Is the United States going to war with Iran?

By Christopher Kinsley II

The United States is in negotiations with Iran after President Trump demands an end to their nuclear enrichment program and a reduced capacity for their ballistic missiles.

Earlier this week Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu met with President Trump at the white house to discuss the “red-lines” of the negotiations, with Trump commenting afterwords that he told the Prime Minister that a deal would “be a preference”, signaling war if the negotiations fall through. The question looming in the air is if Iran concedes to the nuclear demands, will Trump drop his ballistic missile demands?

The White house released a security Memorandum on February 4^th 2025, three months before the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear capabilities. According to the memo, Iran bears the responsibility of the October 7^th attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas, as well as funding terrorist groups throughout the middle east, including the Houthis, Hezbollah, the Taliban and Al-Qa’ida. The strike on Iran’s nuclear program has been dubbed “The Twelve Day War” because of the preceding nine days of missile strikes from Isreal and the following three days after nuclear strike when Iran attacked an evacuated U.S. base in Qatar.

President Trump framed the bombings as necessary to stop nuclear weapon development and expressed that U.S. strikes were only targeting the nuclear facilities. Despite the security memorandum listing multiple grievances, Trump stated on the evening of the strike that “Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity.”

This month Iran and the U.S. are resuming the negotiations they attempted before the twelve-day war, with Trump reiterating his initial demands from the 25’ memo for Iran to decrease or relinquish its ballistic missiles. Iran has stated multiple times that this is a dealbreaker, and that even the abolishment of its enrichment program is off the table, with only the levels and methods of enrichment being open for debate.

Upon exiting the most recent discussions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed difficulty with the negotiations, hinting that both sides are at an impasse. Is this because Iran refuses to stop its enrichment or are they denying the ballistic missile demand, whatever the specifics of it may be. This concern is raised because both parties used their militaries in a show of force after the meeting, Iran temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping lane critical to global trade, and the U.S. has positioned its warships near Iran. Both are troubling signs, hinting that peace is not an option. Given this, many are left wondering if the U.S. will go to war over these demands and where the “red line” exactly is. If Iran is willing to enrich at acceptable levels and submit to oversite of their nuclear facilities will the U.S. drop the demands on its missile capabilities? Furthermore, in the available documents to the public, Trump’s specific demands concerning their ballistic missiles are unclear and vague, complicating predictions.

As it stands, both Iran and Isreal claim their attacks were defensive or preemptive, with both sides putting the blame on the other. Isreal has a nuclear missile capable of hitting Iran who in turn has only ballistic missiles to retaliate or wage war with Isreal. If the U.S. is demanding that Iran not have a nuclear weapon and they accept, how reasonable is it to ask them to not have ballistic missiles? To the Iranians this is tantamount to suicide, and it’s believed they would rather wage war than surrender completely. Given that nuclear deals with Iran have been reached in the past they are clearly comfortable with being unable to have a nuclear missile, how much more can the U.S. demand of them before they abandon negotiations? More importantly, are these demands purposefully unattainable?