It seems a ceasefire has been achieved in what US President Donald Trump is now calling the “Twelve-Day War” between Israel and Iran. However, the key question is what motivated the parties involved to accept it?

For the United States, the calculation is fairly straightforward. Washington viewed the war launched by Israel primarily as an instrument to improve its negotiating position vis-a-vis Tehran.

If Israel succeeded, Iran would be compelled to comprehensively dismantle its nuclear programme, renounce its right to enrich uranium on its own territory as guaranteed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), terminate its ballistic missile programme, and sever links with armed movements comprising the “axis of resistance” in a subsequent agreement dictated by Washington.

Washington’s objectives were further demonstrated by its bombing of Iran’s three nuclear installations over the weekend accompanied by threats of a more widespread campaign if Tehran retaliated. While Trump at one point identified regime change in Tehran as a desirable outcome, he never committed to it, nor instructed the US military to pursue this goal.

As expected, Trump immediately proclaimed the complete obliteration of the three nuclear sites targeted by the US air force and boasted that the Iranian nuclear programme had been definitively destroyed and no longer existed. A boast better known as proclaiming victory and going home. ….more