Israel just launched a ‘widescale’ attack on Iran. Here’s how we got to this point

Israel appears ready to attack Iran, officials in US and Europe say — The New York Times, June 11

Israeli attack on Iran could come within days, US and Israeli officials say — The Wall Street Journal, June 12

Iran doubles down as US signals Israel could strike despite nuclear talks — Al Jazeera, June 12

Trump says he doesn’t want Israel to attack Iran, but strike ‘could very well happen’ — The Times of Israel, June 12

In a rather anticipated move, Israel on Friday launched widescale strikes on Iran, claiming that it targeted nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories, and military commanders. In a message, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacks were the beginning of a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon.

Iranian media and witnesses reported explosions, including at the country’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Reuters reported. Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards corps said its top commander, Hossein Salami, was killed, and state media reported the unit’s headquarters in Tehran had been hit. Six Iranian nuclear scientists were killed, Iranian state media reported.

In response, Iran launched around 100 drones towards Israeli territory, which Israel was working to intercept, according to Tel Aviv. At around 0800 GMT, Israeli media said an order to citizens to remain near protected areas had been lifted, suggesting that most or all of the drones had been neutralised.

Separately, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was not involved in the strikes and Tel Aviv had acted unilaterally.

The United States and other European countries had already warned of such an attack by Israel on Iran, which has once again reignited tensions in the Middle East. In fact, on Wednesday, the US withdrew diplomats from Iraq and authorised the voluntary departure of its military family members from the region.

These developments come against the backdrop of the Iran-US nuclear talks, which, as per a New York Times report, revolve around Tehran’s near-bomb-grade uranium and Washington’s goal to ensure Iran enriches no uranium at all on its soil.

Uranium enrichment is a process used to make fuel for nuclear power plants, but it can also yield material for an atomic warhead.

Negotiations or bombs

In April, the US and Iran initiated high-level nuclear talks with Oman serving as an intermediary. It was the first engagement between the two countries in nearly seven years, when President Donald Trump had pulled the US out of the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Essentially, the 2015 deal imposed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme, making it impossible for the country to produce a bomb, in return for the lifting of most of the US and international sanctions against it. But Trump withdrew the US from the accord with world powers in 2018 and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Tehran reacted a year later by violating the deal’s nuclear curbs.

In March 2025, after assuming the presidency for the second time, Trump said he had written a letter to Iran, pressing it to open talks on preventing the development of nuclear weapons or face possible military action. In response, Iran had pushed back against Trump’s demands regarding direct negotiations and instead left the door open to indirect discussions.

A few days later, however, Trump told reporters at the Oval Office that Washington was commencing direct talks with Iran. The announcement was made during talks with Netanyahu, who was visiting the US at the time.

The talks

The first round of US-Iran talks took place on April 12 in Muscat and was described as “constructive”. The focus of the talks was on “de-escalating regional tensions, prisoner exchanges and limited agreements to ease sanctions in exchange for controlling Iran’s nuclear programme”, Reuters had reported.

US and Iranian officials again met for the second time on April 19, this time in Rome. Speaking on state television after the talks, the Iranian foreign minister had described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere. There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks.

The third round of talks was held in Oman again, this time including a technical-level meeting between experts from both sides. Just a day before the talks, Trump, in an interview with Time magazine, had said that he “would much prefer a deal than bombs being dropped”.

The same week, Washington had also announced new sanctions targeting Iran’s oil network, a move described as “hostile” by Tehran. Separately, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had warned Iran that it would face consequences for supporting the Houthis, a Zaydi Shia military organisation active in Yemen.

Subsequently, the fourth round of talks, scheduled for May 3 in Rome, was postponed. “US sanctions on Iran during the nuclear talks are not helping the sides to resolve the nuclear dispute through diplomacy,” Reuters had quoted an Iranian official as saying. Meanwhile, Oman had stated that the talks were being rescheduled due to “logistical reasons”.

The same day, in an interview with Fox News, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said that Iran had to ‘walk away’ from uranium enrichment and long-range missile development, and it should allow American inspectors into its facilities.

“If you have the ability to enrich at 3.67 per cent, it only takes a few weeks to get to 20pc, then 60pc, and then the 80 and 90pc that you need for a weapon,” Rubio had said.

Deal or no deal?

The fourth round of US-Iran talks did end up taking place, again in Muscat on May 12. The meeting was held the same week President Trump undertook his visit to the Middle East, the Associated Press reported.

Iran called the negotiations, which ran for three hours, “difficult but useful”. On the other hand, a US official told AP: “Agreement was reached to move forward with the talks to continue working through technical elements.”

Three days later, on May 15, Trump announced that the US was getting very close to securing a nuclear deal with Iran. “We’re in very serious negotiations with Iran for long-term peace,” he said on his Gulf tour, according to a shared pool report by AFP.

“We’re getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this … there [are] two steps to doing this, there is a very, very nice step and there is the violent step, but I don’t want to do it the second way,” he added.

However, an Iranian source said that while Tehran was prepared to offer what it considered concessions, the “issue is that America is not willing to lift major sanctions in exchange”.

Irrespective, the fifth round of talks took place between the two countries in Rome on May 23, where “some but not conclusive progress” took place, said mediator Oman. Meanwhile, Iran said it had received “elements” of a US proposal, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later said the text contained “ambiguities”.

A few days after the fifth round of talks, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a speech delivered on the commemoration of the death of the Islamic Republic’s founder, pledged that Tehran would not abandon its uranium enrichment — a key demand in the US proposal.

“Independence means not waiting for the green light from America and the likes of America,” he said, adding that the US proposal was “100pc against” the ideals of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Tensions rise

Henceforth began a tug of war between Iran and the US.

On June 9, the Iranian foreign ministry said it would soon present a counterproposal for a nuclear deal to the US via mediator Oman. It stated that the US proposal had failed to include Tehran’s key demand of lifting sanctions.

But despite the disagreement, President Trump earlier this week said talks would continue between the two countries. “They’re just asking for things that you can’t do. They don’t want to give up what they have to give up,” Trump told reporters at the White House, according to Reuters. “They seek enrichment. We can’t have enrichment.”

He further said that Iran was the main topic of a phone conversation he had on Monday with the Israeli PM. Netanyahu’s office said the president had told him talks with Iran would continue at the end of the week. Soon after, Oman announced that the sixth round of US-Iran talks will take place on Sunday.

But then a lot happened in just one day — June 12. Trump warned that a “massive conflict” could break out in the Middle East. “I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen,” Trump said in response to a question from a reporter about an Israeli attack on Iran, AP reported.

At the same time, the US president also said that he was urging Netanyahu to hold off from taking action for the time being and later took to social media to say that the “entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran”.

The same day, the International Atomic Energy Agency issued its strongest condemnation of Iran in 20 years, saying that the country had continued to enrich uranium to near weapons-grade levels and had failed to comply with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations. Following this, Iran said it had built and would activate a third nuclear enrichment facility.

Within just a few hours after the developments, Israel attacked Iranian nuclear targets, with Netanyahu saying strikes would continue for as long as it would take “to remove this threat”.

Header image: The handout satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies and taken on February 12, 2025, shows an overview of the Isfahan enrichment facility in Iran. — Reuters