What started as decades of tension between Iran and Israel exploded into direct open warfare in June 2025, when Israel launched strikes on Iranian territory. Nine days in, the United States joined the fight, bombing three Iranian nuclear sites. President Trump declared Iran’s nuclear capabilities “completely and fully obliterated” — a claim that almost immediately began to unravel.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said it could not confirm whether Iran had suspended uranium enrichment, because Iran had shut out inspectors entirely. The bitter irony: before the strikes, Iran had been allowing limited inspection access. The bombing handed Tehran the perfect justification to slam the door shut and hide whatever it wanted.
A second round of U.S. and Israeli strikes on February 28th hit a government compound in Tehran and military targets — but also struck a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran, killing 175 people, most of them children. The Pentagon has yet to fully account for it.
Trump then declared the war could be over “in two to three weeks,” said the U.S. might leave without requiring any deal, and assured the public that buried underground uranium wasn’t a concern — because satellites would be watching it. (Satellites cannot see underground.)
As of April 21st, Vice President JD Vance is waiting in Washington to learn whether he should fly to Pakistan, where Jared Kushner and a real estate lawyer are supposedly negotiating peace with Iran — a country that has not agreed to show up.
The bombs dropped. The inspectors left. Innocent children were killed. And the peace talks are being ghosted.
