US-Israel War on Iran: What Price for a Lasting Peace

The military campaign conducted by Israel and the United States against Iran—inaugurated in June 2025 and intensified in February 2026—constitutes one of the most consequential armed confrontations in the contemporary Middle East. Targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, military command, and political leadership, the strikes inflicted severe but ultimately incomplete damage on Tehran’s atomic program while generating a complex web of diplomatic, legal, and strategic dilemmas.

This essay argues that durable peace between the parties requires a comprehensive framework addressing five interlocking dimensions: verifiable nuclear disarmament and IAEA transparency, the resolution of the Strait of Hormuz dispute, regional security architecture that integrates Iran’s legitimate interests, economic normalization through phased sanctions relief, and multilateral guarantees of Iranian sovereignty. Drawing on primary sources, parliamentary briefings, and expert analyses from the Arms Control Association, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the UN Security Council, the essay demonstrates that military coercion alone cannot substitute for sustained diplomacy. The current ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan in April 2026, is fragile and contingent; transforming it into a lasting peace will demand sacrifices—and political will—from all parties.

Introduction

The military escalation between Israel, the United States, and Iran that began on June 13, 2025 and re-escalated dramatically on February 28, 2026, represents a watershed in the geopolitics of the greater Middle East. What had long been contemplated as a theoretical preventive strike—Israel destroying Iran’s nuclear capacity before Tehran crossed the threshold to weapons capability—became operational reality, drawing in American forces and igniting a conflict of regional proportions. By the time Pakistan brokered a conditional ceasefire on April 8, 2026, the war had claimed over a thousand Iranian lives (House of Commons Library, 2025a), disrupted global shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, triggered the reinstatement of comprehensive UN sanctions, and left the architecture of nuclear nonproliferation in severe disrepair (Arms Control Association, 2025a).

Yet the central question—what a lasting peace would require and at what political and strategic price—remains unanswered. A ceasefire is not peace. The current halt to hostilities is conditional on unresolved disputes over nuclear enrichment, Hormuz navigation rights, sanctions relief, Iranian sovereignty claims, and the future of Tehran’s regional proxy networks (House of Commons Library, 2026a). This essay examines the origins and conduct of the conflict, analyzes the principal obstacles to a durable settlement, and proposes the conditions under which a comprehensive peace might be achieved. It argues that the price of lasting peace is high—but the price of its absence is higher.

 Origins: From Maximum Pressure to Military Action

The conflict did not erupt spontaneously. It was the product of a decade-long accumulation of strategic grievances, failed diplomacy, and escalating nuclear activities. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), concluded in July 2015 by Iran and the P5+1 under President Barack Obama’s administration, imposed verifiable limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief (Council on Foreign Relations, 2023). The agreement required Iran to reduce its enriched uranium stockpile by 97%, cap enrichment at 3.67%, and submit to intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections (EBSCO Research Starters, n.d.).

When President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018—despite Iran’s verified compliance—and reimposed maximum pressure sanctions, he shattered the diplomatic framework without offering a viable alternative (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2026). Iran responded by progressively breaching JCPOA limits: by March 2025, its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% U-235 had reached 275 kg, nearly weapon-relevant concentrations, up from 182 kg just months earlier (Arms Control Center, 2025). By May 2025, a confidential IAEA report confirmed that Iran possessed over 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity—a 50% increase since February (Arms Control Center, 2025).

Upon returning to office in his second term, Trump prioritized a new nuclear deal and launched five rounds of indirect Omani-mediated talks with Tehran beginning April 12, 2025 (Britannica, 2026). U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi led the discussions. Three core issues dominated: verification measures, the disposition of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, and the future of Iranian enrichment rights—with Washington demanding zero enrichment and Tehran insisting on its inalienable right under international law to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes (Wikipedia, 2026a). A sixth round scheduled for June 15 was cancelled when Israel launched strikes on June 13 (House of Commons Library, 2025b).

The Twelve-Day War and its Strategic Logic

Israel’s June 2025 campaign—codenamed Operation Narnia—was a carefully premeditated operation combining covert intelligence assets, precision airstrikes on nuclear facilities, and the targeted killing of at least 14 senior Iranian nuclear scientists (House of Commons Library, 2025b; i24News, 2025). Initial Israeli targets included Natanz and Isfahan, as well as senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and senior military leaders (Arms Control Association, 2025b). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered no intelligence suggesting an imminent Iranian nuclear threat; rather, he stated the campaign aimed to ‘eliminate’ Iran’s nuclear and missile programs (Arms Control Association, 2025b).

