Iran's critical choice: Capitulate, negotiate with the US, or start Middle East - opinion
Iran's current foreign policy options mirror Japan's options in World War Two.
When Washington demanded in late 1941 that Imperial Japan withdraw from China and cease its brutal occupation, Tokyo saw only three paths: capitulate, prepare for war, or strike first. Backing down would have been a national humiliation, so Emperor Hirohito’s government chose the third option, unleashing the attack on Pearl Harbor and inviting catastrophe.
Tehran is now standing at a remarkably similar crossroads. Since President Barack Obama acknowledged in 2013 that Iran had a “right” to enrich uranium on its own soil, and the 2015 JCPOA codified that right, the Islamic Republic has poured resources into building new facilities and ever-faster centrifuges. Today, the renewed US position—under President Donald Trump—to lift sanctions only if Iran halts all domestic enrichment is, from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s perspective, a non-starter and an intolerable blow to national pride.
For the Iranian regime, relinquishing enrichment is tantamount to surrender. Like Japan eight decades ago, it appears willing to risk a war that could devastate the country—and even topple the regime—rather than bow to what it regards as an existential insult.
This leaves Washington with two unpalatable options. One is to negotiate a fresh accord that, like the 2015 deal, permits limited enrichment under a thick blanket of restrictions. Tehran would likely show some flexibility on details, but not on the principle itself. The other is military action—either a direct US strike or a green light for Israel to act, backed by full American defensive support against the inevitable Iranian response.
Rumors swirling this week of an imminent Israeli attack underscore the urgency.
Israel threatens to attack Iran
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s unusually sharp notice that Iran is flagrantly breaching its existing commitments—and perhaps edging toward a rapid “dash” for a bomb—has heightened fears in Jerusalem and Washington.US warnings to its citizens in Israel and the Gulf hint that both allies may judge they are down to the last few days to act before the strategic landscape changes irrevocably.
Thus, the atmosphere in June 2025 eerily recalls the autumn of 1941: neither side truly wants a wider conflict, yet war may become unavoidable unless Sunday’s planned US–Iran talks somehow deliver a miracle at the very last minute.
History teaches that nations prepared to gamble everything for honor are the hardest to deter. Iran, like imperial Japan before it, seems ready to roll those dice. The United States—and Israel—must decide quickly whether a face-saving compromise is possible, or whether they, too, are willing to pay the price of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran.
The writer is a retired Major General of the Israel Defense Forces and a former head of the Israeli National Security Council.
