War in Iran: three months later, Donald Trump is incapable of solving the problem he himself created

It was meant to last “quatre à cinq semaines”. But as the war he launched in Iran has entered its fourth month, Donald Trump no longer seems so close to achieving his goal: forcing Iran to give up its highly enriched uranium, a problem he himself created by withdrawing from the nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama.

“They really want to conclude an agreementrepeated the American president on Wednesday during a council of ministers at the White House. Their navy is gone, as I have said a thousand times, their air force is gone, everything is gone, and they are negotiating at the end of their tether. But we’ll see what happens. Maybe we’ll have to go back and finish the job.”

The remarks came just four days after Trump claimed a deal had been reached. « largement négocié » and that “Final aspects and details of the agreement were currently under discussion and would be announced shortly.”. Although both Trump and Iranian leaders are unreliable narrators, several reports indicated that Iran would only accept « discussions » regarding the handing over of its uranium.

When Obama contained Iranian uranium

Trump repeatedly asserts that the objective of this war, which has now lasted 90 days and which he initiated without consulting Congress or the traditional allies of the United States, is to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. However, there is no indication that Iran plans to give up its stock of highly enriched uranium. What he fails to point out is that Iran only produced this material after Trump tore up the Iran deal made under Obama.

Since the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, after two years of negotiations, Trump has falsely claimed that this agreement actually gave Iran permission and the means to produce nuclear weapons. He repeated this assertion on Wednesday: “It was the path allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon very quickly. Years ago, they would have had a nuclear weapon.”

In reality, Obama’s deal strictly limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and established an intrusive system of international inspections.

Iranian leaders, eager to secure sanctions relief in return, respected the enrichment ban — something the Trump administration itself freely acknowledged during its first term. Despite this, Trump abandoned the deal in 2018. “The State Department and the intelligence community had repeatedly confirmed that Iran was abiding by the terms of the JCPOA when Trump unilaterally withdrew from it.”declared Ned Price, former CIA officer and head of the State Department under President Joe Biden.

Since withdrawing from the JCPOA, Trump has claimed that Iran wants to conclude a « accord » with him. During his 2020 re-election campaign, he repeated that Iran desperately wanted him but was waiting for his second term to begin. Then, while he tried to reconquer the White House after the failure of his attempted coup on January 6, 2021, he affirmed that he would quickly conclude an agreement with Iran once returned to power.

Mintages and inflation

Instead, Trump attacked Iran twice: first in June 2025, then on February 28, both times while supposedly productive negotiations were underway.

Today, three months after the start of a war that has damaged the global and American economies, caused oil and gas prices to rise, fueled inflation, and caused the deaths of 13 Americans and at least 1,500 Iranians, Trump continues to assert that Iran desperately wants “Un accord”while its leaders seem to be procrastinating and dragging things out.

Robert Kagan, a former senior State Department official under Ronald Reagan and now a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution, believes that Trump’s repeated and false claims that a deal is close only serve to obscure the reality of the war, noting that Iran confronted American forces on Monday.

“The fact that the Iranians felt emboldened enough to target American ships shows that they do not fear a return to war, because they know that Trump does not have good military options and wants outat-il déclaré. The war was over in March. The United States lost. Everything that has happened since is aimed at covering up this reality.”

According to him, the worst consequence of the war will be the new control exercised by Iran over the Strait of Hormuz and over a fifth of world oil traffic.

Iran is buying time

“Iran was deterred from closing the strait by fear that such action would provoke an attack that could threaten the very existence of the regimereprend Robert Kagan. Now they have proven that they can survive a prolonged bombing campaign while inflicting unacceptable damage on the region, including control of the strait. After pushing Iran to demonstrate this, we now live in this world and there can be no return to the status quo.”

As for enriched uranium, Iran could win on that too, according to John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser during his first term and a longtime advocate of an attack on Iran to bring about regime change. “Iran is playing for time. Trump is still desperately looking for a way to claim victory. But for the moment we are not talking about a real agreement, only an extension of the ceasefire and the opening of the straitat-il déclaré. Iran wins by postponing the nuclear issue until later.”

Note: This article is a translation produced by the editorial staff ofHuffPost Franceà partir d’un article paru en mai 2026 sur le HuffPost US. The original article can be read here.