In May 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, dismissing it as “defective at its core” and promising that his maximum pressure campaign would force Tehran into a better agreement. Eight years later, no better deal ever materialized. Instead, Iran’s nuclear program accelerated dramatically, and on February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched massive joint military strikes across Iran — including targets in Tehran itself — killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior military commanders in an operation the Pentagon codenamed “Epic Fury.” The trajectory from diplomatic withdrawal to aerial bombardment is not merely ironic — it is a case study in how abandoning a flawed but functional agreement without a viable replacement can lead to the very outcome it was supposed to prevent.
When Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, Iran was limited to enriching uranium at 3.67 percent purity. By mid-2025, Iran had stockpiled approximately 972 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent — enough for multiple nuclear weapons if further enriched — and the diplomatic off-ramps had all but disappeared. This article traces the full arc from the 2018 withdrawal through the failed negotiations of early 2026 to the strikes on Tehran and their immediate aftermath, examining what went wrong, who paid the price, and what accountability looks like when policy choices cascade into war.
Table of Contents
- Why Did Trump Pull Out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, and How Did It Lead to Bombing Tehran?
- The June 2025 Strikes and the Collapse of the Diplomatic Window
- Operation Epic Fury — What Happened in Tehran on February 28, 2026
- Iranian Retaliation and the Expanding Regional Toll
- International Reaction and the Accountability Gap
- The Domestic Political Landscape
- What Comes Next for US-Iran Relations and Regional Stability
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
Why Did Trump Pull Out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, and How Did It Lead to Bombing Tehran?
The JCPOA, negotiated by the obama administration with Iran, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, was never perfect. Critics — Trump chief among them — argued it did not address Iran’s ballistic missile program, had insufficient inspection mechanisms, and included sunset clauses that would eventually allow Iran to resume enrichment. On May 8, 2018, Trump formally announced the US withdrawal and reimposed all sanctions on Iran by November 4, 2018, launching what his administration branded a “maximum pressure” campaign targeting Iran’s energy, petrochemical, and financial sectors. The other signatories unanimously opposed the withdrawal and attempted to keep the JCPOA alive without American participation. The fundamental bet behind maximum pressure was that economic pain would either topple the Iranian regime or force it back to the negotiating table on American terms. Neither happened. Instead, Iran responded by steadily escalating its nuclear activities.
The enrichment limits that the JCPOA had enforced were abandoned one by one. By February 2025, Iran possessed 605.8 pounds of 60-percent-enriched uranium. By mid-June 2025, that figure had surged to 972 pounds — a rapid acceleration that alarmed international observers. For context, the International Atomic Energy Agency estimated that roughly 92.5 pounds of 60-percent-enriched uranium is sufficient for a single nuclear weapon if further enriched to weapons-grade 90 percent. Iran’s stockpile was enough for multiple weapons. The comparison between the constrained Iran of 2018 and the nuclear-threshold Iran of 2025 is stark. Under the JCPOA, international inspectors had robust access to Iranian facilities and enrichment was capped at levels far below weapons utility. After the withdrawal, each side escalated in turn — sanctions, then enrichment increases, then military threats — until diplomacy became a formality and bombs became the policy.
The June 2025 Strikes and the Collapse of the Diplomatic Window
Before the massive February 2026 operation, the first direct military strikes against iran came in June 2025. On June 13, 2025, Israel launched airstrikes targeting Iranian military leaders, nuclear scientists, and nuclear facilities, initiating a twelve-day war between Israel and Iran. On June 22, 2025, the United States joined by bombing three Iranian nuclear sites with bunker-buster munitions. These strikes damaged Iran’s nuclear infrastructure but did not destroy its program or its ambitions. However, the June 2025 strikes did not close the door on diplomacy entirely — or at least, both sides pretended they had not. By early 2026, indirect talks between the US and Iran resumed. On February 6, 2026, negotiators met in Muscat, Oman, though Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly undercut the process by telling reporters, “I’m not sure you can reach a deal with these guys.” On February 19, Trump issued an ultimatum: Iran had ten to fifteen days to reach a deal or face “really bad things.” The final round of what participants described as the “most intense” negotiations took place in Geneva on February 26, but collapsed over irreconcilable demands.
