I am not a skilled chess player, but I know enough to understand that the King is an existential piece—without it, the game is over—and the Queen is a vital piece due to her power in both attack and defense. It is very rare to see a game where the Queen is cheerfully sacrificed.
I mention this because, after multiple interviews in Washington, several European capitals, and officials in the Middle East, many voices interpret the Iranian question as a grand chess match in which the Queen would be the nuclear program and the King the theocratic regime in Iran. The objective of this match would be to convince Iranian leaders that the only way to save the King—their regime—is to sacrifice the Queen, in other words, to renounce their atomic program. The means to achieve this would involve maximum diplomatic pressure, reinforced economic sanctions, and a credible military threat to back them up.
Most of those who support direct negotiations between the United States and Iran believe that, in order to survive and remain in power, Iranian leaders will be willing to abandon their nuclear program—that is, they would allow the Queen to fall, continuing the chess analogy. This is possibly the reasoning behind President Trump’s current strategy of conducting talks in Oman, at least partially.
However, another school of thought believes that, for multiple reasons, the leadership in Tehran is convinced that conceding on the nuclear program would not strengthen the regime, but rather the opposite—it would leave it more exposed, weaker both internally and externally, and without the means to survive. They would lose their last bargaining chip and deterrent. Therefore, the Queen and the King are existentially intertwined, and the notion that they would allow the Queen to fall is a dangerous illusion. The immediate fear is that Iran could drag Washington into endless negotiations, buying time to keep advancing its program and declare itself a nuclear power in the not-so-distant future. The strategic debate around the morality of nuclear weapons, the need to revisit Iran’s declarative policy, and the lessons drawn from the war in Ukraine all support this second way of understanding the match with Iran.
It is, in any case, an indisputable fact that Iran needs time. Time to get closer to its first bombs; time to avert the reintroduction of the “snap back sanctions” scheduled for this October; time to rebuild its defenses; and time to restore its axis of resistance, severely weakened after the losses of Hezbollah, Syria, and to a lesser extent, Hamas. Through negotiations, it can gain a few months. And if an agreement is reached that allows it to preserve what it has already achieved—without compromising other programs such as its ballistic missile development—it will have secured a few vital years.
For his part, President Trump appears personally very interested in reaching an agreement with Iran that would prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear arsenal. He has stated on multiple occasions: “Iran cannot have the bomb.” But that was also Obama’s position, and he signed the well-known JCPOA, an agreement that essentially postponed everything by 15 years but did not prevent Iran from continuing to advance its nuclear program until it reached the practical threshold for producing its first bomb. Precisely because of its loopholes—and its failure to stop Iran’s development of nuclear capabilities—that agreement was rejected by the first Trump administration.
Israel and several countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, are not only concerned about Iran building its first bomb, but also about its capacity to become a nuclear military power and potentially construct a small atomic arsenal within a matter of weeks. For them, it is not only important that Iran does not build a bomb—it is even more critical that it does not possess the technological capability to consider doing so. That is why, during his recent visit to the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his desire to reach a “Libya-style” diplomatic solution—namely, one that entails the total dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program.
The talks have only just begun, and only time will tell where they will lead. But the possible outcomes essentially boil down to three: a good agreement that leads to the genuine dismantling of Iran’s nuclear and associated military programs; a bad agreement that allows Iran to remain a sub-nuclear power, still capable of crossing the threshold and assembling a nuclear arsenal in short order should its leaders decide to do so; or no agreement at all, leading to military intervention aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities. The question is whether the Queen will fall, whether Iran will entrench itself, or whether there will be a checkmate.
Iran’s Sustained Nuclear Ambition
From the Shah of Persia’s desire in the mid-1970s to provide his country with a source of nuclear energy to the present day, Tehran has done nothing but advance to become what is now known as a 'threshold nuclear state.'
While the plans of the 1970s were framed within publicly visible programs and under the umbrella of what was then called 'atoms for peace,' with the regime change and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the nuclear program took a new direction and nature.
After a halt during the war years with Iraq, the desire to obtain atomic energy mutated in the 1990s into an ambition to master military-use technologies that would provide the capacity to build an atomic weapon. Moreover, this program was pursued in an opaque and clandestine manner, and only came to light thanks to the revelations of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella of dissident groups based in the United States, in 2002.
