US-Israel War on Iran Leaves Uranium Talks Stalled

Israel had prepared a multi-day bombing campaign against Iranian power plants, nuclear facilities and government-linked sites for the weekend of October 10. It shelved the plan after U.S. President Donald Trump opposed restarting the conflict before the November 3 U.S. midterm elections. The New Arab reported that the proposed campaign would have been more intense than the previous round of fighting and might have struck civilian infrastructure on an updated target list presented to U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Planned strikes and regional threats

Israeli officials presented the updated list, drawing on new intelligence, during Hegseth’s visit to Israel on Monday, a source told the Financial Times. Another source said the offensive may have aimed to increase pressure on Iran during negotiations. The final decision rested with Trump, the source said, while it remained unclear whether the United States would take part directly.

A person familiar with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans called renewed U.S.-Israeli strikes in the coming weeks “not an unreasonable scenario,” adding: “There will either be a deal or an attack.” The person said Washington wanted terms covering the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear programme to bring the war to a full end.

White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told the Financial Times that the United States wouldn’t attack Iran before the midterms. Trump also said he wouldn’t launch strikes before the elections. The report’s timing prompted questions over whether disclosing the plan was meant to portray Trump as restraining Netanyahu, despite Trump’s public endorsement of the Israeli prime minister before the elections.

Iran has warned that any renewed military confrontation with the United States and Israel would bring a broader response. Former IRGC commander Hossein Kanani Moghaddam said Iran could target U.S. bases and Israeli positions across the region, along with more distant sites such as Haifa, Tel Aviv and the Dimona nuclear facility. He also cited weapons Iran hadn’t deployed before, including powerful electromagnetic bombs and a missile called Rastakhiz, or Resurrection. Claims about those weapons haven’t been independently verified.

Iranian military chief Ali Abdollahi warned of a harsher response and claimed Tehran had developed missiles that adversaries couldn’t detect or intercept. Senior security official Mohsen Rezaei said Iran had prepared a plan more destructive than those used in the previous two wars, but gave no details. IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebi suggested Iran could target seven major undersea internet cables through the Strait of Hormuz.

Uranium and the terms of negotiation

Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile remains a central obstacle to diplomacy. Rezaei said “even a particle of enriched uranium will not exit Iran at all,” according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency. He called the uranium a major national asset that would stay in Iran for domestic use, following reports that Washington wanted Iran to transfer some of it abroad.

Iran wants the United States to lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports, waive sanctions and release frozen Iranian assets. In return, Iran has promised to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Rezaei said negotiations wouldn’t start until Washington met trust-building measures and Iran’s latest conditions.

The June 17 Memorandum of Understanding said Iran “shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons” and named downblending under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision as the minimum approach to the stockpile. The agreement let Iran lower enrichment domestically instead of surrendering the material, but left the quantity, target enrichment level and implementation timetable unspecified. The parties didn’t reach a final deal before the MoU expired in mid-August.

Tehran says uranium enrichment is a right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iranian lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iran wasn’t seeking to produce nuclear weapons. “Iran’s enrichment activities are unrelated to the US, and Washington should focus on fulfilling its own obligations regarding nuclear arms reduction,” he said. Trump has demanded “zero uranium enrichment.”

Military readiness and wider escalation

Iranian military expert Mohammad Sadegh Alizadeh told The New Arab that lessons from the 12-day war in June 2025 and the 40-day war that began on February 28 had changed tactics across the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ aerospace and naval forces and the army’s air defenses. He said Iran had upgraded parts of its missile arsenal, including converting some missiles capable of reaching Israel into modular systems that could activate faster and require less logistical support.

Newly appointed defense minister Mehrdad Akhlaghi said he was focusing on the needs of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force and the regular military’s air-defense branch. “For us, responding to repeated threats is not a contest of rhetoric; it means turning threats into greater readiness and more effective defensive capabilities,” he said in a statement carried by ISNA. “We are focusing on our objectives with new technologies,” he added. “We will eat dirt, but we will not give up our land.”

A future conflict could draw in Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iraqi militias. Netanyahu and Israeli government ministers warned Lebanon of serious consequences if Hezbollah joined the war alongside Iran, including an expanded occupation of southern territories and renewed bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs. Qatar and Pakistan have intensified diplomatic efforts to avert renewed conflict and secure a compromise deal.