Fresh U.S. military strikes on Iran don't bode well for peace in the short term. But regime change may have been inevitable since October 7, 2023.

 7, 2023. 

The Iran deal is not officially dead. That may be the least reassuring thing about it.

The memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran was supposed to mark the beginning of the end of the war. Instead, fresh U.S. military strikes on Iranian targets today near the Strait of Hormuz suggest the deal has entered the familiar, dangerous Middle East category of technically alive but practically suspended.

This was always the risk. A paper agreement can reopen a shipping lane, suspend sanctions, establish inspection rules, and create a timetable for future talks. It cannot create trust where none exists. It cannot force Iran’s military and political factions to behave like one rational negotiating partner. It cannot erase the fact that, for decades, Tehran built its regional strategy around militias, terror proxies, missile networks, hostage-taking, maritime harassment, and plausible deniability.

Now the U.S. has struck Iran again after what Washington says was an Iranian drone attack on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. That does not bode well for peace in the short term. Even if the deal is not formally canceled, the political reality has changed. The U.S. cannot allow Iran to treat the Strait of Hormuz as a toll road or bargaining chip. The Gulf states cannot tolerate Iranian control over the world’s most important oil chokepoint. Israel cannot accept a deal that leaves Iran’s proxy network intact. And Trump cannot accept a “ceasefire” that allows Iran to keep firing.

So the deal is off, at least for now. Not necessarily in the legal sense. In the real-world sense.

The deeper problem is that diplomacy with Iran may have been running on borrowed time since October 7, 2023. Hamas carried out the massacre, but the massacre exposed the full architecture of Iran’s regional project. Tehran’s strategy was never only about uranium enrichment. It was about surrounding Israel with armed proxies, destabilizing Arab rivals, threatening global energy markets, and using terrorism as a tool of statecraft while maintaining just enough distance to avoid full accountability.

That era appears to be ending.

For years, American policy tried to separate Iran’s nuclear program from its regional behavior. The theory was that a narrow nuclear deal could contain the most dangerous threat while leaving the rest for another day. But another day always arrived with more rockets, more drones, more proxy attacks, more ships threatened, more Americans endangered, and more Israelis murdered.

October 7 shattered the illusion that the Iranian regime’s ideology could be managed indefinitely. After that day, every rocket from Hezbollah, every Houthi strike on shipping, every militia attack on U.S. forces, and every threat to close Hormuz became part of the same story. The regime was not merely a difficult negotiating partner. It was the command center of a regional war system.

That is why regime change may have been inevitable, whether Washington wanted it or not. Not because the United States set out to remake Iran. Not because Americans are eager for another Middle Eastern war. But because the regime itself made coexistence harder and harder to sustain.

The current deal tried to buy time. It may still do that. Inspectors may return. Negotiators may meet. Oil may keep flowing. But the central question is no longer whether Iran can sign an agreement. It is whether anyone in Tehran can enforce one.

That question becomes more difficult after every strike and counterstrike. Iran’s leadership has been weakened. Its proxies have been battered. Its military has absorbed enormous damage. Its credibility with its own people is under strain. A government built around fear and revolutionary mystique can survive many failures, but not indefinitely.

For Trump, the calculation is now brutally simple. Peace is desirable. Weakness is dangerous. A deal that restrains Iran is useful. A deal that gives Iran room to regroup is a trap.

The fresh U.S. strikes do not necessarily mean the war is back in full. They do mean the diplomatic pause is breaking down. The agreement may be revived, but it will not return as the same deal. Iran has tested the limits. The U.S. has answered.

For now, peace is on hold.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)