As we have learned also through documentation seized by Israeli intelligence on Iranian soil, Iran launched a plan in the mid-1990s, called Amad, with the objective of manufacturing half a dozen atomic weapons.
To this end, Iran invested significant efforts into creating a covert network to acquire technologies and components related to enrichment instruments and testing of the elements required for weaponization.
In 2003, with American troops marching on Baghdad, Iranian authorities, fearing a military intervention against them, shut down the Amad project, as acknowledged by American intelligence in 2007.
However, this shutdown was not genuine. As part of a broader strategy of deception, Iran closed Amad only to reconstitute it under another institution, the Section for Advanced Development Applications and Technologies (SADAT) of the Ministry of Defense, and later, in 2011, under the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND). According to documents seized by Mossad, over 70% of the original Amad personnel were working in this organization.
It is worth noting that from 2003 onward, the international community demanded explanations from Iran, and due to a lack of satisfactory responses, imposed a regime of sanctions and a technology embargo aimed at hindering the progress of the nuclear program.
But none of these measures led Tehran to become more cooperative or to halt its nuclear ambitions. Not even clandestine Israeli operations succeeded in stopping Iran. Thus, in mid 2013, Iran had installed more than 18,000 of its first-generation IR-1 centrifuges and 1,300 more advanced centrifuges, mostly of the IR-2m model, across its enrichment sites. It had also amassed a stockpile of about 9,700 kg of uranium enriched up to 5 percent and 370 kg enriched up to 20 percent. More than enough to further enrich to military grade in a matter of a few months.
That same year, negotiations began between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group (United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, and Germany), which culminated in 2015 with the signing of the JCPOA—a provisional agreement that essentially set limits on the number of centrifuges, the level of uranium enrichment, and the quantity of enriched fissile material Iran could accumulate. In exchange, sanctions would be lifted. All of this was framed within a 15-year time horizon, after which, provided Iran had complied with all provisions of the agreement, it would be free to resume its nuclear program in whatever form it chose.
Precisely for this reason, the JCPOA was harshly criticized at the time by the Israeli government, with a resounding intervention by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the U.S. Congress.
Later, in May 2018, President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA after repeatedly denouncing it as an agreement that failed to prevent Iran from continuing its progress toward becoming a nuclear power. Trump adopted a “maximum pressure” strategy aimed at breaking Iran’s will and forcing it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. However, the arrival of Joe Biden to the White House marked a sharp turn in U.S. policy, restoring the revival of the JCPOA as a top priority.
The key issue, however, is that under Biden’s administration—particularly in its later months—Iran not only failed to slow its program, but actually accelerated it across all dimensions, from enrichment to weaponization. This occurred alongside a marked lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was denied access to certain facilities and much of the information it had requested. Today, Iran is in a position where it would take only a few weeks to reach 90% enrichment and assemble a bomb. This was confirmed last summer by then–Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and it is a view shared by the majority of international experts.
From this history—drastically summarized here—some basic conclusions can be drawn: First, over the course of more than 30 years, Iran’s leaders have never taken a step back in their nuclear program. When forced to do so, they have frozen their progress—but never dismantled anything.
Second, despite all the associated costs, both diplomatic and economic, Tehran’s leaders have consistently preferred to endure those costs rather than renounce their nuclear advances.
Third, Iran has maintained a vast network of secrecy and deception to circumvent international sanctions and continue acquiring the components necessary to advance toward the bomb.
And fourth, Iran has always used negotiations more to protect its nuclear program than to abandon it.
Queen’s Gambit in Oman
On Saturday, April 12, the first meeting took place that opened a new round of talks between the United States and Iran.
This meeting was prompted by a letter sent by President Trump urging Iran to enter negotiations and reach an agreement on its nuclear program within two months or, otherwise, face the harshest consequences.
Through the mediation of Oman’s foreign minister, both parties exchanged information regarding their positions and agreed to speak again a week later. Both sides praised the constructive tone of the meeting and expressed a mutual desire to avoid a direct military confrontation.
