Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on September 1, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with his counterparts after a meeting with foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council member states in Manama, Bahrain on June 25, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP

 The biggest casualty of ​the U.S.-Iran deal may not be Israel’s Iran strategy, but the political brand Benjamin Netanyahu spent decades building as the Israeli leader who could uniquely bend Washington to his will on Iran, analysts, former U.S. officials and ‌diplomats say.

Mr. Netanyahu shaped his political identity on an audacious assertion: that he alone could keep the U.S. and Israel in strategic lockstep on Iran. Cultivating ​Republican support, he cast himself as the only Israeli leader capable of influencing successive U.S. presidents and insisted that only sustained military pressure could contain Tehran.

At the height ⁠of his power, he was described by diplomats as the “American whisperer” — the Israeli leader who could pick up the phone and ensure Washington’s strategic calculus aligned with that of Israel. No other Israeli prime minister, they note, addressed Congress as often or built such enduring political capital across the American political system. But analysts say Washington and Tehran’s interim pact to end the war that the U.S. and Israel launched in February shows how ‌that narrative has been reversed. Rather than shaping Washington’s Iran policy, Mr. Netanyahu is now forced to accept it, as U.S. President Donald Trump pursues a settlement that increasingly treats Israeli objections as constraints.

At home, the reckoning is equally stark, said former U.S. official Dennis Ross. Mr. Netanyahu is increasingly boxed in between a U.S. President intent on ending the ‌conflict and a domestic base resistant to concessions, particularly in Lebanon, he said. Withdrawal risks political backlash while escalation risks confrontation with Washington.

The war Mr. Netanyahu hoped would cement his legacy ‌as ⁠the leader who confronted Iran may instead be remembered as the conflict that dismantled a central source of his power. Isolated abroad, constrained by his closest ally and ⁠vulnerable ahead of an autumn election, he now finds the political asset on which he built his career has become his greatest liability.

At the outset of the war with Iran, Mr. Netanyahu promised ultimate victory. He delivered neither the collapse of Iran’s ruling system, nor the defeat of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, nor safe return for residents of northern Israel.

“The U.S.-Iran deal is a decisive blow to Netanyahu,” said Aviv Bushinsky, a former Netanyahu adviser. “Not only did he lose the war with Iran, ​he has also lost Trump as a friend. He is now isolated not only ‌internationally, but locked in a major dispute with Trump,” he said.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment. In a press conference this month, the Israeli premier described his relationship with Mr. Trump as one between partners who “agree many times and sometimes disagree”. There had been a systematic campaign to diminish Israel’s “huge achievements” against Iran and its proxies, he said.

A White House official said Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu had a strong relationship and that Israel’s military forces had been “incredible partners” in a war that had “decimated the Iranian regime’s military capabilities”. A State Department ‌official said the United States maintains an “iron-clad” commitment to Israel’s security, stressing that “this is not changing.” The official added that Israel retains the right to defend itself, particularly ​against Hezbollah, “a terrorist organisation that threatens its citizens and undermines the Lebanese government,” and cannot be expected to withdraw from Lebanon until that threat is addressed. Normalisation and regional integration remain a top priority for the Trump administration, added the official.

Benjamin Netanyahu | The comeback ‘king’ 

Public rebukes

The disagreement between the U.S. and Israeli leaders, analysts say, extends beyond personal ties ⁠to a growing divergence in goals: Mr. Trump seeks to disengage from another war in West Asia, while Mr. Netanyahu views continued pressure on Iran and its ally Hezbollah as essential to Israel’s security.

Washington has negotiated directly with Tehran, folded Lebanon’s conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah into a broader framework, and created mechanisms to manage ceasefire disputes — moves that, according to three regional diplomatic sources, have increasingly sidelined Israel from key ‌decisions.

The country that once viewed Mr. Netanyahu as an indispensable interlocutor is now, the regional sources say, treating him as an obstacle to an agreement it is determined to protect. Mr. Trump has publicly rebuked Israel’s military conduct in Lebanon, while Vice-President J.D. Vance has underscored the conditional nature of the relationship, warning Israeli critics of the deal against “attacking the only powerful ally they have left in the world.”

Two Israeli officials familiar with Mr. Netanyahu’s thinking said he was not concerned that public remarks by Mr. Trump and Vance would translate into meaningful shifts in U.S. policy toward Israel, such as delays in arms deliveries, even if Israel continues military operations in Lebanon.

Mr. Trump has signalled that he is prepared to override Israeli priorities in pursuit of U.S. interests. In a TV interview this month, he said that if he tells Mr. Netanyahu “to do something, he does it”.

