Maximalism Will Doom Diplomacy With Iran

Newsweek

08-05-2025

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Nuclear talks between Iran and the United States are expected to continue this week, although progress remains elusive.
President Trump has insisted that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon on his watch, and is demanding that it essentially disband its entire program or else face military repercussions from the United States and Israel.
To underline the point, the Trump administration has pressured Iran to shutter its nuclear program by repeatedly issuing threats, moving missile defense systems from Asia to the Middle East, and building up strike forces in the Indian Ocean within bombing range of Iran.
Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, but its progress in uranium enrichment creates the broad potential for it to weaponize.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others have pushed for the full elimination of Iran's nuclear program, citing how Libya's Muammar Gaddafi abandoned his country's nuclear efforts in the early 2000s as an example of success.
But a "Libya model" deal to fully dismantle the Iranian nuclear program won't work. Why not? Just look at how it went for Libya.
Gaddafi agreed to suspend his country's nuclear weapons program in December 2003, following years of clandestine negotiations that began during the Clinton administration and continued under George W. Bush. By then, Libya had endured decades of isolation and crushing sanctions due to its involvement in terrorist activities, including the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. In exchange for sanctions relief, Gaddafi dismantled his program under U.S. and British supervision and submitted to regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
According to his son, Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi knew that abandoning his nuclear proliferation efforts would make him more vulnerable to a Western-sponsored overthrow and pressed hard for a U.S. security guarantee, which he never received. But economic considerations, coupled with misplaced hopes for U.S. military sales and regime support, overrode Gaddafi's qualms about relinquishing a potential nuclear deterrent.
This combination of pictures created on April 09, 2025 shows US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff after a meeting with Russian officials at Diriyah Palace, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on February 18, 2025 (L); and...
This combination of pictures created on April 09, 2025 shows US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff after a meeting with Russian officials at Diriyah Palace, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on February 18, 2025 (L); and Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaking to AFP during an interview at the Iranian consulate in Jeddah on March 7, 2025. More
EVELYN HOCKSTEINAMER HILABI/POOL/AFP/AFP/Getty Images
That proved a fatal mistake. When civil war broke out in Libya in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring, the U.S. and European countries launched an air war against Libya to prevent Gaddafi from massacring opponents of his government. The result was the overthrow and subsequent murder of Gaddafi, a thug we shouldn't miss but whose fate has nevertheless cast a pall over any future demands for a country to give up its nuclear weapons program.
The Libya model of full disarmament has backfired. It now perfectly illustrates why U.S. rivals want nuclear weapons: they provide the best deterrent against attack, by the U.S. or anyone else. It would have been inconceivable for the United States to strike Libya if Gaddafi could threaten nuclear retaliation. No wonder Iran has signaled that abandoning its nuclear program is a complete non-starter.
There's no doubt the Iranians studiously watched what happened in Libya, and they weren't the only ones. The last time the "Libya model" was floated for a country—in reference to North Korea by then-national security advisor John Bolton during Trump's first term—it effectively ended negotiations.
And there's the rub. The more the United States threatens Iran over its nuclear program, the greater the incentive Iran has to weaponize in hopes of deterring U.S. attack. If negotiations fail and the U.S. or Israel eventually strike Iran's nuclear facilities, it would all but guarantee a nuclear Iran.
That's because full destruction of the Iranian program is impossible at this point. Unlike Libya's program, which relied on the infamous A.Q. Khan network to obtain nuclear technology, Iran's program developed indigenously, using Iranian scientists and technical know-how that cannot be unlearned. Even if airstrikes were to completely demolish Iran's hardened facilities—and they may not be able to—the Iranians could quickly rebuild and would no doubt rearm to deter future attacks.
Events following the U.S. strikes on Libya should serve as a cautionary tale, too. After Gaddafi was deposed, Libya fell into civil war and currently exists in a state of fragile ceasefire that could be broken at any time. It is yet another reminder of what we might call the Mideast Constant, the near-mathematical certainty that U.S. intervention will make things worse in the region, not better.
No one wants Iran to get the bomb, perhaps not even the Iranians themselves. But the Libya model just gives Iran a stronger reason to secure a deterrent. That lesson is one that Washington badly needs to learn.
Rosemary Kelanic is Director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.