THE ceasefire between Iran and Israel — declared hastily and with much fanfare by the US president Donald Trump — is already beginning to look less like a diplomatic victory and more like a strategic illusion. What was sold as a decisive end to hostilities may turn out to be a temporary lull before the next eruption. And the consequences of that miscalculation may be far more destabilising than the original conflict.
To understand how we got here, one must first recognise the flaw at the heart of Trump’s foreign policy: a penchant for theatrics over substance. By rushing to declare a military victory against Iran and orchestrating what he called a ceasefire, Trump shifted the burden of proof from Iran to himself. Instead of demanding that Tehran open its facilities to verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Trump moved first, unilaterally, and in doing so, gave Iran room to manoeuvre.
The Islamic Republic responded with predictable cunning. Tehran promptly suspended cooperation with the IAEA — the only body with the legal and technical mandate to assess nuclear compliance. Without external oversight, Iran is now free to hide the extent of the damage to its nuclear facilities, obscure the fate of its centrifuges, and relocate its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to secret sites. The tables have turned. Where once Iran was on the defensive, now it’s Washington — led by a president caught in a spiral of self-justification — that appears cornered.
What’s even more telling is the triumphant re-emergence of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. With characteristic defiance, he dismissed the US response as a failure and ridiculed Trump’s claims of success. For Iran, the ceasefire is not a concession. It’s a stage-managed pause that buys its time while reinforcing its regional posture.
This outcome is partly the result of Trump’s chronic habit of personalising politics. Strategic policy is reduced to political messaging. Missteps are not acknowledged but repackaged as triumphs. Even his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff — sharp, perhaps, but largely inexperienced in the complexities of Persian power games — has leaned on short-term arrangements rather than strategic depth.
The problem with short-termism is that it rarely solves the long-term crisis. A real ceasefire, if one existed, would have been accompanied by a detailed roadmap — mutually verified commitments, defined consequences for breaches, and an endgame. What Trump offered instead was what his administration often peddles: patchwork diplomacy. Appearances over reality. Announcements without guarantees.
And while Witkoff might be a capable dealmaker, he appears to have misunderstood both sides. On the Iranian side, the regime has shown remarkable ideological rigidity. It is deeply invested in its nuclear program, its missile development, and its sprawling network of regional proxies. These are not negotiable tools of foreign policy; they are foundational to the Islamic Republic’s strategic identity.
On the Israeli side, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a political survivor — one whose ruthlessness is matched only by his skill at reading the winds in Washington. He has now found himself navigating not only Iran’s ambitions but also Trump’s unpredictable temperament. And with the US president signalling a desire to avoid further military confrontation, Netanyahu must act more cautiously — perhaps reluctantly deferring retaliation, while preparing for the next inevitable round.
Behind the scenes, Iran has already begun manoeuvring. Intelligence reports suggest it has dispersed its enriched uranium and hardened its facilities. Meanwhile, the IAEA has warned that Iran is only months away from achieving enrichment levels necessary for a bomb. The real question now is not whether Iran will acquire the bomb, but whether anyone will be able — or willing — to stop it.
Trump may find it politically inconvenient to launch a second strike. Doing so would be an implicit admission that the first round failed. Worse, it could provoke a domestic backlash at a time when political capital is in short supply. But doing nothing carries its own costs. It encourages Iran to harden its positions and emboldens its proxies from Lebanon to Yemen.
So where does this leave the so-called ceasefire? On life support.
It is increasingly clear that neither Israel nor Iran views this pause as the end of hostilities. For both regimes, conflict has political utility. In Israel, security crises galvanize public support and unify a fragmented political spectrum. In Iran, external threats are used to justify internal repression and rally nationalist fervour. A conflict — kept simmering just below boiling point — serves their interests.
What about diplomacy? Can there still be a grand bargain? Witkoff and his team speak as if such a breakthrough is just around the corner. But this sounds more like wishful thinking than serious statecraft. Tehran has made it clear that it will not discuss its ballistic missile program, nor its use of armed militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. The most the US can expect is a game of delay — talks meant to stall, not solve.
Meanwhile, Khamenei has raised the bar for diplomacy even higher. He insists that Trump apologise for using the term ‘surrender’ in reference to Iran — a symbolic demand meant to further erode American leverage. In truth, the Supreme Leader has already scored a win: a retaliatory strike on a US base in Qatar that injured no one but signalled resolve. Washington took the message and backed off.
It is a grim irony that Iran may now be in a stronger negotiating position than before the US strikes. The regime has shown it can survive a US offensive, maintain its nuclear program, and still command attention on the global stage.
The lesson here is sobering: diplomacy must be rooted in realism, not public relations. The US cannot afford to confuse tactical pauses with strategic solutions. The Trump administration’s approach — improvisational, media-driven, devoid of historical awareness — is ill-suited to a region where time moves slowly, memory runs deep, and adversaries play the long game.
As things stand, the world should prepare for the next phase of the Israel-Iran confrontation. Because if history teaches us anything, it is that when deterrence weakens, escalation follows. The so-called ceasefire may have bought a few weeks of quiet, but the storm clouds are already gathering. And once the skies open again, no tweet will be able to contain the fallout.
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MA Hossain is a political and defence analyst.
