Last year, in July, the United States and Israel bombarded Iran’s nuclear energy and nuclear research facilities over 12 days. After a few days, the two belligerent powers – who had no United Nations authorisation for this war of aggression – opened the door for a ceasefire. At that time, believing that this might very well be the basis for a full negotiation, the Iranian government led by Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei agreed to the terms set out – an immediate end to the strikes and no escalation. The missile launchers went quiet, but the deal was very fragile. There was no long-term peace agreement, no binding enforcement or monitoring mechanisms, no settlement on the nuclear issues, and no agreement to end US and Israeli sabotage and attacks on Iran. This was not an end to the war imposed by the US and Israel on Iran, but only an agreement to stop one battle. Khamenei described the US-Israel aggression as futile and said that they ‘gained nothing’, while at the same time saying that Iran forced a ceasefire and would ‘never surrender’.

Oman has a decades-long reputation as a neutral intermediary between Iran and the US (with Israel lurking in the background). Between 2012 and 2013, it was Oman that hosted the US-Iran talks that resulted in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia + Germany) and the European Union – reducing sanctions with some promises on nuclear enrichment. A secure and discrete channel existed through Muscat for Tehran and Washington, and this communication line became active after July toward a proper negotiation to clarify red lines and to reduce the risk of miscalculation. In fact, the conversation broadened and Iran came to the point of accepting that its uranium enrichment would be capped, that its highly enriched stockpiles would be diluted, and that the International Atomic Energy Agency could re-expand monitoring and inspections. This was not a final deal, but it was a negotiation framework with conditional nuclear restraint and an ongoing practice of de-escalation. Both Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian had the political will for a deal, which was very much on the horizon. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said less than a day before the US and Israeli attack that a deal was ‘within reach, but only if diplomacy is given priority’.

In fact, the US and Israel took the other path, a war of aggression that violated the UN Charter (Article 2). On the very first day, on 28 February, the US and Israel assassinated Supreme Leader Khamenei and killed 180 girls at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab. The US and Israel believed that this barrage of strikes against political leaders, key infrastructure, and civilians would immediately lead to a popular uprising that would remove the Islamic Republic. The US and Israeli intelligence overestimated the protests that began in December 2025 around the depreciation of the rial and rising inflation. But there is an enormous difference between a cycle of protests against economic issues and the appetite to rise up and overthrow an entire system. When the missiles killed the Supreme Leader, who has a reputation even amongst his critics for piety (he was elevated by the Society of Seminary Teachers at Qom as a Marja-e Taqlid or Source of Emulation in 1994), and when they killed the school children, the public mood was electrified by patriotism. It was impossible in this situation to take the side of the imperialist war against innocent children. The nature of the US and Israeli attack, and the fact that Iran was able to strike Israeli targets as well as US targets in the Gulf Arab states, focused the population of Iran around its own survival and its ability to defend itself. That is the current mood amongst Iranians for the most part.

Since the US wars on Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, US war planners have not set aside the concept of the escalation ladder and have used the concept of rapid dominance (through decapitation strikes, paralysis of command, and total dominance of the adversary’s military). This worked with Afghanistan and Iraq, where the scale of the US violence destroyed the capacity for retaliation. It was truly ‘shock and awe’. Such a military framework did not function with Iran. The Iranians had prepared for a full-scale US and Israeli attack for decades. Their political leadership understood the vulnerability of decapitation strikes, and therefore created eight levels of replacements for most of the top, essential leaders. The military hastily formed different kinds of weapon systems, from hypersonic cluster missiles that could overcome air defence systems to the fast inshore attack crafts that employ swarm tactics in the Gulf waters. These, alongside the pro-Iranian militias from Lebanon to Iraq, are the many rings of defence that the Iranians have built. This means that while the US opens with rapid dominance and does not have an escalation ladder, the Iranian response to the US and Israel was strategically built on starting with its simplest missiles to its more sophisticated cluster missiles – while it has been holding back its small boats and its militias. These have not been deployed, as Iran remains reliant upon its missiles and its hold on the Straits of Hormuz (now only open to ships from certain countries).

Iran’s intelligent response to the US and Israel has pinned them down, leaving them with no choice but to beg for a ceasefire. The Iranian leadership says that it is uninterested in a partial ceasefire, as in July 2025, that would simply allow Israel and the US to rearm and return with another round of violence. Iran says that it wants to have a grand bargain that includes Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon – not just Iran – and that it wants total sanctions withdrawal, an end to the genocide of the Palestinians, and other requirements that the US remove its threatening base structure that encircles Iran. If the US and Israel agree to these demands, it would mean an absolute victory for Iran – despite the tragic losses of human lives from the vicious attack by Israel and the US. Having killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who had been eager for the ceasefire in July 2025, the US and Israel have lost someone who would perhaps have argued again for a ceasefire. The current leadership, including the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, has made an accurate assessment that a ceasefire without a grand bargain is merely about time and not about peace. The Iranians want peace for the region, not war, ceasefire, war, an endless war that results in austerity and pain.

The Israelis have not said much about the war in Iran, preferring to strike with their missiles and block any news coverage of the Iranian missile strikes on Israel. Would they be governed by a peace deal made by Trump? Unlikely. The Israelis have an eschatological view of the Middle East, eager to take the land from the Nile to the Euphrates, which would need them to silence their biggest and most consequential critic in the region, namely Iran. For Israel, this is a fight to the end. They have dragged the US into this battle, even though there is no realistic gain for the US regarding the existence or not of the Islamic Republic (which has not threatened the US at all). Israel wants to see the Islamic Republic uprooted, but that is an unlikely outcome given its deep roots in Iranian society. The US would, on the other hand, be content with the management of the Islamic Republic with a pliant leadership. Neither option is on the cards. And the only option for military escalation is for either the US or Israel to launch a nuclear strike against Iran – which would, after the egregious impact on the lives of Iranian civilians, evoke a totally negative response from global opinion.

There are no good options for the US and Israel. They can remain with their bombing, but they will continue to see Iranian escalation that inflicts harm on Israel and on US interests in the region. The US and Israel will have to face the world as fuel and food prices skyrocket upwards. This was a miscalculation by the US and Israel. Iran will not bend so easy. Hundreds of years of a proud civilisation is at stake. Its leaders know that. They are not just standing for the Islamic Republic or the Iranian Revolution of 1979, but for Iran itself. They will not back down.