Crucially, Israel lacked the military capability to penetrate Iran’s most deeply buried facilities—particularly Fordow—and the strategic logic of the operation was, in part, to draw the United States into direct participation (Arms Control Association, 2025b). That logic succeeded. On June 21-22, 2025, U.S. forces struck Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan with GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs delivered by B-2 Spirit stealth bombers—the first direct American military attack on Iran’s nuclear program in history (Congressional Research Service, 2025). The IAEA Director General acknowledged that ‘very significant damage is expected to have occurred’ at Fordow but cautioned that Iran retains the industrial capacity and knowledge to resume enrichment, and that ‘ultimately diplomacy and inspections are required to restrict its programme’ (House of Commons Library, 2025a).

Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles against the Al-Udeid U.S. Air Base in Qatar on June 23, but provided advance warning, causing no American casualties—a signal that Tehran sought to avoid uncontrolled escalation with Washington (Arms Control Association, 2025b). President Trump announced a ceasefire that day. However, the strategic situation remained deeply unstable: Iran had not abandoned its nuclear program, IAEA inspectors were denied access to damaged sites, and snapback sanctions remained a looming diplomatic instrument.

Escalation to Full-Scale War, 2026

The June 2025 ceasefire failed to produce a political settlement. The expected sixth round of nuclear talks never materialized. Iran refused to renew negotiations as long as the U.S. insisted on zero enrichment (Institute for National Security Studies [INSS], 2025). European powers—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—triggered the JCPOA’s snapback mechanism in August 2025, reinstating all pre-2015 UN sanctions; the Security Council voted on September 28, 2025 to reimpose these measures despite Russian and Chinese objections (European Council, 2025). Iran formally terminated the JCPOA on October 18, 2025 (Wikipedia, 2026b). Compounding the crisis, brutal Iranian security force repression of domestic protests in late December 2025 triggered fresh international condemnation (Britannica, 2026).

Against this backdrop, on February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a second and far larger military campaign against Iran, explicitly targeting regime infrastructure and seeking—in Trump’s words—to ‘induce regime change’ (House of Commons Library, 2026b). The strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who was succeeded by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei (Wikipedia, 2026c). Iran’s response was sweeping: ballistic missile and drone strikes against Israel, American military bases across the region, and Gulf Arab states hosting U.S. forces, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE (Security Council Report, 2026). Most dramatically, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately 20% of global oil trade transits, triggering an acute global energy crisis.

Pakistan emerged as an unlikely but effective mediator. On April 8, 2026, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced a conditional two-week ceasefire under which the United States and Israel would halt strikes while Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz (Al Jazeera, 2026). The ceasefire has since been extended, though the strait’s effective reopening remains contested: Iran imposed restrictions when the United States announced a naval counter-blockade targeting ships accessing Iranian ports on April 13, and the Islamabad talks between Vice President Vance, Envoy Witkoff, and Jared Kushner collapsed on April 11 after Iran declined U.S. terms (Wikipedia, 2026c).

The Five Pillars of a Durable Peace

The current fragile pause in hostilities is not peace. A durable settlement must address the structural conditions that generated the conflict. Five interlocking dimensions require resolution.

First, nuclear transparency and verifiable constraints. This remains the central neuralgic issue. The Arms Control Association (2025a) has argued that the military strikes have paradoxically increased the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran by ‘severely reduc[ing] Iran’s incentives to allow the return of IAEA inspection teams.’ Iran has not permitted IAEA access to any damaged sites since June 2025 (Carnegie Endowment, 2026). A lasting peace requires a successor agreement to the JCPOA—one that addresses the verification gaps that plagued its predecessor. The IAEA Director General has been explicit: diplomacy and inspections, not military strikes, are the instruments capable of durably constraining a nuclear program (House of Commons Library, 2025a). Iran’s senior adviser Kamal Kharrazi acknowledged that while Iran possesses the technical capacity to build nuclear weapons, a fatwa by Khamenei constrains it—but added that this position could change if the country’s existence were threatened (Wikipedia, 2026a). Any peace deal must therefore provide Iran with genuine security guarantees.

Practically, a new nuclear framework must offer Iran the right to maintain a civilian enrichment program at low purity levels (a position Iran has consistently asserted as non-negotiable under international law), with intrusive IAEA monitoring under the Additional Protocol and agreed procedures for resolving disputes. The UAE model—where a country voluntarily renounced enrichment in exchange for U.S. nuclear cooperation—has been floated by U.S. negotiators but is unlikely to be acceptable to Tehran, which views enrichment as a matter of national sovereignty and technological pride (Arms Control Association, 2025b). The enrichment question must be resolved through compromise, not capitulation.

