In the months following the dramatic escalation of tensions between Iran, Israel, and the United States in mid-2025, the world has watched a complex diplomatic chess match unfold. At the center of this standoff are two powerful figures—Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former US President Donald Trump—whose clashing narratives and public posturing have shaped global perceptions and policy responses in the aftermath of a 12-day war that saw Israeli and US forces attack Iranian nuclear facilities.
Ayatollah Khamenei, now 86 and still the ultimate authority in Iran, recently rejected an overture from Trump to resume talks on Iran’s nuclear program. According to DW, Khamenei stated, “If an agreement is accompanied by coercion and its outcome is predetermined, it is not a deal, but imposition and harassment.” This pointed rebuke came alongside his dismissal of Trump’s claim that US actions had destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities. For decades, Khamenei and the Islamic Republic’s leadership have maintained a hardline stance, refusing to recognize Israel’s right to exist and issuing regular threats against the state of Israel—a posture that has contributed to the region’s persistent volatility.
Yet, as Middle East expert Menashe Amir told DW, Iran’s regional influence is not what it once was. “The Islamic Republic believes it can score points by showing strength,” Amir explained, but warned, “the strategy of demonstrating strength could backfire on Iran this time.” Groups traditionally allied with Tehran—Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels, and various Iraqi and Syrian proxies—have all been significantly weakened, leaving Iran’s position less secure than in previous years.
The June 2025 conflict, a 12-day war that saw coordinated Israeli and US strikes on key Iranian nuclear facilities, marked a turning point. Western countries have long accused Tehran of secretly seeking nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies, insisting its program is for civilian energy purposes. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly warned that Iranian uranium enrichment is approaching weapons-grade levels. After the E3 states (Germany, France, and the United Kingdom) triggered the UN “snapback” sanctions on August 28, 2025, Iran declared cooperation with the IAEA “superfluous.” Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, later announced that Iran would not implement a Cairo-brokered agreement with the IAEA, though he left the door open for future review of inspection requests by the Council’s Secretariat.
Iran’s leadership finds itself in a bind. Hamidreza Azizi, a Middle East expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told DW, “There is no doubt that the risk of conflict is very high, but statements by Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani show that the Islamic Republic does not yet want to completely renounce the agreement.” The regime, Azizi explained, fears that any rash move could provide Israel or the US with a pretext for further military action. In fact, even before the 12-day war, Iran had threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but ultimately refrained, instead seeking to negotiate with the IAEA to avoid sanctions—an effort that proved unsuccessful.
According to Azizi, Iranian security chief Larijani is trying to chart a middle course. “What we are currently witnessing is once again a kind of crisis management strategy by the Islamic Republic, which simply wants to buy time until a solution is found,” he said. Despite the heated rhetoric, indirect negotiations between Iran and the US continue, and parallel talks with European states are ongoing. A potential prisoner exchange between France and Iran—highlighted by the conditional release of Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian citizen jailed in France for promoting terrorism—signals that communication channels remain open, even if the fate of two French citizens detained in Iran is still uncertain. As DW notes, Iran has a history of leveraging the detention of Westerners to extract political concessions.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump’s approach to the Iran crisis has been shaped as much by social media as by traditional diplomacy. After being banned from X (formerly Twitter), Trump launched Truth Social in late 2021 to maintain his media influence and communicate his political beliefs directly. According to a content analysis published by Press TV, Trump’s posts about Iran—especially in the lead-up to and during the June 2025 conflict—were crafted to present himself as the “savior of the world” and Iran as a “weak enemy.” Of 80 posts analyzed from January to the end of the war, 75 percent focused on Trump’s self-image as a global savior, while 25 percent depicted Iran as a weakened adversary.
Trump’s narrative, as detailed by Press TV, centered on four themes: questioning the Democrats’ achievements (notably the Obama-era nuclear deal), pre-emptive self-defense (justifying strikes on Iranian nuclear sites), ending the war (highlighting his role in brokering a ceasefire), and preventing a regional hegemon (framing Iran as a threat to Israeli and American interests). In his posts, Trump argued that a new agreement with Iran was needed to prevent uranium enrichment and accused the Democrats of enabling Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. He characterized US and Israeli strikes—dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer”—as legitimate acts of pre-emptive self-defense, claiming they neutralized a destabilizing threat, even as critics argued the operation violated international law and was based on dubious intelligence.
Trump also sought to position himself as a peacemaker, emphasizing his role in ending the 12-day conflict and securing a ceasefire. At the same time, he portrayed Iran as a disruptor of the international order, incapable of effective governance, and lacking credibility on the world stage. Trump accused Tehran of sponsoring terrorism, pursuing nuclear weapons, and supporting groups like the Ansarallah resistance in Yemen to sow regional instability. He further claimed that Iran’s inability to export oil—even to close allies like China—and its defeat in the recent conflict underscored its weakness, though these assertions were often challenged as misleading or based on false information.
The Iranian response to Trump’s portrayal has been equally pointed. In a social media post cited by Press TV, Iran’s Foreign Minister declared, “Mr. Trump can either be a President of Peace or a President of War, but he cannot be both at the same time. Iran has always been open to respectful and mutually beneficial diplomatic engagement.” Meanwhile, analysts in Tehran argue that Trump’s depiction of Iran as a weak and disruptive state is part of a broader effort to justify aggressive US policies and potential military action.
As the dust settles from the summer’s conflict, both sides appear to be searching for a path forward—one that preserves their credibility without provoking further escalation. For now, Iran’s leadership is treading cautiously, wary of giving its adversaries an excuse for renewed hostilities, while the US continues to leverage public messaging and sanctions to shape the diplomatic landscape. The next moves in this high-stakes game remain uncertain, but for the moment, the world watches and waits as the two adversaries maneuver for advantage, each mindful of the risks that a single misstep could bring.