The US insisted Iran end all enrichment entirely. Iran wanted sanctions relief on a defined timeline. There were also unresolved disputes over ballistic missiles. On February 27, CNBC reported the talks had concluded with no agreement. The limitation worth noting here is that even skeptics of the JCPOA acknowledged the Geneva talks were structurally doomed. Demanding total cessation of enrichment — something Iran has never agreed to under any government — while simultaneously telegraphing military action and publicly doubting the process was not a formula for diplomatic success. As The Conversation noted in its analysis, the failure was “all too predictable,” though Trump could still have chosen to persist with diplomacy over strikes.
Operation Epic Fury — What Happened in Tehran on February 28, 2026
On February 28, 2026 — one day after the Geneva talks officially collapsed — the United States and Israel launched a massive joint military operation. Israel codenamed its component “Operation Roaring Lion.” The Pentagon called theirs “Operation Epic Fury.” The scope was enormous: targets included Iran’s leadership, nuclear program, missile sites, and military infrastructure across Tehran, Isfahan, Karaj, Kermanshah, Qom, Tabriz, and Bushehr. In Tehran specifically, the Revolutionary Court was destroyed. Explosions were reported near Azadi Stadium, Azadi Square, Milad Tower, and Iran’s state radio and television headquarters. These are not remote military outposts — they are landmarks in a metropolitan area of roughly 9 million people. Trump characterized the strikes as “major combat operations” and, in a direct address, urged Iranians to “take over your government.” The rhetoric framed the bombing not merely as counterproliferation but as regime change by invitation — a familiar american playbook with a historically poor track record.
The immediate human cost was severe. Iranian state media confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. By March 1, Chief of Staff Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were also confirmed dead. Israel claimed a majority of Iran’s senior military leaders had been killed, including more than 40 commanders in the initial wave of strikes alone. As of March 2, 2026, at least 555 Iranians had been killed, with the Red Crescent reporting more than 747 injured on the first day alone. The 2026 Minab school airstrike killed 148 people according to Iranian state media — a single incident that, regardless of the intended target, represented a catastrophic loss of civilian life.
Iranian Retaliation and the Expanding Regional Toll
Iran’s response came swiftly. On March 1, 2026, Iran launched missiles and drones not only at Israel but at US military assets and allies across the region — striking at targets in the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The geographic spread of the retaliation underscored what critics of the strikes had warned: that attacking Iran would not remain a bilateral affair but would engulf the broader Middle East. At least 10 people were killed in Israel. Four US soldiers were killed.
Five people died in Gulf states. Three Americans total were confirmed dead as of early March reporting. The tradeoff at the center of the policy debate became visceral: the JCPOA, for all its flaws, had kept Iran’s enrichment at 3.67 percent and maintained a functioning inspection regime without a single American combat death. The post-withdrawal trajectory produced a nuclear-threshold Iran, a regional war, and American casualties — alongside hundreds of Iranian dead, including civilians. Whether the strikes ultimately set back Iran’s nuclear program by years, as proponents argue, or merely drove it underground and hardened Iranian resolve, as critics contend, will take time to assess. What is already clear is that the human and strategic costs are substantial on all sides.
International Reaction and the Accountability Gap
The international response to the February 28 strikes was sharp. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the attacks “squandered a chance for diplomacy.” The IAEA chief stated that there was no evidence nuclear facilities had been directly hit in the latest round, though the Bushehr area was struck — raising concerns about potential radiological contamination near Iran’s only operational nuclear power plant. The Arms Control Association, in a March 2026 analysis, characterized Trump’s entire Iran nuclear policy as “chaotic and reckless,” arguing that the 2018 withdrawal set in motion a chain of escalation that made military conflict increasingly likely with each passing year.
The warning embedded in this sequence of events extends beyond Iran. The JCPOA withdrawal established a precedent: that the United States could abandon multilateral agreements negotiated over years, reimpose unilateral sanctions, and then claim military action was necessary to address the very problem that the abandoned agreement had been managing. For other countries watching — North Korea, for instance — the lesson is that nuclear agreements with the United States may not survive a single change in administration, which reduces the incentive to negotiate in the first place. The accountability gap is real: no formal congressional authorization preceded the strikes, and the legal basis cited by the administration — self-defense under Article II powers — is contested by constitutional scholars and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.
