As the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran nears one week, there’s little clarity on what comes next in U.S.-Iran relations and whether Iran remains a near-term nuclear threat.

President Trump and Iran’s leaders have sent mixed signals on resuming nuclear talks, while new evidence called into further question Trump’s claims that U.S. strikes obliterated Iran’s nuclear threat.

Trump denied reports Monday that he is weighing a $30 billion deal with Iran that would allow for the development of civilian nuclear facilities.

The ceasefire came after a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, started when Israel launched an attack on Tehran in June that it said was meant to prevent the country from developing a nuclear bomb. Iran has maintained its nuclear program is not intended to produce a weapon.

Here are five new developments in the ceasefire:

Leaked Iran call challenges Trump’s ‘obliterated’ narrative

The U.S. reportedly intercepted communication between senior Iranian government officials commenting that June’s U.S. strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites were less devastating than expected.

The Iranian officials in a phone call said the U.S. bombing of three nuclear facilities were not as damaging or extensive as had been expected, challenging the Trump administration’s repeated assertions that the sites and Tehran’s nuclear program were “completely and totally obliterated.”

The call, first reported by The Washington Post, follows debate among the intelligence community as to how damaged the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites were after the strikes.

While Trump continues to insist the bombings destroyed all they targeted and sent Iran’s nuclear program back by years, a leaked summary from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency found that structures underneath Fordow and Natanz were still intact and Tehran was only set back by months, as it had likely moved a significant portion of enriched uranium prior to the strikes.

After classified briefings last week at the Capitol, Republican lawmakers have conceded that the strikes may not have wiped out all of Iran’s nuclear materials.

Trump administration officials, while not denying the Iran call’s existence, were quick to attack the Post’s reporting. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the outlet “shameful” for “publishing out-of-context leaks.”

She also insisted that “the notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense. Their nuclear weapons program is over.”

And chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell took to social platform X on Sunday to lambast the so-called mainstream media for “engaging in a weaponized smear campaign against America & our incredible troops.”

He also accused the Post of “using incomplete, out-of-context & flat-out false intelligence ‘assessments.’”

Grossi says Tehran could restart enriching uranium in ‘months’

Further contradicting Trump’s claims, the head of the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog said Sunday Iran could restart enriching uranium “in a matter of months.”

Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that “one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there” when it comes to Iran’s capabilities.

“The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that,” Grossi told CBS’s “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

Grossi also said that while it’s clear Washington’s bombings caused “severe damage,” it didn’t cause “total damage.”

“Iran has the capacities there; industrial and technological capacities. So if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again.”

Iran’s open to talks if US rules out further strikes

Iran’s deputy foreign minister on Monday indicated an opening for diplomatic talks over the country’s nuclear program, telling the BBC that talks could resume should the U.S. agree it will not launch any additional military strikes.

“We are hearing from Washington, telling us that they want to talk,” Iranian diplomat Majid Takht-Ravanchi told the outlet. “Right now, we are seeking an answer to this question: Are we going to see a repetition of an act of aggression while we are engaging in dialog?”

“They have not made their position clear yet,” he added.

Iran has insisted that in any restarted nuclear talks, the nation must ultimately be allowed to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, which Tehran’s leaders have claimed they were doing before the attacks on their program.

“The capacity can be discussed but to say that you should not have enrichment, you should have zero enrichment and if you do not agree with bomb you? That is the law of the jungle,” Takht-Ravanchi said.

Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Amir-Saeid Iravani a day earlier told CBS that his country’s uranium enrichment will “never stop” as it has an “inalienable right” to do so for peaceful nuclear activity.

Trump not committing to economic incentives

Despite Iran’s repeated pledges to continue its uranium enrichment, the Trump administration is reportedly exploring possible economic incentives for Tehran should it halt that action.

CNN first reported that U.S. officials are tentatively considering releasing billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets and allowing Tehran to receive assistance from regional countries for a civilian nuclear program. The moves would reportedly grant Iran access to as much as $30 billion.

But Trump late Friday pushed back on the report and denied Iran would be offered any such concessions.

“Who in the Fake News Media is the SleazeBag saying that ‘President Trump wants to give Iran $30 Billion to build non-military Nuclear facilities.’ Never heard of this ridiculous idea,” he wrote on Truth Social.

On Monday, the president doubled down.

“I am not offering Iran ANYTHING, unlike [former President] Obama, who paid them $Billions under the stupid ‘road to a Nuclear Weapon JCPOA (which would now be expired!),” he wrote on Truth Social, adding “nor am I even talking to them since we totally OBLITERATED their Nuclear Facilities.”

Trump in 2018 pulled the U.S. out of the Obama-era nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — with Iran, claiming that sanctions relief and unfreezing of Iranian assets had only provided funds to the regime to continue keeping its nuclear weapons ambitions afloat.

