“There are two ways Iran can be handled,” U.S. President Donald Trump has said, “militarily, or you make a deal.” National Security Adviser Mike Waltz advocated for the military solution; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Vice President JD Vance advocated for diplomacy. Trump has opted for diplomacy. But all options are still on the table, and if the diplomatic path fails, Trump says “the other will solve the problem.”
But there are several reasons why all options should not be on the table and why bombing Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear bomb would be absurd.
Most importantly, and the only one that really needs to be said, is that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear bomb. In 2003, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, issued a fatwa, an official religious ruling, that declared nuclear weapons to be forbidden by Islam. The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, which “reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community,” clearly states that U.S. intelligence “continue[s] to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that [Ayatollah] Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” That assessment maintains the 2022 U.S. Department of Defense Nuclear Posture Review that concludes that “Iran does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not pursuing one.” The most absurd reason for bombing Iran to prevent them from pursuing a nuclear bomb is that the U.S. knows Iran is not pursuing a nuclear bomb.
Since Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program, the second reason why it is absurd to bomb Iran is that it has every legal right to its civilian nuclear program. As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has “the inalienable right to a civilian program that uses “nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” The United States does not believe Iran has an illegal nuclear weapons program, and it would be absurd to bomb them for having a legal civilian nuclear program.
Thirdly, Iran has already demonstrated that a military solution is not necessary for the Trump administration to achieve its goal of ensuring that Iran does not enrich uranium to weapon grade levels. America’s concerns, well-founded or not, can be satisfied by establishing verifiable limits on Iran’s levels of enrichment. Iran demonstrated its willingness to comply with this nonmilitary solution when it agreed to those verifiable limitations in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement. Eleven consecutive International Atomic Energy Agency reports verified that Iran was completely and consistently in compliance with the commitments made under that agreement. A military solution to America’s concerns about Iran’s civilian nuclear program is absurd because the U.S. has historical evidence that the nonmilitary solution works.
The military solution is not only absurd because it is unnecessary, it is even more absurd because it risks, not only war with Iran, but a wider, regional war. The United States has begun moving military equipment into the region, including aircraft carriers, bombers, and air defense systems. While presented as preparation for the possibility of intensified war with the Houthis, American officials have privately said “that the weaponry was also part of the planning” for a potential “conflict with Iran.” Even just that “buildup of American weaponry,” according to a new intelligence assessment provided by Tulsi Gabbard, “could potentially spark a wider conflict with Iran that the United States did not want.” Iran has stated that U.S. military action against its civilian nuclear program will elicit a military response from Iran against U.S. bases in the region. Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, said, “If they threaten Islamic Iran, then, like powder kegs, America’s allies in the region and U.S. bases will be made unsafe.” A military solution risks a war with Iran and, potentially, even a wider, regional war.
The fifth reason is that, for all the risk of war with Iran and, perhaps, even a wider regional war, the assessed benefit is not worth it. In a striking line that has received little attention, The New York Times reported that the goal of military plans to bomb Iran’s civilian nuclear sites being discussed by the United States and Israel “was to set back Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon by a year or more.” Absurd is an understatement for risking war with Iran, and even a wider Middle East war, to set Iran’s nuclear program—a nuclear program the U.S. knows Iran does not have—to set the program back by only a year.
All of this calculation of costs and benefits and risks of war is absurd because we know that the diplomatic path can work. We know it can work because it did ten years ago with the successful solution of the JCPOA nuclear agreement. There is reason to hope that, a decade later, it can work again. In the first round of talks in Oman on April 12, Iran insisted that future direct talks would be contingent on the success of the current indirect talks. At the end of that first round, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. chief negotiator Steve Witkoff, met directly, not momentarily as first reported, but for forty-five minutes. The first round in Oman successfully led to a second round in Rome, and the second round has now led to a third round because the second round was constructive.
And, finally, talk of a military solution by the nation that claims leadership of a world order based on international law is absurd because a pre-emptive strike on Iran without Security Council approval would be a violation of international law.
Diplomacy has a real chance of defusing the long and volatile standoff between the United States and Iran. Threats of war are not only unnecessary, they contribute only to making the diplomacy more difficult.
