The United States and Israel have delivered a near-devastating blow to the Iranian regime. In a sustained campaign of precision strikes, they have crippled Iran’s top military and political leadership, shattered much of its navy, air force, and ballistic missile and drone capabilities, and gutted key elements of its defense industrial base. Meanwhile, relentless attacks continue to dismantle what remains of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
It has been a strong and effective campaign.
This military pressure, combined with diplomatic leverage from Washington and Jerusalem, has forced Iran to accept a two-week ceasefire. Pakistan is mediating talks in Islamabad — set to begin this weekend, with Vice President JD Vance leading the U.S. delegation (alongside special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner) — aimed at forging a more permanent settlement.
TRUMP’S IRAN WAR IS PREVENTING A NORTH KOREA CRISIS
As these negotiations get underway, President Donald Trump must approach them with the clear-eyed realism that victory demands: to the victor go the spoils. Trump’s negotiators should insist on nothing short of Iran’s complete and verifiable nuclear disarmament. This means the full removal or permanent neutralization of the country’s enriched uranium stockpile (including the roughly 970 pounds of uranium enriched up to 60% — enough, if further enriched, for approximately 11 nuclear weapons), the irreversible dismantling of enrichment and weaponization infrastructure, and intrusive international inspections with no sunset clause.
Anything less risks squandering the hard-won strategic gains of recent weeks and all but guarantees Tehran will resume its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Addressing the most critical issue — dealing with the stocks of enriched uranium that remain entombed in several damaged Iranian sites since the U.S. and Israeli campaign in June — must be foremost in negotiators’ minds.
The litmus test? Negotiators must demand Iran commit to a firm timetable allowing a team of multinational experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations, or elsewhere, equipped with heavy machinery and WMD retrieval gear, to recover and remove the highly enriched uranium — along with other stocks enriched to 5%-20% purity — from the rubble of tunnels at Isfahan, as well as from Natanz and Fordow. Iran’s agreement, or lack thereof, will reveal its true seriousness about reaching a final deal.
In addition, the U.S. must insist that Iran commit to a permanent and total ban on uranium enrichment. Tehran has long pursued nuclear breakout capability under the cover of a supposed civilian enrichment program, despite repeated denials and IAEA concerns over undeclared activities.
Already, despite differing reports about how U.S. and Iran peace plans address Trump’s red line of zero enrichment, Iranian officials are insisting on their supposed “right” to enrich. This must be a non-starter for Washington. Any enrichment capability — no matter how limited or supposedly safeguarded — leaves Tehran with the technical ability to race toward weapons-grade material whenever it chooses, potentially simply waiting out the remainder of Trump’s term before sprinting to a bomb.
Finally, although the U.S. and Israel have further degraded Iran’s nuclear program in the recent campaign, Tehran may have concealed stocks of centrifuges and centrifuge components, additional weaponization facilities, and critical documentation and equipment related to nuclear weapons production. It also had an enrichment plant under construction deep in the Isfahan tunnels and potentially another heavily fortified site underway in Pickaxe Mountain near Natanz — possibly buried even deeper than Fordow and beyond the reach of even the largest U.S. bunker-busting bombs.
Trump highlighted this threat last month, stating that Iran was “starting work at another site, a different site … that was protected by granite … They wanted to go a lot deeper, and they started the process,” a comment widely understood to refer to the Pickaxe Mountain facility.
Washington must demand that Tehran fully declare all such assets to the IAEA and permit immediate, unfettered access for inspectors to verify, account for, and dismantle them. The IAEA has deep experience overseeing the dismantlement of nuclear weapons programs in Iraq, Libya, and South Africa, along with years of on-the-ground experience inspecting Iran itself, and is well-positioned to lead this verification and elimination effort.
IRAN WARNS OF ‘SERIOUS’ RADIATION RISK AFTER PROJECTILE HITS NEAR NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
Should Tehran refuse these core demands, the U.S. and Israel must be prepared to resume targeted military operations. Future strikes should focus not only on remaining nuclear assets but also on additional regime figures and the extensive terrorist-supporting apparatus that has fueled proxy wars across the region for decades.
A durable peace cannot rest on half-measures or unenforceable promises. It requires the decisive elimination of Iran’s nuclear weapons potential and a fundamental shift in the regime’s behavior. Trump now has the leverage to secure exactly that. He should use it.
Andrea Stricker is deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies‘ Nonproliferation Program and a research fellow at the FDD. Follow her on X @StrickerNonpro. FDD is a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.