Operation Epic Fury — the latest round of military strikes against Iran — began when Iran was engaged in negotiations with the United States to renew restrictions on its nuclear programme.
This is not the first time the United States has bombed Iran during nuclear negotiations.
In June 2025, while its representatives were in talks with Iran over that country’s ability to produce nuclear weapons, Washington launched Operation Midnight Hammer, targeting three Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
Washington has been broader in its selection of targets in Iran this time around, even though one stated US goal has been to ensure that Iran does not gain nuclear weapons capability.
By launching strikes on Iran even as negotiations were underway, Washington may have secured short-term military gains at the cost of long-term diplomatic credibility. Its fallout is likely to reshape future nuclear agreements…
Conducting military strikes against a country that is engaged in negotiations to reduce its nuclear capacity sets a dangerous precedent. As a scholar of the global nuclear order, I believe that the conflict has jeopardised all future diplomacy to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.
The US military action during negotiations has also undermined Washington’s ability to conduct diplomacy to end the war. Iranian officials negotiating with mediators have expressed their concern that they “don’t want to be ‘fooled again’”, according to a report in [US-based news website] Axios, and that any new set of negotiations might just be a ruse to conduct more attacks.
Breaking trust
The key components of any negotiations are trust and good faith.
Parties coming to a negotiating table to discuss their nuclear programmes must trust that those across the table are acting in good faith. Past negotiations on nuclear arms control and risk-reduction measures between entrenched enemies, such as the US and the Soviet Union or even India and Pakistan, have seen trust as a key component of coming to the table.
Trust has its own diplomatic cachet. It allows negotiating states to be a little more vulnerable, thus facilitating the possibility of softened positions leading to landmark agreements.
In the 1960s, negotiations were held to establish a global agreement — the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons — to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Nations without nuclear weapons had to trust that countries with them would not use their atomic arsenals to gain military advantage over them, as they committed to forswear the possession and development of these weapons. Today all but one of the non-nuclear countries of the world — South Sudan — are signatories to the treaty.
The consequences of Washington’s military strikes would be even more grave if a new nuclear deal between Iran and the US was truly within reach in the negotiations in Geneva days before the conflict started. This is because the reported concessions from Iran were substantial enough to have warranted a pause in Washington’s military strategy.
A day before Operation Epic Fury began, Oman’s foreign minister Badr bin Hamad al Busaidi, the principal mediator in the talks, announced that Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling. That is, Tehran would give up its enriched uranium, would down-blend — nuclear-speak for diluting — all material that was previously highly enriched to a neutral level, and be subject to “full and comprehensive verification” by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
If true, these terms could have made any new agreement between the US and Iran as consequential as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated between the US and Iran under [former] President Obama’s administration [in 2015].
The violation of trust by the US will be keenly observed by North Korea. In early March 2026, that country conducted tests of what it called “strategic cruise missiles” — missiles it suggests could have nuclear capability — stating that its ability to attack from under and above water was growing and that it was arming its navy with nuclear weapons.
Any possibility of bilateral negotiations between the US and North Korea on its nuclear and missile programmes will now be marked by the unreliability of the US as a good faith negotiator.
Imperilled future
With its actions in Iran, the US has lost credibility as a leading international interlocutor in service of global non-proliferation diplomacy.
Key to a nation’s credibility during negotiations is the reputation that it builds from its past actions. Both instances of the US bombing Iran while negotiating with it will make it very unlikely that other countries will engage with Washington in future nuclear diplomacy.
Those countries that want to take part in nuclear diplomacy involving the US will likely ask that other, trusted countries participate as well. They will also likely seek security guarantees before engaging in negotiations. This will mean that China and the European Union — countries, alliances or institutions that might help keep the US accountable — will likely have to be a part of any such diplomacy.
Loss of trust in the US’ good faith will likely continue across future US administrations after the Trump presidency. This will be because of uncertainty over the credibility of international commitments made by the US. An agreement made by one administration could be reneged on by the next.
Another area of concern is that, in the future, a country on the threshold of gaining nuclear weapons might not arrive at the negotiating table fully ready to give up all parts of its nuclear programme. Even if a country does make concessions, it might choose to hold on to some part of its nuclear or missile programme as a guarantee against a future American military strike.
The future of negotiations over nuclear proliferation may yet expand beyond that focus to ballistic missiles as well. Recall that Trump began the latest conflict saying that Iran’s ballistic missiles were an “imminent threat” to the US and its bases abroad. Nuclear weapons programmes and ballistic missile programmes often go together. Countries with such missile programmes that are not allied with the US might also be future targets of bilateral diplomatic and military action.
The loss of trust and good faith has substantially reduced the ability of the US to diplomatically address not only broader nuclear and missile non-proliferation concerns but also its own national security needs. Under these circumstances, military action might be the most tempting option for Washington to secure these goals — and that is dangerous.
The writer is Assistant Professor at the University of Denver, USA
Republished from The Conversation
Published in Dawn, EOS, April 5th, 2026
