Live Updates: Tehran Casts Doubt on Talks as Israel and Iran Pummel Each Other

The protests unfolded as Israel and Iran continued to trade fire despite a renewed diplomatic push in Geneva, where European leaders met with Iran’s foreign minister to present a proposal aimed at de-escalating the conflict. Earlier on Friday, Israel said it had carried out overnight strikes on missile factories and a research center linked to Iran’s nuclear program. Hours later, Iran launched a fresh barrage of missiles toward Israeli cities.

In Iraq, thousands gathered on Friday in Baghdad’s Sadr City district — a stronghold of the powerful Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who has at times resisted Iranian influence — to denounce Israel and express solidarity with Iran. Under the blistering sun, many protesters wore white burial shrouds, a Shiite symbol of martyrdom, and some burned Israeli and American flags.

In Basra and Najaf, two other Shiite-majority cities in Iraq, crowds echoed similarly defiant sentiments.

In the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, where the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah holds sway, supporters also staged rallies, marching amid the rubble of neighborhoods heavily damaged during Hezbollah’s recent war with Israel.

People in the crowds pumped their fists as they pledged support for Mr. Khamenei, an ally of Hezbollah’s former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last year.

Still reeling from its recent war with Israel, Hezbollah — Iran’s most powerful regional ally — has for now indicated privately that it does not intend to intervene in Iran’s conflict with Israel, according to senior Lebanese officials and Western diplomats.

Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.

Analysts say that these producers are preparing for the possibility that fighting could spread to oil export installations, which have been largely spared so far, or that shipping could be disrupted through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway from the Persian Gulf through which a large portion of both oil and liquefied natural gas travel.

“They want to make sure that they reduce the risks,” said Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler, a research firm. “That means export as much as possible, as soon as possible.”

Kpler estimated that Saudi Arabia’s oil exports had increased 16 percent through mid-June from the same period in May.

Other producers in the region like the United Arab Emirates and Iraq have boosted shipments around 10 percent, Mr. Falakshahi said.

The intent appears to be to put as much oil as possible on tankers and send it out of the Persian Gulf, mostly to Asian countries like China, which are, increasingly, the main customers for the oil producers.

Although countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have improved their ties to Iran in recent years, having oil on tankers provides a buffer in case fighting spreads to their lifeblood industry.

Even Iran, despite being the target of intense bombing by Israeli jets, appears to have managed a modest recent increase in exports, Kpler said. Because of U.S. sanctions on Iran, nearly all of its exports go to China.

Prices for Brent crude, the international benchmark, have risen about 10 percent since June 13, when the conflict between Israel and Iran escalated. They dropped more than 3 percent on Friday, to about $76 a barrel, after President Trump said he would delay his decision on U.S. involvement for two weeks.

There have been no serious disruptions to oil exports from the Gulf, but there are signs of increased concern about operating there.

The number of empty tankers in the Persian Gulf ready to take on new cargoes has declined sharply, Mr. Falakshahi said, potentially indicating a future fall in exports.

Marcus Baker, global head marine at the insurance broker Marsh McLennan in London, said that war risk insurance for shipowners that did business in areas like the Persian Gulf had risen about 60 percent since the conflict started last week. Before, rates had been at modest levels. “People are just a little bit nervous,” Mr. Baker said.

Freight rates on large tankers from the gulf to China have also risen about 50 percent, Kpler reported.

So far, these added costs are not enough to deter shipping by themselves, Mr. Baker said, but there are increasing concerns about the welfare of ships’ crews, who have been under stress from conflicts and other disruption in this decade, including monumental port delays during the pandemic.

“Crew welfare, crew safety, mental health of crew has become a big issue in the last few years,” he said.

Shipping experts also report an increase in interference in the area with the satellite navigation systems used by ships to report their positions.

This jamming, which has been unusually intense, is potentially dangerous because it can cause ships to appear in false locations on tracking systems and make it more difficult for owners to follow them.

For days, Israeli officials hoped that Mr. Trump would send American warplanes armed with the only munitions in the world that are deemed powerful enough to destroy Fordo.

Now, Mr. Trump says he will wait up to two weeks before deciding whether to make such an intervention — a delay that imposes a dilemma on Israel.

The longer Israel waits for Mr. Trump, the greater the strain on its air defense system. To keep out Iran’s ballistic missile barrages, Israel is burning through its stocks of missile interceptors, forcing it to prioritize the protection of some areas over others. As time goes on, that raises the risk of more missiles hitting both civilian neighborhoods and strategic security sites.

With Israel’s airspace closed and much of its economic life suspended, the war’s protraction will also come at an economic cost. The sooner the war ends, the faster commercial flights will return and businesses can resume full operations.

