"Better No Deal", Again
Some Israeli Security Officials Say They Prefer an “Iranian Decline” Over an Agreement That Could “Rescue the Islamic Republic”
In Israel and across the Middle East, preparations continue for the possibility of a renewed war with Iran. In Israel, the security establishment is on heightened alert ahead of possible airstrikes. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened the Islamic Republic over the past two weeks, in an obvious attempt to pressure Tehran into an agreement, and announced this week that he halted an attack at the last moment in order to give negotiations a chance.
But what is actually happening here, and how likely is a return to open hostilities? Four observations on the current situation.
1. Iran’s economy is in catastrophic condition. Essential services have been damaged, and much of its military industry no longer exists in any meaningful sense. But for the Iranians, victory means survival. And so they continue to believe they have won — and that mindset shapes the negotiations. The latest dialogue with Iran, mediated by Pakistan, is no longer really about substance but procedure. Not “what are we negotiating,” but “how do we reach understandings.” For example: should the question of Hormuz be resolved immediately — through reopening the strait, as Washington demands — and only afterward everything else, or should the Strait of Hormuz be separated from the nuclear issue altogether?
Iran is preparing for the possibility of renewed war, including ground operations and the prospect of a surprise mission aimed at removing enriched uranium from Iranian territory. At the same time, the Strait of Hormuz remains, in every practical terms, closed to the overwhelming majority of tanker traffic. Iran announced that it is negotiating with neighboring Oman over a transit protocol through the strait — a demonstration, from Tehran’s perspective, of the new reality in the Gulf, in which it controls the movement of oil. It claims to be in talks with additional countries as well.
For now, the blockade imposed on Iran by its Gulf neighbors largely survives, despite Tehran’s bombastic declarations. But as time passes, there is clearly a new reality taking shape. There is no longer any doubt that Hormuz has become the essence of the war.
2. A central question is what renewed war would actually achieve. Israeli sources speak mainly about a desire to “rock the boat” in order to create new momentum for negotiations. They admit that absent some brilliant operation, it is difficult to imagine the Islamic Republic changing its overall direction.
Iran’s direction consistently seeks to tie the issue of Hormuz to the nuclear file and revolves, as is often the case with the Islamic Republic, around delay, deception, and the creation of ambiguity in negotiations.
Israeli officials say Iran’s primary objective is to exhaust the United States, and that Tehran draws encouragement from polling in America showing weak public support for another war.
At the same time, Iran is trying to break the land blockade on imports and exports through China, Pakistan, perhaps Turkey, and other countries. Rail routes are operating with several of these states and its volume has increased, and although the volumes remain limited, oil is also leaving Iran overland. With current oil prices, overland routes that once seemed uneconomical are becoming viable.
The regime’s main fear is not the economy, or even renewed war, but the survival of the regime itself. The purges, arrests, and executions continue to the satisfaction of the new Iranian leadership.
3. The relative stalemate in the Iranian arena has significantly emboldened the organizations backed by Iran — among them Hezbollah and Hamas. From their perspective, the picture is fairly simple: their patron survived a massive assault and an attempted regime-change campaign by the region’s strongest power, Israel, and the world’s strongest power, the United States.
They themselves continue their operations: Hezbollah through targeted drone attacks on the IDF in Lebanon, Hamas through consolidating its grip over the enclave it still controls in the Gaza Strip. Israeli military officials are frustrated by lack of operational freedom to strike anywhere in Lebanon, even as Hezbollah continues to launch attacks across Israel’s northern border — at times killing Israeli civilians and soldiers.
4. So what are the options?
The first is renewed war with Iran, specifically with the possibility of sharp and surprising operations. It should be noted that the notion of regime change is dying, but not dead.
The hope after a strike would be for a comprehensive agreement: a long-term halt to enrichment, removal of enriched uranium from Iran, enhanced inspections, and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Military action — or just the threats of it — are meant to produce that outcome. This remains the primary track.
The second option is a tightening of sanctions and blockade measures, and a transition into a prolonged war of attrition. Gulf states, some of them quietly, are already working intensively to build infrastructure that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz altogether.
In this scenario, Hormuz becomes something akin to the Suez Canal, which remained closed for eight years after the 1967 Six Day War.
Most energy analysts would say that a prolonged closure of the Gulf is unsustainable for the global economy — and that’s an understatement.
The third possibility is an end to the war with no agreeement about the nuclear issue. In this scenario, the United States declares that it inflicted severe damage on Iran’s nuclear program, remains committed to preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but does not condition the end of hostilities on a formal agreement. Washington warns Tehran not to resume uranium enrichment — which has reportedly not resumed since June 2025.
The “no agreement” is actually a solely Hormuz agreement: Iran opens the Strait; the United States refrains from disrupting Iranian tanker traffic. The sanctions regime remains in place, perhaps even intensifies.
When one considers the approaching November elections in the United States, it becomes easier to understand why a “Let’s declare victory and go home” scenario might seem more politically attractive than the current situation.
Israeli security officials say this scenario is still preferable to an agreement that would inject Iran with cash and then be presented as a peace deal, even as Tehran continues supporting regional proxies and never truly abandons its nuclear ambitions. They would rather see Iran slowly suffocate under the weight of its own actions than reach an agreement at any price that, in their view, would ultimately strengthen the Islamic Republic.
In other words, Israelis are returning to a line heard before the negotiations over the JCPOA negotiations: better no deal than a bad deal. This was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s message to the Obama Administration.
Other officials completely object to this approach. They argue that rejecting an agreement without offering a viable political endgame risks locking the region into a permanent cycle of escalation and warfare that is not sustainable for Israel, Gulf countries or U.S. interests.
Either way, this debate is a far cry from the earlier ambitions of regime change in Iran.
There is 40% support for the war with Iran, that never prevented America to fight. There was an even lower levels of enthusiasm joining the battle before WWI and WWII. Iran like many other adversaries misreading America, the American people, and its military might. Trump is doing the right thing here.
Nadav, what happened to continuing the blockade and forcing Iran to shut down its oil? Is that no longer part of the calculus? It seems like an extended blockade, even w some Iranian oil “leakage” figuratively speaking, should put the screws to Iran economically? No??