The Domestic Political Landscape
Within the United States, the strikes have divided opinion largely along existing partisan lines, but with notable exceptions. Some Republican lawmakers who supported the 2018 withdrawal have questioned whether the administration’s refusal to accept any enrichment capacity — even at levels well below weapons-grade — made a negotiated outcome impossible. Meanwhile, some Democrats who opposed the JCPOA in 2015 have acknowledged that the deal, however imperfect, was preferable to the current situation.
The political complexity is compounded by the fact that Trump’s 2018 withdrawal was enormously popular with his base and with key allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia at the time. The downstream consequences were abstract and years away. Now that those consequences have arrived in the form of body bags and a regional conflagration, the political calculus is shifting — though whether it shifts enough to produce meaningful oversight or policy change remains uncertain.
What Comes Next for US-Iran Relations and Regional Stability
The killing of Khamenei and much of Iran’s senior military leadership creates a power vacuum with unpredictable consequences. Historically, decapitation strikes against authoritarian regimes do not reliably produce the democratic uprisings that their architects envision — and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, though weakened, remains a formidable institutional force. The regional implications are equally uncertain: Iran’s network of proxy forces across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen has its own command structures and motivations, and the death of Tehran’s leadership may unleash rather than restrain these groups in the near term.
For American policymakers, the core question is the same one that went unanswered in 2018: what replaces the agreement you walked away from? Maximum pressure did not produce a better deal. Military strikes have not yet produced a capitulation. And the humanitarian toll — on Iranians, on Americans, on civilians across the Gulf — continues to mount. The arc from withdrawal to war may not be inevitable in every case, but in this case, the line is disturbingly straight.
Conclusion
The eight-year journey from Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal to the bombing of Tehran is a cautionary tale about the consequences of abandoning imperfect agreements without viable alternatives. In 2018, Iran’s enrichment was capped at 3.67 percent under international monitoring. By 2026, Iran had enough near-weapons-grade uranium for multiple bombs, diplomacy had collapsed, and American and Israeli bombs were falling on one of the most populous cities in the Middle East. The human cost — at least 555 Iranians dead, 148 killed in the Minab school strike, American soldiers among the casualties of Iranian retaliation — gives weight to what might otherwise be an abstract policy debate. Accountability for this chain of decisions remains elusive.
The 2018 withdrawal was a unilateral executive action. The 2026 strikes were launched without new congressional authorization. The Arms Control Association’s assessment — “chaotic and reckless” — may be the most concise summary available. For readers tracking government accountability, the Iran file is a reminder that policy decisions made for short-term political gain can produce long-term consequences that no amount of firepower can undo. The question now is whether any institution — Congress, the courts, the international community — will impose accountability before the next escalation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA)?
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was a 2015 agreement between Iran, the US, Russia, China, the UK, France, and Germany. It limited Iran’s uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent purity and imposed strict inspections in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump withdrew the US from the deal on May 8, 2018.
How much uranium had Iran enriched by 2025?
By mid-June 2025, Iran had accumulated approximately 972 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity. The IAEA estimates that roughly 92.5 pounds of 60-percent-enriched uranium is sufficient for a single nuclear weapon if further enriched, meaning Iran’s stockpile was theoretically enough for multiple weapons.
What was Operation Epic Fury?
Operation Epic Fury was the Pentagon’s codename for the US component of the joint US-Israeli military strikes launched against Iran on February 28, 2026. Israel’s component was codenamed Operation Roaring Lion. Targets included leadership, nuclear facilities, missile sites, and military infrastructure across multiple Iranian cities including Tehran.
Was Iran’s supreme leader killed in the strikes?
Yes. Iranian state media confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the February 28, 2026 strikes. Chief of Staff Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were also confirmed killed on March 1.
Did Iran retaliate?
Yes. On March 1, 2026, Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. At least 10 people were killed in Israel, 4 US soldiers were killed, and 5 were killed in Gulf states. Three Americans total were confirmed dead.
Did the US have congressional authorization for the strikes?
The legal basis for the strikes is contested. The administration cited self-defense under Article II executive powers, but constitutional scholars and members of Congress on both sides have questioned whether this was sufficient without formal congressional authorization.