Rather than wait for American help, Israel could decide to attack Fordo alone — taking a chance with the planes and munitions it has at its disposal. Some analysts say that Israel could even send commandos to enter and sabotage the site. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at going it alone on Thursday, saying in a television interview that Israel would “achieve all of our objectives, all of their nuclear facilities. We have the power to do so.”

But experts say that this route is fraught with risk and that its effect may be limited. “It probably won’t be on the scale of what the U.S. can achieve,” said Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington. “If we could do what the U.S. can, we would have already done it.”

Another option is for Israel to wind down the war unilaterally, without attacking Fordo. But that approach would leave at least a significant part of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program intact, leaving open the possibility that Iran might create a nuclear bomb that could be used against Israel.

For now, Israel does not seem set to take that route. Israel’s political leadership has begun to speak explicitly about prompting the collapse of the Iranian regime and assassinating its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Even if Israel has no real way of toppling his government, the tone of the comments suggest that Israel, at the very least, intends to continue with its strikes for several days.

The tone of the Israeli news media on Friday also indicated continued domestic support for the Israeli campaign, as did new opinion polling. After Israel’s attack on Iran, Mr. Netanyahu’s party is in its strongest polling position since October 2023, when Hamas carried out the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.

Lia Lapidot contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.

Iran’s autocratic clerical leadership, which has ruled for nearly half a century since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, has proved its staying power, even in the face of multiple domestic uprisings. Demolishing Fordo, the enrichment site buried deep in a mountain, may not obliterate Iran’s nuclear program and could lead the country to broaden the war or accelerate that program.

Here are some ways it could play out if the United States enters the war.

Iran could negotiate

Before Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear program and other targets last week, Iran and the United States were discussing limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment program. It was rapidly producing fuel close to the levels needed for nuclear weapons, and in exchange for new limits on the program, Iran would win relief from economic sanctions.

The two sides were nowhere near a final agreement, but signs of a possible compromise had emerged by early June. When Israel attacked Iran, the negotiations collapsed.

Yet Iran has signaled that it remains willing to talk, and even a strike on Fordo would not necessarily wipe out prospects of a return to the negotiating table.

If the Trump administration follows an attack on Iran with an enticing offer, such as large-scale sanctions relief or peace guarantees, there is still a chance that Iran would consider making concessions, said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

“Is there an offer on the table that the Iranian people in this moment can actually rally around?” he said. “If it’s only a stick, then they’re going to fight.”

So far, Mr. Trump has not extended many carrots.

He called in a social media post on Tuesday for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”

Iran may lean into nuclear activity

All eyes are on Fordo. But it is possible that Iran has secret nuclear sites aimed at producing weapons that the United States and Israel do not know about, though no public evidence has emerged of such places.

If they do exist, Iran could use whatever it has left to try to accelerate its nuclear program in the wake an American attack.

With the damage Israeli airstrikes have done to nuclear facilities and the killings of top nuclear scientists, Iran probably lacks the capacity to build a nuclear weapon quickly, analysts said. Still, it could move in that direction and would have fresh incentive to do so.

“You would begin to see that broader escalation that they’ve held back on,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House. After all, Iran would have few other options left for deterring future attacks, she added.

Iran’s Parliament has publicly discussed a withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The treaty, of which Israel is not a signatory, currently requires Iran to submit to oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency and other transparency obligations and to commit to not building a nuclear bomb.

So far, the government has reiterated its longstanding insistence that Iran’s nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes. But Iran has firmly refused to capitulate to a central American demand that it give up uranium enrichment, saying it has the right to a civilian nuclear program.

The war could get bigger and messier

Over the past week, Iran has avoided striking American troops or other targets that could pull the United States into the war.

Its leaders may still be hoping to make a deal with the Trump administration to end the conflict and wary of taking on the U.S. military on top of Israel’s.

Though Iran has responded to Israeli attacks with missiles and threats of its own, it has refrained from hitting American troops or bases in the Middle East. It has also not struck Arab countries allied with the United States, such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.

Nor has it sent global oil prices soaring by sealing off or harassing traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping channel to Iran’s south. But at least one Iranian official has warned that Iran could do so if the United States enters the war.

And Iran’s allied militias in the region, including the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and armed groups in Iraq, have not joined the fight. Many of them have been seriously weakened over the past two years.

But those Iranian allies could still join the fray if the Trump administration decides to strike.

If the United States tries to force Iran to capitulate, “Iran will keep hitting until the end of the missile capabilities,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Talk of regime change

Mr. Trump said on social media this week that the United States is weighing whether to kill Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but had decided “not for now.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a Fox News interview this week that changing Iran’s regime “could certainly be the result” of this war.

Even if the United States assassinates Mr. Khamenei, however, the religious-military establishment that has tightly held power in Iran for nearly five decades may not fall.