Second, resolution of the Strait of Hormuz dispute. Iran’s closure of the Strait and the subsequent U.S. naval counter-blockade have created a dangerous standoff with global economic consequences. The UAE described a simple ceasefire as insufficient, demanding the ‘unconditional reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,’ while Saudi Arabia called for talks to ‘address all issues’ contributing to regional instability over ‘the past decades’ (House of Commons Library, 2026a). Iran, for its part, has demanded international recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait and sought to collect transit tolls—a position rejected by Washington (House of Commons Library, 2026a). The reopening of the Strait to free navigation under international law (UNCLOS provisions) is both a humanitarian necessity and a non-negotiable precondition for economic normalization. France and the United Kingdom have proposed an international defensive mission for the Strait once a sustainable ceasefire is agreed (House of Commons Library, 2026c). Any peace framework must codify free passage rights while addressing Iranian legitimate interests in security and economic participation.

Third, regional security architecture. The conflict has laid bare the inadequacy of bilateral U.S.-Iran or Israeli-Iranian frameworks in isolation. Iran’s regional influence—exercised through Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and affiliated militias in Iraq and Syria—is a function not only of ideological ambition but of security calculations rooted in encirclement by U.S.-aligned states and an existential fear of regime overthrow (House of Commons Library, 2025a). A durable peace must create multilateral security guarantees for Iran that reduce its strategic incentives to sponsor armed groups. This requires a broader regional architecture involving Gulf Cooperation Council states, Turkey, Iraq, and potentially China and Russia as guarantors. Saudi Arabia has implicitly acknowledged this by calling for comprehensive talks addressing regional stability over ‘the past decades’ (House of Commons Library, 2026a).

Fourth, economic normalization. The reimposition of snapback sanctions in September 2025, combined with the naval blockade and the destruction of Iranian energy infrastructure, has inflicted severe economic damage. Iran’s rial entered freefall following the sanctions reimposition, triggering the protests that preceded the February 2026 escalation (Britannica, 2026). Iran’s ten-point peace proposal—leaked in April 2026—demanded the release of frozen Iranian assets, lifting of all sanctions, and war reparations (Al Jazeera, 2026). While these demands are unlikely to be accepted wholesale, a credible and phased sanctions-relief architecture, tied to verifiable nuclear and behavioral commitments, remains the essential economic pillar of peace. The JCPOA demonstrated that this model can work: Iran’s compliance with nuclear constraints was verified by the IAEA before sanctions were lifted in January 2016 (European Union External Action Service, n.d.).

Fifth, multilateral guarantees and UN Security Council endorsement. Iran has consistently demanded that any agreement be codified in a binding UN Security Council resolution—a demand with legal and political merit given the unilateral American withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 (Al Jazeera, 2026). Russia and China, while critical of the U.S.-Israeli campaign, are unlikely to veto a UN resolution that restores Iranian nuclear constraints and lifts sanctions, provided their interests are accommodated (Congressional Research Service, 2025). A Security Council-endorsed agreement would provide Iran with institutional protection against future unilateral American withdrawal—the single greatest Iranian grievance that precipitated the current crisis.

Legal and Normative Dimensions

The US-Israeli military campaign has raised acute questions of international law. Russia characterized the February 2026 operation as ‘a deliberate, premeditated, and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent UN member state, in direct violation of the fundamental principles and norms of international law’ (Security Council Report, 2026). Legal scholars at Just Security argued that the U.S. Article 51 letter justifying the June 2025 strikes constituted ‘legal lipstick on the use of force pig,’ while others concluded that the attack was unconstitutional under domestic American law (Just Security, 2025a, 2025b). The targeting of IAEA-safeguarded nuclear facilities drew specific condemnation from IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, who stated that ‘nuclear facilities must never be attacked, regardless of the context or circumstances’ (House of Commons Library, 2025b).

Durable peace cannot rest on legal ambiguity. A settlement must include a mutual commitment to international legal norms, including the sovereignty of all parties, the inviolability of IAEA safeguarded facilities, and the right to peaceful nuclear technology under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It must also address the accountability questions raised by reported civilian casualties in Operation Narnia (i24News, 2025) and the broader humanitarian impact of the blockade and bombing campaigns. Without a normative foundation, any agreement will remain vulnerable to unilateral revision.

The Limits of Military Coercion

A recurring assumption in the strategic logic of the US-Israeli campaign—that sufficient military pressure could compel Iranian nuclear surrender—has been systematically refuted by events. The Arms Control Association (2025a) noted that even after the June 2025 strikes, Iran retained ‘the industrial capacity and knowledge required to resume enrichment work,’ and that it required ‘only months to enrich its supply of uranium enriched to 60 percent U-235 to bomb grade on a smaller scale.’ The IAEA Director General confirmed this assessment (House of Commons Library, 2025a). The Carnegie Endowment (2026) observed that ‘getting a handle on where things currently stand, let alone rebuilding confidence in the international community’s ability to detect covert nuclear activities, will be technically and politically challenging.’

