Oman’s foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, announced that his mediation in Geneva had produced “significant progress,” saying Iran had given assurances it would not seek nuclear material to build an atomic bomb. He described the talks as a “very important breakthrough.” Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, likewise reported “progress” and a growing “mutual understanding.”
Despite those public statements, the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran early the next morning. President Donald Trump justified the strikes by citing alleged “threats” from Tehran and declaring the start of “major combat operations,” framing the goal as defending Americans by removing imminent threats posed by the Iranian regime. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed similar arguments, insisting Iran must not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons that could threaten humanity.
Observers quickly questioned whether the parties had simply misread the state of negotiations or whether the attack rationale was credible. Marcus Schneider of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s Beirut project called a misunderstanding unlikely, portraying Oman’s intervention as a last-ditch effort to avert a war that now appears to have begun. He said the Americans displayed “significantly less enthusiasm” for the talks. Diba Mirzaei, an Iran specialist at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, also rejected the idea that both sides had fundamentally different takeaways from Geneva; she suggested Oman’s public framing was meant to underscore what stood to be lost if Washington chose military action.
Analysts pointed to the deep gulf between U.S. demands and Iran’s positions as a structural obstacle. Schneider argued the negotiations were bound to fail because Washington’s conditions amounted to “complete surrender,” which Iran would not accept. He dismissed claims that Iran posed an immediate danger to the United States as implausible and called the ensuing full-scale war a “war of choice” by the U.S.
Mirzaei noted that the U.S. had already moved substantial forces into the region weeks earlier, making it unlikely the buildup was mere theater. She described the Trump approach as deliberate escalation—applying pressure to extract concessions—which, she warned, makes it much harder to reach a sustainable deal. Schneider added that U.S. policymakers may have misread the ideological resilience of Iran’s leadership, expecting it to crack under pressure. He also interpreted the near-simultaneous U.S. and Israeli strikes as a coordinated tactical and political move, likely calibrated to domestic audiences.
Both experts concluded that the attacks have greatly complicated any remaining diplomatic avenues. Iran is not comparable to Venezuela or to Iraq in 2003, and under the current dynamics, forging a viable agreement will be far more difficult.
This article was originally written in German.