But Trump earlier Friday suggested he could retract previously imposed sanctions on Iran.

Netanyahu to meet with Trump in DC

Amid all the uncertainty, Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House next week.

The meeting, set for July 7 and first reported by Axios, comes as Trump has stepped up pressure on the Israeli government to bring about an end to its war in Gaza now that a ceasefire with Israel and Iran has appeared to hold.

“We think within the next week we’re going to get a ceasefire” in Gaza, Trump told reporters Friday, but declined to offer any further details of such a deal.

Leavitt said Monday bringing an end to the Gaza conflict is a priority for Trump and that he and administration officials were in constant communication with the Israelis.

“It’s heartbreaking to see the images that have come out from both Israel and Gaza throughout this war, and the president wants to see it end,” Leavitt said. “He wants to save lives.”

Ahead of Netanyahu’s visit, Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer — a close confidant of the prime minister — is in Washington this week for talks with senior administration officials on Iran, Gaza and other issues.

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Iran's allies in the Middle East and around the world

Iran's principal strategy under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been to use the likes of Hezbollah as its first line of defence. 

A defiant Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran had "delivered a slap to America's face" and claimed "victory" over Israel in his first public remarks about the bombing campaign against his country.

But as he looks to rebuild his shattered authority at home, he might also be asking why Iran's powerful international allies and regional proxies failed to come to its aid.

The Islamic Republic had hoped to call on the so-called "Axis of Resistance", made up of political and militant groups in the Middle East. Iran was also banking on the so-called "Crink" group of authoritarian nation states that includes China, Russia and North Korea for support. But with starkly different ideologies and competing strategic objectives, this coalition is better understood as a "marriage of convenience" – and also "desperation", said The Washington Post.

Russia

Iran and Russia have continued to "deepen" military and economic ties in recent years, said the House of Commons Library.

Tehran has long been suspected by Western allies of supplying Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine and in January the two countries signed a new strategic partnership treaty. While this committed them to "joint exercises and to exchange information", it "did not include a mutual defence clause". But Russian reliance on Iran "reached its zenith one year into the war, and has since been eclipsed by China and North Korea", said the Financial Times.

Moscow condemned Israel's strike on Iran as "unprovoked aggression" but in truth has, of late, "been cosplaying as an ally of Iran", said Owen Matthews in The Spectator. It still pays lip-service to Tehran but the "alliance of convenience is, in the Kremlin's eyes, very much secondary to Russia's more important role as a global power player that can stand alongside the US and China as an arbiter of world affairs".

China

China is a "key diplomatic and economic backer" of Iran, and "has moved to further deepen collaboration in recent years, including holding joint naval drills", said CNN. It continues to be the largest purchaser of US-sanctioned Iranian oil, and in 2023 Tehran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, deepening economic ties between the two countries.

Beijing has promised to deliver material critical for ballistic missile production, as President Xi Jinping tries to "insert himself as an influential player in allowing Tehran to rebuild its own arsenal and arm its various disabled proxies", said Devon Cross, a former defence adviser to the US government, in The Times.

But like Russia, China is playing a much bigger game. While it explicitly condemned Israel's "violation of Iran's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity", Beijing has "appeared unwilling to become further entangled in the conflict past its diplomatic efforts". Instead, it is "using the situation as another opportunity to paint itself as a responsible global player and the US as a force for instability", said CNN.

North Korea

There should, on the surface at least, be little that unites the Islamic Republic and the secretive Stalinist state, but political necessity and their status as international pariahs has dictated a certain level of cooperation and alignment.

There has long been speculation that North Korea has helped with Iran's nuclear programme. In terms of its own capability, Pyongyang has "defied all international sanctions to build up a formidable arsenal of nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles, enough to make any potential attacker think twice", said Frank Gardner on the BBC.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "could even try to smuggle one of his nuclear warheads – via Russia – to Iran", said the Daily Express.

Iran's proxies

Iran has invested heavily in a network of proxy allies across the Middle East, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. It supported the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad until he was toppled last year.

But the so-called "Axis of Resistance" has been greatly "diminished" by over two years of Israeli operations, , said Le Monde, remained relatively silent as its patron faced the full force of Israeli and US air strikes.

Tehran's strategy has long been to use its proxies – chief among them Hezbollah – as its first line of defence in the event of a war with Israel. "The significant weakening of several members of the axis has changed the equation for Iran and limited its options" as the past few weeks have shown.

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War With Iran Exposes the Emptiness of the ‘Axis of Autocracy’

In the days since Israel and Iran agreed to end what President Donald Trump has dubbed “the 12-Day War,” much remains unknown. But one thing is clear: As Israeli and U.S. munitions were slamming into numerous Iranian nuclear, military and economic targets, Tehran’s so-called friends and allies stood on the sidelines.