The military campaign has not produced Iranian capitulation; it has produced Iranian obduracy. Iran’s ten-point peace proposal—which Trump described as a ‘workable basis on which to negotiate’—included demands that the United States would have considered inconceivable before the war: the withdrawal of U.S. forces from regional bases, international recognition of Iranian Hormuz sovereignty, and war reparations (Al Jazeera, 2026). The paradox of coercion is that it may harden adversarial resolve rather than erode it. Iran’s parliamentary speaker declared that Iran would not give in to ‘surrender’ terms (Wikipedia, 2026a), and the IRGC maintained that the strait ‘will not be opened to the enemies of this nation’ (Wikipedia, 2026a). The lesson of the past year is that military strikes can degrade but cannot eliminate a determined state’s nuclear ambitions—particularly when those strikes simultaneously destroy the inspection and verification regime that might otherwise have provided early warning.

The Price of Peace: Reciprocal Concessions

Analysts from the European Council on Foreign Relations (2026) and Chatham House (2026) have argued that making the ceasefire last requires Europeans and regional actors to actively support the negotiating framework. Former Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, writing in Foreign Affairs, proposed a framework in which Iran would agree to meaningful nuclear constraints in exchange for credible and irreversible sanctions relief, security guarantees, and normalized economic relations (as cited in House of Commons Library, 2026a). Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry commended the negotiations, comparing their difficulty to the moment when Ayatollah Khomeini accepted the end of the Iran-Iraq War as a ‘poisoned chalice’ (Wikipedia, 2026a)—acknowledging that Iran, too, may need to accept painful concessions.

What peace would cost, concretely, is as follows. For Iran: formal renunciation of nuclear weapons ambitions, verifiable through intrusive IAEA inspections including the Additional Protocol; meaningful constraints on uranium enrichment levels and stockpile quantities; and curtailment of support for regional armed groups beyond what is legally permissible under international law. For the United States and Israel: acceptance of Iran’s right to a civilian nuclear program including limited enrichment; phased, verifiable, and ultimately comprehensive sanctions relief; binding security guarantees against regime-change operations; and the reopening of normal diplomatic relations. For the international community: a Security Council-endorsed framework with enforcement mechanisms that do not depend on the good faith of any single permanent member; restoration of full IAEA access and funding; and a regional security dialogue that includes all relevant stakeholders.

These are not modest demands on any side. They require the United States to abandon the fantasy that Iran can be reduced to zero enrichment capacity; they require Israel to accept an Iran that retains civilian nuclear infrastructure under monitoring; they require Iran to accept limits on both its nuclear program and its regional behavior. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated that Iran ‘can have a civilian nuclear energy program instead of a military WMD atomic weapons program’ (Wikipedia, 2026a)—a formulation that, while ambiguous, leaves room for a deal. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi warned that a nuclear-armed Iran ‘could trigger broad nuclear proliferation’ across the region (Wikipedia, 2026a), a prospect that should concentrate the minds of all parties.

Conclusion

The US-Israel war on Iran has reached a painful and precarious pause. The April 2026 ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan with Chinese and Turkish support, has halted—but not resolved—the most serious confrontation between Iran and Western-aligned powers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The price for a lasting peace is steep but calculable: it requires a comprehensive nuclear deal with real verification and real sanctions relief; a legally codified resolution of the Strait of Hormuz dispute; a regional security framework that accommodates Iranian sovereignty and security concerns; and an international institutional architecture robust enough to withstand the domestic political pressures of any single signatory.

The alternative—a return to conflict, a nuclear-armed Iran, or an indefinite frozen conflict—carries costs that dwarf any diplomatic concession. The JCPOA, for all its imperfections, demonstrated that a framework could work: Iran complied with its nuclear obligations for years (Arms Control Center, 2025; Council on Foreign Relations, 2023). What destroyed it was not Iranian intransigence but American unilateralism. A new agreement must be designed to survive changes in American administrations—through UN Security Council endorsement, multilateral architecture, and binding international law.

The price of peace is political courage: the willingness of all parties to accept less than total victory and more than total humiliation for their adversaries. The price of its absence is measured in lives, in proliferation risk, in the erosion of the international order, and in the normalization of targeting nuclear facilities that are humanity’s shared inheritance of arms control. As the UN Secretary-General urged at the ceasefire announcement: all parties must ‘abide by the terms of the ceasefire to achieve a lasting peace in the region’ (Wikipedia, 2026c). Whether they will do so remains the defining question of our moment.

You can follow Professor Mohamed Chtatou on X : @Ayurinu

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