With a war raging, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful branch of Iran’s military, could seize control of the country, said Mr. Nasr, the professor.

They might put in place a more Western-friendly government, or, more likely, replace Mr. Khamenei with a more extreme figure who would dig in for a long fight, Mr. Nasr added.

If the military does not assert itself quickly, some analysts fear that Iran could plunge into chaos or civil war as different factions struggle for control.

But they see little chance for Iran’s liberal opposition, which has been weakened and brutally repressed by the regime, to prevail.

Iran’s people could rise up again

Mr. Netanyahu encouraged the Iranian people last week to capitalize on Israel’s attacks on their government and “rise up” against their “evil and oppressive regime.”

Iranians have staged mass protests against clerical rule several times in recent history, most recently with the “Women, Life, Freedom” demonstrations of late 2022. Each time, the opposition has faced a harsh crackdown by government security forces.

Some Iranians so despise the clerical leaders that they have at times looked to Israel as an ally and openly hoped for the United States to install new leadership.

Some Iranian opponents of the regime cheered Israel’s initial attacks on Iran, which they saw as more evidence of their government’s incompetence and mismanagement. But the growing death toll, the attacks on civilian infrastructure and the panic gripping Iranian cities are hardening many in the country against Israel.

Iranian social media platforms have been full of patriotic posts in recent days, expressing unity against foreign intervention, if not exactly support for the regime.

Leily Nikounazar and Parin Behrooz contributed reporting.

Expectations for the meeting were restrained, given the wide gaps between Iran and the United States in their now-suspended negotiations. Yet Mr. Trump’s reprieve, after a week in which he seemed to be marching inexorably toward war, buoyed hopes, suggesting that there was still time to act.

“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future,” the president said in a statement on Thursday, “I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.

Mr. Trump denied reports that he had already authorized an attack on Iran but that he had withheld final approval to see if Iran’s leaders acceded to his demand that they abandon the country’s nuclear program.

Speaking to Iranian state media before the session, Mr. Araghchi said, “We do not ask for negotiations with anyone, but if others ask for negotiations and talks with us, there is a dialogue, and we have no problem.”

Mr. Araghchi, however, staunchly defended Iran’s retaliation against Israel and said that Iran viewed the United States as a partner in Israel’s attacks. He noted that Mr. Trump used the word “we” in social media posts referring to the military operation.

Among the issues on the table in Geneva, officials from several countries said, is giving outside inspectors unfettered access to Iran’s nuclear facilities and cutting its stockpile of ballistic missiles, which it has fired against Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes on military bases and nuclear installations.

Those barrages continued Thursday night. Israel struck the headquarters of an advanced research institute connected to Iran’s nuclear program, the Israeli military said. An Iranian missile hit a residential street in a city in southern Israel, leaving a large crater, according to Israel’s emergency services.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Daniel Meron, told reporters before the meeting that he expected European ministers to stand firm in demanding a complete rollback of Iran’s nuclear program and the dismantling of its arsenal of ballistic missiles.

Asked whether Israel would pause the hostilities to give diplomatic space for negotiations, Mr. Meron said, “We haven’t yet fulfilled our goals, so we are continuing.”

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, arrived in Geneva on Friday, after meeting the day before at the White House with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to urge a diplomatic solution before the meeting in Switzerland.

“We are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Lammy said in a statement after his White House meeting. “We discussed how Iran must make a deal to avoid a deepening conflict. A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution.”

British diplomats left the meeting cautiously optimistic that Mr. Trump would prefer a diplomatic solution to further military escalation, provided any deal with Tehran was genuine, according to a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Friday that the foreign ministers in Geneva were going to extend a “complete diplomatic and technical negotiation offer” to Iran and that the Iranian government needed to “show its willingness to join the negotiating platform we will be putting on the table.”

“No one should overlook the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran,” Mr. Macron told reporters on a visit to the Paris Air Show. But he added, “No one can seriously believe that this threat can be addressed with the current operations alone.”

Mr. Macron said that some of Iran’s enrichment facilities were “extremely protected” and that it was not entirely clear where Iran stockpiled its enriched uranium.

Britain, France and Germany are reconstituting a diplomatic group, known as the E3, which conducted on-again, off-again talks with Iran in the early 2000s and played an important role in negotiations before Iran signed a nuclear agreement with the West in 2015. The foreign ministers have been joined by the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas.

In Mr. Araghchi, the Iranian minister, the Europeans are confronting a seasoned negotiator who hammered out the framework of that deal in secret talks with emissaries from the Obama administration in 2013. Mr. Trump withdrew from the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in 2018.

Still, the Europeans are, by all accounts, on the margins of a drama that pits Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and potentially Mr. Trump, against Iran’s leaders, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva and Aurelien Breeden from Paris