This might come as a surprise to many foreign policy analysts, officials and lawmakers in Washington, D.C. Indeed, over the last several years, a budding assumption has taken hold within the foreign policy establishment that the United States’ most significant competitors and enemies — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — are not only teaming up to complicate U.S. foreign policy goals and undermine American power but to shift the global balance in an authoritarian direction. The word “axis” — as in “Axis of Upheaval,” “Axis of Autocracies” or “Axis of Aggressors” — has been thrown around as if it were confetti at a parade.

The events in Iran over the last several weeks suggest this concept is far too simplistic. In fact, it could also be dangerous — potentially leading the United States to make bad decisions that, ironically, could create the very axis the bipartisan foreign policy blob sometimes hyperventilates about. By lumping all four countries together into one unified bloc, Washington risks papering over the considerable differences that exist between them and could sap the motivation for the United States to exploit those differences.

There’s no disputing that Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have increased their cooperation as of late. Iran, for instance, has provided Russian President Vladimir Putin with significant military assistance for its war in Ukraine by sharing the designs of its Fateh drones as well as the technology required to produce them on their own. North Korea has gone to even greater lengths, sending Moscow ballistic missiles, massive quantities of ammunition and at least 10,000 North Korean troops to help the Russian army push Ukrainian forces out of Kursk. Putin has reportedly returned the favor by assisting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with air defenses, the provision of a new air-to-air missile for the dilapidated North Korean air force and diplomatic support at the United Nations Security Council.

The relationship between China and Russia has risen to new heights too. While Chinese officials make it plainly clear they aren’t supporting Putin’s war in Ukraine with weapons shipments, Beijing has nevertheless given the Russian strongman an alternative market to sell his crude oil and natural gas at a time when Moscow is hemmed in by U.S. and European sanctions and largely cut off from Europe, once its biggest customer. China has purchased more than $184 billion worth of crude oil from the Russians since the war in Ukraine began. Beijing is also serving as Russia’s backstop for critical components needed for Russian weapons systems, helping the Kremlin circumvent Western export controls.

The term “axis,” however, suggests that all four powers have a unified view of what they want the global order to look like and have a grand plan to get there. It sounds mischievous and conspiratorial, and it’s most certainly inaccurate. What’s occurring is less a strong, cohesive grouping bounded by ideology and long-term considerations and more a collection of bilateral relationships whose interests sometimes converge — until they don’t.

Take Russia-North Korea ties. Yes, the two countries have strengthened relations considerably, culminating in a defense agreement ratified in November 2024 that technically mandates mutual military assistance to the other in the event of a national security crisis. But we should be under no illusions that Putin and Kim are leaning on each other out of kinship, loyalty or even ideological ambitions. The Russians, frankly, need all the outside aid they can get, whether in the form of men, materiel or munitions, and North Korea is one of the few states willing to provide it at a cost. Kim, in turn, is happy to grant some of Putin’s requests but only if the terms are advantageous to his own regime. The North Koreans aren’t so much bailing the Russians out as they are exploiting Russia’s war-time desperation for its own ends. In essence, Kim is squeezing Putin as much as he can, betting that North Korean armor will be compensated with increased food and energy from Moscow and Russian defense systems that will allow Pyongyang to modernize its antiquated military.

The same dynamic is at play between China and Russia. Some prominent U.S. foreign policy experts have described Russia-China ties as a kind of “quasi-alliance” or coalition designed to erode U.S. power and influence around the world and weaken — if not eventually destroy — the system of alliances the United States built since World War II. The general perception is that Beijing and Moscow are at the very least trying to rejigger the U.S.-led world order to its advantage and at most establish an entirely new one based on a spheres-of-influence model, whereby the United States is forced to vacate Europe and East Asia in deference to the big powers in the regions.

But Washington would be making a mistake if it minimized a key ingredient driving the Russia-China relationship: mutual convenience. Moscow and Beijing are willing to greet one another with open arms when there is a benefit to doing so but remain wary of placing all their chips in each other’s baskets. Despite Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pronouncements of a “no limits” friendship between their countries, there are plenty of limits built into the partnership. Suspicion, if not distrust, is embedded in segments of their respective national security agencies, so much so that Russian counterintelligence is trying to root out Chinese spying inside Russia. The Chinese are tough negotiators on energy contracts and continue to press Moscow for cheaper terms to the point where Russia’s Power of Siberia 2 natural gas pipeline, meant to serve the Chinese market, is stalled. At the end of the day, Russia isn’t going to sacrifice too much for China. The feeling is mutual on the Chinese side; Xi may be willing to purchase cheap Russian oil and gas when it suits him but he hasn’t shown an inclination to sacrifice Beijing’s relations with the West, particularly now when his negotiators are attempting to hammer out a new trade deal with the United States.