Analysis | Benjamin Netanyahu: A Prime Minister always at war  

Loss of Republican safety net

Iran will seek to widen the emerging gap between the U.S. and Israel by portraying any Israeli military action in Lebanon as ‌an attempt to sabotage Trump’s diplomacy, forcing the White House to choose between backing its ally or preserving the deal, said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group.

What makes Mr. Netanyahu’s position so precarious, U.S. analysts say, is the loss ​of his safety net.

For years, he cultivated Republican backing, using it as a counterweight to offset tensions with Democratic administrations, and openly denouncing former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal from a congressional podium. But Republicans will not break with Mr. Trump for Mr. Netanyahu, they said.

Against this backdrop, the implications of the U.S.-Iran ⁠deal also extend to Netanyahu’s core strategic bets. He staked his political future on two objectives: weakening, if not toppling, Iran’s theocratic leadership and securing normalised relations with Saudi Arabia by expanding the Abraham Accords.

Neither ⁠has materialised. Iranian leaders have emerged from the conflict entrenched, while the Saudi handshake remains out of reach. Across the region, a recalibration is already visible. Countries Mr. Netanyahu once hoped to draw closer — with Saudi Arabia as the crown jewel — are now hedging, slowing normalisation with Israel while cautiously reopening channels with Tehran.

According to Gulf sources, the logic that underpinned ‌the Abraham Accords has been eroded by the Gaza war, the unresolved question of West Bank annexation, and a growing perception that Mr. Netanyahu’s Israel may be more of a liability than an asset in any emerging regional order.

An Iranian official said Mr. Netanyahu’s push to expand the Abraham Accords has been blunted, with several countries now seeking a place in an emerging Iran-aligned framework.

“This ​is not just a victory for Iran. It’s a failure for Netanyahu,” the official said. The Islamic Republic has not just survived — it has emerged as a more influential regional player.

Published – June 25, 2026 12:12 pm IST

U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance say their interim deal to end the war with Iran will deliver a financial windfall to American farmers.

But the Iranians deny it. And, in the absence of more details, sanctions experts are flummoxed over exactly how billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian assets would make their way to the American heartland from the escrow accounts where they have been locked for years by U.S. sanctions.

A tentative agreement reached last week would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas once passed, and allow Iran to start selling its oil freely again during a 60-day period when the two countries will continue negotiating key issues. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) also promised to unfreeze Iranian assets.

Mr. Trump’s deal has come under fire for failing to address the reasons the president cited for going to war with Iran on February 28, including curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile programme and its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Lashing back at critics on Tuesday (June 23, 2026) on his Truth Social media platform, Mr. Trump said U.S. farmers would get a payday: The U.S. Treasury Department, he wrote, would release the Iranian assets “into escrow, controlled by the USA, and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American farmers. These are things that are desperately needed by Iran.”

Mr. Vance, who spoke about the proposal after high-level talks in Switzerland, and Mr. Trump say that any frozen funds and assets held outside of Iran will be used to buy U.S. crops.

But the Iranians deny that is part of the deal. A spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said any agricultural purchases would be based on “prices and quality,” not terms dictated by Washington.

“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was the destruction of the Iranian civilisation and the collapse of Iran, has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said.

Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, rejected Mr. Vance’s contention that the U.S. and Qatar would dictate how Iran uses unfrozen funds. “Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he told reporters.

Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said Iran was unlikely to abandon its other trade partners on food.

Iran’s major suppliers include Brazil, India, Turkey, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Argentina, he said. Mr. Trump’s demand to buy from the U.S. would “create some hard feelings with some of our competitors.”

Under previous sanctions, the U.S. has required that money foreign countries spend on imports from Iran — such as South Korean purchases of oil and Iraqi purchases of Iranian electricity — be locked in escrow accounts and typically released only if the Treasury approves and if the proceeds go toward “non-sanctionable” items such as food and medicine.

On Monday (June 22, 2026), the U.S. Treasury approved the sale of Iranian oil, petrochemicals and petroleum products through August 21. It did not mention any escrow accounts.

Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in the first Trump administration, said in a post on X that he would welcome “a clarification that Iran is actually restricted to only buying US agricultural products.”

Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy, said it is unclear what the new US-Iran agreement actually means for releasing restricted Iranian assets.

Could the U.S. require that the assets be used to buy American farm products?

“Well, we can try!” Mr. Nephew, who helped design Iran sanctions in the Obama and Biden administrations, said by email. “All you really need to do is to tell a foreign bank that they can move the money but only to a U.S. bank to buy soybeans or whatever.”

Banks do not have to comply, he said. If they refuse, the U.S. could sanction them as well.

But it is rare for the U.S. to conduct itself that way, he added, “in part because we don’t usually like to give the impression that we treat national security issues as a cash grab.”

