After Israel’s 12-day war with Iran, the U.S. is now demanding that Tehran return to the negotiating table. 

“Told you so,” many prominent Democrats — including architects of Iran policy in both the Obama and Biden administrations — are saying in response, arguing they were right all along about the power of negotiations. But in doing so, they are also overlooking the impact of President Donald Trump’s military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities on the regime’s negotiating calculus. 

The Pentagon is now saying the strikes set back the Iran nuclear program by two years. Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, said that Iran is no longer a nuclear threshold state as a result of the U.S. and Israeli attacks.

But those assessments, among other similar analyses, have done little to change the minds of some of the leading Democratic foreign policy hands who have long argued for diplomacy above all else.

Susan Rice, who served as national security advisor during President Barack Obama’s negotiations with Iran, said this week that Trump’s use of military force in Iran was a “strategic mistake,” because “diplomacy had not been exhausted.” President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, was skeptical that the impact of the brief war with Iran will be long-lasting. 

“OK, then what?” he said in an interview with CNN last week. “We still need a deal.” 

Former Secretary of State Tony Blinken was more circumspect. He called the U.S. strike on Iran “unwise and unnecessary.” But, he wrote in The New York Times, now that it happened, “I very much hope it succeeded.” 

The White House hopes that the military successes — and threats of further strikes if needed — will translate to a tougher negotiating position and garner more concessions from Iran.

It has at least one prominent Bidenworld name on its side: Brett McGurk, Biden’s top Middle East advisor. (McGurk has worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations.)

“This has been a remarkable feat of Israeli military and intelligence proficiency, together with American military power that is unmatched globally,” McGurk wrote in a CNN analysis. 

But even McGurk, a rare Biden appointee who offered praise for Trump’s actions in the Middle East, warned that it will take time to know just how successful the U.S. and Israeli efforts will be, though he argued that they dealt Iran its “greatest military setback” since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. 

“No doubt, this short crisis was well managed and well handled by Trump and his national security team, but the ultimate judgment is far from rendered,” McGurk wrote. “The question now is whether this tactical success will translate into strategic gains.” 

The looming question is whether the strikes will push Iran closer to — or further from — the negotiating table. And the answer to that relies on the degree to which Iran believes that the U.S. and Israel will mount further attacks on its nuclear program — or if they are satisfied with the time bought by last month’s strikes.