Iran’s relations with Russia, China and North Korea are no exception to this rule. If the Iranian Supreme Leader or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps anticipated some degree of support from their Russian, Chinese and North Korean partners during the 12-day conflict with Israel, then they set themselves up for disappointment. It turns out that the strategic partnership agreement Tehran signed with Moscow in January was no match for Washington’s 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators or the Israeli air force, which made a mockery of Iran’s air defense network. Iran is a valuable friend for Russia and China but not to the point of getting involved in a conflict both viewed as a secondary distraction. Both have mutually profitable relationships with the Gulf Arab states to maintain as well, and those states didn’t want to see Moscow or Beijing contributing to a longer war in its neighborhood.

The most Moscow was willing to offer Iran was supportive rhetoric. On June 21, the day the Trump administration ordered the U.S. strike on the Iranian nuclear program, Putin argued there was no evidence that Tehran was seeking to build a nuclear weapon. Two days later, Putin hosted Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, where he claimed the Russian government was “making efforts…to provide support to the Iranian people” and referred to the attacks on Iran as “absolutely unprovoked aggression” without a legitimate basis. Strong words, but nothing that can stop a U.S. B-2 bomber from flying in Iranian airspace unmolested. The Iranian foreign minister left Russia with nothing more than a pat on the back.

China was equally strong in its condemnation on Iran’s behalf. Beijing called the U.S. strike a violation of the U.N. Charter and used a U.N. Security Council meeting on June 24 to allege that Washington was manufacturing a crisis over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program as cover to justify military action. But much like the Russians, the Chinese didn’t offer Tehran a lick of concrete support. If anything, China was likely just rooting for an early end to hostilities. Given the fact that nearly half of Beijing’s oil comes from the Persian Gulf, the last thing China wanted was higher oil prices or a disruption to supplies.

The Trump administration will be spending the days and weeks ahead trying to get a full accounting of the damage assessment of its strikes, something that has already caused a bit of a scandal in Washington. Yet U.S. officials in agencies across the federal government focusing on longer-term grand strategy should take the 12-day conflict between Iran and Israel as a case study for how fickle international relations can be, even amongst a small group of strongmen who often talk a big game but are concerned first and foremost with their own power — partners be damned.

A failure to account for this basic dynamic creates a number of problems for U.S. foreign policy. First, elevating the “axis” framing will likely result in the United States spreading its resources too thin in an effort to thwart these sprawling adversaries when what Washington truly needs is a hard-nosed, honest assessment of which threats truly require U.S. attention and which should be left to its allies to manage. Second, the United States risks fueling a self-fulfilling prophecy, as punitive U.S. actions — sanctions, export controls and more military deployments in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia, to name a few — incentivize Russia, China, Iran and North Korea to consolidate their relations in an attempt to counter U.S. power.

Finally, the United States makes it harder on itself to explore a détente with any of these four states in the future if it is stuck in an “axis” mindset. While such an outcome may seem implausible today, the reality of international politics is ever changing, and new developments can often spark new opportunities between previously hostile states. Overly generalizing now can produce more aggravation later.

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Mossad to Tehran: We already know your ‘secret’ war commander

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander-in-Chief Major General Hossein Salami reviews military equipment during an IRGC ground forces military drill in the Aras area, East Azerbaijan province, Iran.

“We know exactly who he is and know him well. Unfortunately, such basic information is hidden from the Iranian people. Please send us your guesses about his name.”

An account said to belong to Israel’s Mossad intensified its online campaign against Tehran on Tuesday, seizing on a Tasnim News Agency report that the Islamic Republic would not reveal the name of the newly appointed commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters and declaring on its Persian-language X account:

“We know exactly who he is and know him well. Unfortunately, such basic information is hidden from the Iranian people. Please send us your guesses about his name.”

Ali Abdullahi Aliabadi is a Brigadier General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Khatam al-Anbiya post, the account's second major tweet of the day, came minutes after Tasnim said the regime was withholding the commander’s identity “for his protection” following the killings of his two predecessors in Israeli strikes last month.

Earlier on Tuesday, the same account asserted that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had “surrendered” and approved negotiations with both the United States and Israel, calling the move “the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic” and proclaiming that “the countdown has begun.”

Mossad launches Farsi-language influence campaign against regime

The twin messages are the latest salvoes in a Farsi-language influence campaign allegedly launched by the Mossad last month. Initial posts mocked senior Iranian officials for secretly following the feed, offered VPN tips, and warned ordinary Iranians not to like or share content to avoid detection by security services.

Iranian officials haven't acknowledged appointing a successor to the slain Maj.-Gen. Ali Shadmani. Khamenei, 86, last appeared on state television on June 26, vowing that Iran would “never surrender,” a stance starkly at odds with Mossad’s earlier claim.