It is worth recalling that President Trump’s announcement of the opening of negotiations, made from the Oval Office during the visit of the Israeli Prime Minister, came as a complete surprise. Biden had made every effort to bring Iran to the negotiating table, without any success. Trump’s letter to Khamenei was publicly rejected at first in Tehran. Yet, despite everything, both parties traveled to Oman to talk.
The reality for Iran is very different today than it was just a few months ago. To begin with, there is a new tenant in the White House—far more unpredictable than the previous one. And being more unpredictable makes it riskier not to take his threats seriously.
Secondly, while barely a year ago Iran could see itself as the undisputed hegemonic power of the Middle East, today it knows it has lost a significant part of its regional instruments of influence, starting with its crown jewel, Hezbollah. The fall of al-Assad in Syria and the formation of a new government openly opposed to Iranian interests in that country has meant the loss of a major investment—in money, equipment, and men—and the loss of access to reconstruction contracts that might have helped alleviate Iran’s struggling economy. The war in Gaza is not going as expected either. Hamas is being militarily dismantled by Israeli forces and may soon be politically displaced. Its proxies in Yemen, the Houthis—who have threatened international shipping and attacked Israel with little initial response—are now suffering retaliatory actions from the United States, with Trump determined to eliminate the threat they pose. Finally, Iran, which has attacked Israel directly twice over the past year, has witnessed its missiles intercepted before reaching their targets and, even worse, that Israeli air forces were able to penetrate its airspace, destroy its defenses and military installations, without suffering losses.
For all these reasons, Iran is now more motivated than ever to halt this strategic erosion and salvage what it can from its nuclear program as well as its freedom of action in the region.
Hence, in light of this weakness, some argue that the time has come to strike Iran, destroy its nuclear facilities before it is too late, and perhaps even check the survival of the regime.
President Trump arrives at these new negotiations fully aware that he was the decisive factor in making them happen and with a dual objective: to stop Iran’s bomb and to avoid having to resort to military force to do so. His remarks after the meeting were positive and reinforced his willingness to pursue a diplomatic solution. However, whether the preferred path of dialogue will lead to a satisfactory outcome for both sides remains uncertain.
Regardless of official statements, Iran has long exceeded the capabilities needed for a peaceful nuclear program—whether for energy or research purposes. Moreover, since the signing of the JCPOA—or since its withdrawal in 2018 by the first Trump administration—Iran has accelerated uranium enrichment, increased the level of enrichment, amassed more than enough uranium enriched to 60% to move to full militarization in a short time, developed ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and worked on the design of nuclear warheads themselves.
In other words, the current situation is radically different from what it was in 2015. Iran has drastically shortened the time needed to build atomic bombs from the moment its Supreme Leader makes the decision.
Thus, simply 'freezing' the nuclear program at its current stage is dangerously misleading: Iran could move toward a nuclear arsenal within weeks if it so wished.
As a show of its hardline stance, the Iranian foreign minister stated before his trip to Oman that he would only discuss Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and was not willing to negotiate other issues such as its ballistic missile program. But much of what is said and done at this stage is pure tactical theater—either for domestic consumption or to project strength to the other side. Uri Lubrani, the last Israeli ambassador to Iran, once told me: 'An Iranian is someone who never says what he thinks and never does what he says. But that doesn’t mean he does what he thinks.' In Oman, two players face off who both see themselves as masters in the art of negotiation.
A Deal, a Bad Deal, or No Deal
The worst outcome in Oman would be for the talks to become endless, because time is precisely what the Iranian leadership seeks: time to continue advancing toward the bomb, time to reorganize in case of an attack on its nuclear facilities. Whether Donald Trump grants them that time depends largely on how it affects his image if it appears Tehran’s leaders are deceiving him. Another influential factor will be the progress of negotiations with Russia regarding Ukraine—two failures could seriously damage his reputation as a winning leader.
Optimistically, one might believe that with diplomatic and economic pressure, the United States could get Tehran to agree to halt its nuclear program and reduce its future reactivation capabilities. For example, by agreeing to deposit its enriched uranium stockpile in Russia or dismantling a significant number of its centrifuges.
However, given Iran’s history of concealment and deception, any agreement would need to include intrusive inspection regimes to be credible—something that, as of today, seems highly unlikely for the Iranians to accept.
