WASHINGTON -- Sitting across from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday at the White House, President Trump said he hoped there would be no more U.S. bombing of Iran. "I can't imagine wanting to do that," Trump said.
Netanyahu later told him in private, however, that if Iran resumed moving toward a nuclear weapon, Israel would carry out further military strikes. Trump responded that he favored a diplomatic settlement with Tehran, but didn't otherwise object to the Israeli plan.
Their talks, described to The Wall Street Journal by senior U.S. and Israeli officials, underscored the conflicting calculations all three countries are facing since last month's Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Trump is counting on the threat of further attacks to pressure Tehran into an agreement that would foreclose it from building a nuclear weapon. Israel is skeptical a diplomatic settlement would prevent Iran from secretly rushing toward a nuclear weapon. And Tehran is demanding guarantees it won't face more bombing in return for resuming talks with Washington.
Israel wouldn't necessarily seek explicit American approval to resume strikes on Iran, a senior Israel official said. But depending on how significant the Iranian attempt to rekindle its nuclear program was, Netanyahu could face pushback from Trump to preserve the diplomatic track with Tehran.
For Iran's leaders, the stakes are even more momentous: If they rebuff Trump's demand to give up nuclear enrichment and resume their nuclear activities, renewed attacks by Israel and even the U.S. could threaten the regime's survival.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, like other top Iranian leaders, in recent days has said Tehran is open to resuming nuclear talks with the U.S. with assurances there will be no renewed attacks during the negotiations. Iran will insist on what it says is its right to enrich uranium, he added.
The White House declined to comment on Trump's talks with Netanyahu. The Iranian mission to the United Nations didn't respond to requests for comment.
Before last month's strikes, Israel assessed that Iran could produce a crude nuclear device within a matter of months and construct a usable weapon within a year. Top Israeli officials said they thought the U.S. and Israeli military strikes had set back Tehran's ability to build a nuclear weapon by up to two additional years, matching a recent Pentagon assessment.
Israel has concluded that some of Tehran's stockpile of near-bomb-grade enriched uranium at Isfahan survived last month's attacks and that with considerable effort Iran could recover some of the fissile material from that site, the senior Israeli official said.
Tehran wouldn't be able to retrieve the uranium from its two other nuclear sites at Natanz and Fordow because of the damage inflicted on those facilities by U.S. bunker-buster bombs, the official said.
Any effort by Iran to retrieve the uranium from Isfahan or revive the decimated nuclear program would be quickly detected by Israel, the senior Israeli official said.
"The Iranians are going to be extremely cautious," said Dennis Ross, who served as a senior official on Middle East issues during Democratic and Republican administrations. "They are going to take the threats the Israelis make very seriously."
Israel can prevent Iran from sprinting toward a bomb in the short term, the senior Israeli official said, including by continuing covert operations targeting top Iranian nuclear scientists and other national leaders that already have inflicted major blows on Iran.
The danger for Trump is that Israel could effectively dictate the next moves against Iran, analysts said.
"My sense is that Trump mostly wants the Iran problem to just go away," said Gabriel Noronha, who worked on Iran policy at the State Department in the first Trump administration. "He's clear that there should be no enrichment or nuclear weapons. But he's willing to be flexible on other things."
Many experts think that if Iran does reconstitute its nuclear program, it won't do so overtly through declared facilities but rather by using secret, underground enrichment sites to produce fissile material and to work on the technically complex aspects of building a weapon.
Israel has intelligence on where Tehran may secretly attempt to revive its nuclear work, the first senior Israeli official said. But Israel isn't known to possess its own bunker-busting bombs that can penetrate deep underground where Iran often houses centrifuges and other nuclear facilities.
No official date for formal talks between the U.S. and Iran has been set. Western diplomats say Iran is still debating how to proceed.
The strikes almost certainly locked in the core Trump demand that Iran end its uranium- enrichment program as part of any deal. Washington might feel it has the military leverage to expand its goals, including by pressing Tehran to agree to tight limits on its missile program or cut ties with regional militias.
"It was tough enough to achieve an agreement before the strikes. Now it will be tougher still," said Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who was part of the U.S. team that negotiated with Iran under the Biden administration. "Trump can't back down on zero enrichment, and Iran will feel it can't concede that as a result of being attacked."
Iran's move to suspend cooperation with the U.N. atomic agency needs to be addressed if Washington hopes to have long-term, on-the-ground monitoring of Iran's enrichment and weaponization work. The two sides also need to agree how to identify and deal with Iran's intact stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iran's missile attacks on Israel proved Tehran still poses significant offensive threats in the region.
Ali Vaez, Iran project director at conflict-resolution organization Crisis Group, says the group of Iranian officials arguing for serious diplomatic negotiations are in a minority following the attacks. He says there is even greater mistrust of Trump and concern that he will change the goal posts for what Washington wants. Seeking a deal at any price -- including one which would end Iran's enrichment program -- is unlikely, he said.
European governments have reiterated their threat to reimpose sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal unless Iran cooperates with the International Atomic Energy Agency. An October deadline looms for Britain, France and Germany to decide whether to snap the old sanctions back in place. Iran has said such a move could prompt them to withdraw from the nonproliferation treaty, which bars Tehran from working on a nuclear weapon.