve political complexity, was exposed for what it is: a fantasy soaked in blood.

Israel continues to act not as a defender of stability, but as a revolutionary force in the region. A rogue state with nuclear weapons it refuses to declare. A democracy in name, but increasingly an apartheid state in practice. Its endgame? A Middle East where only Israel has nuclear arms. Where neighbours are weak, fragmented, and pliable. Where the U.S. plays enforcer while Tel Aviv dictates the script. This is not about survival. It’s about supremacy.

The deeper danger lies in what this strategy risks unleashing. Because for all of Israel’s obsession with destroying the IRGC, what rises in its place may be far worse: a decentralised web of militant networks, loyal not to states but to ideology. Iran has never been a pushover and when cornered, it becomes more resourceful, not less. 

Let’s be clear, Iran is not isolated. It has survived sanctions, assassinations, cyberattacks, and global smear campaigns. It has cultivated asymmetric alliances, from Hezbollah to the Houthis and has proved that it can retaliate far beyond its borders. The June retaliation made that clear. Iran is not Iraq. It is not Libya, and it is not going away.

Netanyahu’s gamble is backfiring. The gamble that Iran could be intimidated, that Trump could be manipulated and the U.S. military baited into doing Israel’s dirty work, is failing while the world watches as three scenarios loom: a grinding war of attrition; a dangerous U.S. intervention; or full-scale regional escalation with multiple non-state and state actors entering the fray. If Hezbollah, or militias in Iraq and Yemen jump in, it won’t just be a war. It’ll be a systemic rupture.

As for Washington, the question is no longer whether it has influence, but whether it has the will to use it wisely. Trump is boxed in. He knows war will affect the markets. His base wants out of the Middle East. His generals warn against escalation. But his hawks are circling, and Tel Aviv is calling in the favours.

There’s no clean break here. No silver bullet. No reset button. Just a slow unraveling of order, held together by propaganda and inertia. But sooner or later, the center cannot hold, because this is where it ends: not with a nuclear Iran, but with the nuclear hypocrisy that’s allowed Israel to dictate the rules of the game while breaking every one of them. Not with Iranian collapse, but with the collapse of the illusion that violence brings stability. And perhaps that’s the greatest tragedy of all. That the region is not dying from too much resistance, but from too little courage to resist the cycle itself.

By Chloe Maluleke

Associate at the BRICS+ Consulting Group

Russian & Middle Eastern Specialist 

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