Published – June 24, 2026 06:50 am IST

A diplomat with knowledge of the talks, however, told AFP that the Iranians had not quit the negotiations. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Vice President JD Vance listens to U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as they attend a quadrilateral meeting between the U.S., Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar at the Lake Lucerne Summit, aimed at advancing a deal to end the Middle East conflict, at Buergenstock Resort Lake Lucerne, near Stansstad, Switzerland, on June 21, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A U.S. official said the deal was signed to end the West Asia war.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Image used for representational purposes. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday (June 14, 2026) urged no further attacks by anyone after Israel’s military said it launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, potentially complicating efforts to finalise a deal to end the U.S.-Iran war.

Smoke rose over the Lebanese capital, and the Civil Defence said it retrieved three bodies and six wounded people from the rubble.

Iran threatened a military response. Mr. Trump reacted on social media: “We are very close to a Deal that will bring peace to the region,” and “Let’s not blow it!” The deal in its current form is a deep disappointment to Israel’s government, which has been sidelined in negotiations led by Pakistan and others. The last time Israel struck the Beirut suburbs a week ago, it set off the most serious escalation of fighting between Iran and Israel since the tenuous ceasefire took hold April 7.

Mr. Trump, who had said the deal could be signed on Sunday (June 14, 2026), has pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop hitting Lebanon hard while a deal is near, but the Prime Minister has defied him.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office said the strikes were in response to Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel. Israel’s military said Hezbollah launched three projectiles, releasing footage where an audible boom was followed by rising smoke. There was no immediate comment from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

“Israel will not tolerate firing into its territory,” Mr. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. The military later said it was preparing for potential incoming fire in the coming hours.

An Associated Press photographer at the scene in Beirut said a five-story apartment building with shops on the ground floor was struck. The two lowest floors were the most heavily damaged. Residents of the southern suburbs, many of whom had returned home after weeks of relative calm, could be seen fleeing.

Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel on March 2, two days after the US and Israel attacked Iran, sparking war in the Middle East. Israeli troops have since pushed their invasion of Lebanon deeper than at any point in over a quarter century.

Iran wants a ceasefire deal to include the fighting in Lebanon.

Mediators push Iran and the US closer to a deal

Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a lead negotiator for Tehran, warned the U.S. on X after Israel’s strikes that “if you lack the will and ability to fulfill your commitments, speaking of continuing the path is not possible.” “Without a doubt, these crimes will not go unanswered,” said Gen. Mohammad Jafar Asadi, deputy commander of Iran’s Joint Command Headquarters, the official Mizan news agency reported.

Qatari mediators travelled to Tehran on Sunday to finalise the agreement, according to two regional officials.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media, expressed cautious optimism that the U.S. and Iran were finally approaching a deal that could halt hostilities that have killed thousands of people and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure has thrown world markets into disarray.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday (June 13, 2026) the deal would be signed Sunday, while Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said it could happen in the coming days. Trump said the Strait of Hormuz would open immediately after the signing.

The deal is expected to be signed electronically, without an in-person ceremony, though it’s unclear when or how the signing will take place.

Iran’s government warned that any division at home over the deal weakens its negotiating position, and those criticizing negotiators are taking aim at a national decision. Iranians must recognize that no war lasts forever, spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the state-run IRNA news agency.

Nuclear and other issues still to be finalised

The deal does not solve the thorniest issues between the U.S. and Iran, including Iran’s nuclear program or its billions of dollars in frozen funds, but offers a 60-day framework for technical discussions on those issues, according to Pakistani and regional officials familiar with the ongoing negotiations. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.

The officials described Pakistan’s effort leading the negotiations, struggling for months to keep both sides from walking out on multiple occasions.

Under the deal being discussed, US and Israel appear to have fallen short of their original goals of destroying Iran’s missile and nuclear programs and ending its support for armed proxies in the region. It is not clear how the deal will address these issues, or if they will be part of the final agreement.

Iran’s nuclear program and highly enriched uranium have long been at the centre of tensions with the US and Israel and an international source of concern. Trump on social media asserted Saturday that “when all is calm,” the US would go in and “downblend and destroy” the enriched uranium in Iran or in the US.

Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful and has not publicly committed to giving up the enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under three nuclear sites that were badly damaged by US strikes last year.

Critics in Trump’s Republican Party, struggling with an unpopular war ahead of the midterm elections, have criticized the emerging deal. Some said it did not improve on the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. from during his first term and which he still describes as “bad.” Meanwhile, Mr. Trump was expected to discuss demining the Strait of Hormuz during the Group of Seven summit that starts on Monday (June 15, 2026).

Published – June 14, 2026 10:48 pm IST

“So far, Iran has not reached a final conclusion on the agreement,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said, after Mr. Trump said he expected a deal to be signed in Europe in the coming days. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu