The Clock Is Ticking: If Negotiations With Iran Fail War Is Coming
By Michael Snyder/End of the American Dream April 17, 2025
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President Trump says that we have "a problem with Iran", and he insists that he is going to be the one to solve that problem. If the Iranians are willing to compromise, there is a chance that we could see a negotiated deal. If the Iranians are not willing to compromise, there will be military action against Iran.
The Iranians are prepared to hit back with everything that they have got if their nuclear facilities are attacked, and once that happens there will be no turning back. So there is a lot riding on the negotiations with Iran that began last weekend and that will continue this upcoming weekend.
If the negotiations go badly, the course of human history could take an apocalyptic turn very rapidly.
The Iranians would love to buy time by dragging out negotiations with Trump for as long as possible.
But Trump has already clearly stated that he is not going to allow that to happen.
In fact, on Sunday he told the press that a final decision on Iran will be made "very quickly"...
Trump, who has threatened military action if no deal is reached on halting Iran's nuclear program, told reporters aboard Air Force One that he met with advisers on Iran and expected a quick decision. He gave no further details.
"We'll be making a decision on Iran very quickly," he said.
Subsequently, on Monday Trump gave us even more insight into what he is thinking.
In the Oval Office, he told reporters that he will solve the "problem with Iran" one way or another...
"We've got a problem with Iran. I'll solve that problem. It's almost an easy one," Trump declared, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador.
"Iran has to get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon," Trump said. "I want them to be a rich, great nation. The only thing is, one thing, simple, it's really simple: They can't have a nuclear weapon. And they've gotta go fast. Because they're fairly close to having one. And they're not going to have one."
"And if we have to do something very harsh, we'll do it," he added. "And I'm not doing it for us. I'm doing it for the world. These are radicalized people, and they cannot have a nuclear weapon."
When a reporter asked Trump to clarify what "something very harsh" means, Trump once again threatened to conduct a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities...
He was asked, regarding his reference to something harsh, "Does that include a potential strike on Iranian nuclear facilities?" And he answered: "Of course it does."
This is it.
This is the fork in the road that many of us have been anticipating for a long time, and so let us hope that the negotiations that will happen this weekend go well.
On Tuesday, Trump and his team gathered in the White House situation room to discuss negotiating strategy...
President Trump held a meeting on Tuesday morning in the White House situation room about the ongoing nuclear deal negotiations with Iran, two sources with direct knowledge told Axios.
Some members of Trump's team apparently want to compromise with the Iranians, while others are supporting "a maximalist approach to the negotiations"...
The meeting took place amid intense debate within the administration over the way forward in the negotiations and the compromises the U.S. should or shouldn't make.
Vance and Witkoff think diplomacy could lead to a nuclear deal and think the U.S. should be ready to make some compromises in order to get it.
Other senior members of the administration, including Rubio and Waltz, are highly skeptical and support a maximalist approach to the negotiations.
It appears that those supporting a maximalist approach to the negotiations may have won the debate, because Trump's top negotiator is now publicly telling us that Iran "must stop and eliminate" all nuclear enrichment...
United States special envoy Steve Witkoff has said that Tehran "must stop and eliminate" its nuclear enrichment programme to reach a deal with Washington, seemingly raising the bar of US demands ahead of another round of talks with Iranian officials.
Witkoff's remarks on Tuesday appear to contradict his suggestion a day earlier that the US would be satisfied with Iran enriching uranium at a low level to produce energy.
"Any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East - meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program," Witkoff said in a statement on Tuesday.
I think that it is extremely unlikely that the Iranians will go for this.
So unless the negotiating position of the Trump administration changes or the Iranians feel like completely caving in, I don't see how a negotiated deal is going to happen.
Hopefully I am wrong about that.
Hopefully when the two sides sit down at the negotiating table we will see some magic happen.
But right now I am not particularly optimistic.
And the clock is ticking.
Right now, the Iranians are constructing a brand new nuclear facility that is "believed to be deep enough to withstand America's bunker-buster bombs"...
A recent US intelligence assessment found that Iranian scientists were looking for shortcuts that would allow them to create a crude weapon in months, if the country's leadership decides to do so.
Iran is also building a new underground centrifuge assembly facility at Natantz, one believed to be deep enough to withstand America's bunker-buster bombs.United States luxury resorts directory
Once the facility is complete, the threat of US or Israeli military strikes becomes far less meaningful.
Of course there is already a lot of doubt about whether or not conventional weapons are actually capable of taking out Iran's existing nuclear facilities.
If we attempt to destroy them and fail, that would be a humiliating turn of events for the Trump administration.
And even if we destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, what would stop them from building facilities that are even deeper underground in the future?
Would we have to keep bombing Iran again and again?
Some experts are convinced that it would actually take regime change in Iran for any military option to be permanently successful...
"Ultimately, short of regime change or occupation, it's pretty difficult to see how military strikes could destroy Iran's path to a nuclear weapon," said Justin Bronk, senior research fellow for airpower and technology at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defence think-tank.
"It would be a case of essentially trying to reimpose a measure of military deterrence, impose cost and push back breakout times back to where we were a few years ago."
There is no easy military solution to this crisis.
If the Trump administration decides to attack Iran, it will spark an all-out apocalyptic conflict in the Middle East.
So let's hope that negotiations with Iran succeed.
If there is a peaceful way to keep the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons, that would be good for everyone involved.
I don't want to put too much pressure on the negotiators, but the decisions that they are about to make will alter the course of human history.
May they choose wisely.
Originally published at End Of The American Dream