Israel has made clear the outlines of what it considers a good deal: total destruction of all facilities related to the nuclear program, removal of enriched fissile material from Iran, dismantling of technical equipment necessary to proceed with militarization, and elimination of delivery systems, such as ballistic missiles.
But we already know Iran has flatly rejected a Libyan-style solution. They are unwilling to part with all their capabilities, relinquish their regional projection of power, or risk ending up like Gaddafi. Indeed, one of the clearest lessons Iran has drawn from the war in Ukraine is that a non-nuclear power is far more vulnerable to foreign aggression than a nuclear-armed one. North Korea stands as another example.
During the JCPOA negotiations, it became painfully clear that the United States and Israel had different interpretations of what it meant for Iran to be nuclear. The Obama and Biden administrations sought to prevent Iran from building its first bomb; Israel wanted to prevent Iran from even acquiring the capacity to build it. This distinction demands much stricter provisions in any agreement.
Donald Trump has been firm in rejecting a nuclear Iran and very serious about the consequences of not reaching an agreement, but he has been more ambiguous about what precisely constitutes a nuclear Iran.
Ideally, the American delegation should aim for Iran’s full, permanent, and verifiable nuclear disarmament. But we do not live in an ideal world—we live in one where Iran has always chosen to continue its march toward the bomb at all costs, despite sanctions, inspections, and technical obstacles. Its program may have slowed, but its nuclear ambitions have never been deterred. Erasing them will not be easy—if it is possible at all. President Trump’s letter gave two months to reach an agreement, though the starting date for that period is unclear. any case, it seems reasonable to assume that by June or July the deadline should have expired. It’s also true, however, that he gave himself 24 hours to end the war in Ukraine—and Putin still resists.
The million-dollar question, then, is what Donald Trump will do if in two months there is no agreement preventing a nuclear Iran. Will he authorize a military action as devastating as never seen before against Iran? And what if he fails to follow through and simply extends the deadline again?
To complicate things further, one must consider Israel’s options. Prime Minister Netanyahu is well-known for his firm stance on not tolerating a nuclear Iran. Ideally, he would prefer the United States to lead any military action aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities in the absence of a diplomatic agreement. But what if there is a deal—and it is a bad one—that allows Iran to remain on the nuclear threshold and regenerate its program in a short time? Would Israel tolerate it? Would it act even against Washington’s position?
Time for a Checkmate
Donald Trump now enjoys a clear strategic advantage over an Iran fearful of its own weakness. Logically and ideally, he should seize this moment and force Tehran to fully abandon its nuclear ambitions.
But as of today, we cannot state with confidence—without risking looking foolish—that he will actually do so. He may prefer to avoid conflict if an agreement satisfies his advisors, even if it does not completely dismantle the nuclear program. Especially if the Iranians manage to disguise the military dimension of their program under the umbrella of civilian nuclear energy.
We also cannot be certain about Iran’s negotiating flexibility. They continue to deny their military program despite all the evidence. Their rhetoric still includes chants of “death to the Great Satan,” and their Supreme Leader still refuses any direct dialogue with the United States.
Having followed the development of Iran’s nuclear program for decades, I am not among those who clearly believe that the King (the regime) will let the Queen (the bomb) fall. I am among those who believe the King and Queen share a sealed, inseparable destiny.
But if the American team fully understands Iran’s ultimate objectives—to buy time and preserve whatever it can to resume the program under new circumstances—and firmly keeps their deception in check, I am willing to concede that one must attempt a good diplomatic agreement and resort to force only if that fails.
The important thing in negotiating is making Iranian leaders see that all options are genuinely on the table, as the saying goes—but this time, it must be serious. And the United States must be materially and psychologically prepared to execute all of those options if the time comes.
You don’t need a crystal ball to see the future—because the future of Iran’s nuclear program is already being played out in a game where the clock has started ticking. Now, it’s a matter of whether we deliver checkmate first.
Rafael L. Bardají served as National Security Advisor to the Spanish PM Aznar (1996-2004); director of the Net Assessment Office at the MoD (2012); CEO of World Wide Strategy, a consulting firm since 2013.
