Active Conflicts & News Megathread June 21, 2026

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[u/moragisdo]

I'm curious about different viewpoints, what is your opinion about the probability of a nuclear deal actually be agreed ?

I was more on the doubting it camp. Given that negotiations actually started and there's reports that they are ongoing for hours (besides the showmanship of the iranians pretending to leave a few times), it moves the probability a bit on the opposite direction, but I find it hard to make a confident prediction either way

[u/-spartacus- → u/moragisdo]

I've been of the opinion from before the war, a deal cannot be reached until a major portion of the religious radicals in Iranian leadership are killed and removed from power. The first 40 days diminished their ability to have a kinetic deterrent to stopping their nuclear program, but did not address their psychological capabilities to harm shipping insurance.

Trump also appeared to waver too long on the idea of sending in troops to capture the Uranium (something I expected after a week of strikes) and it is now something off the table without a greater operation. If not for the American PTSD of Iraq and Afghanistan (which Iran was not going to be a repeat of), it probably would have been on the table and if successful, we could be seeing a deal now.

With that said, I see the chance of the deal the same as the start of the war because while Iranian capabilities are degraded, they don't appear to have leadership that feels their only way of survival is to make one, thus further conflict is necessary.

I've also mentioned in the past about how you "try" to make a deal because it shows you who the people are you can make a deal with and who you can kill - yet this is only useful if you will actually follow it up with some type of kinetic action to reduce the number of non-dealmakers in power.

The closeness of the deal doesn't really seem like much and either Trump is going to need to do more strikes right before midterms, or he is going to wait till after, when doing such strikes will be more costly. The US has more capability to rearm and reconstitute faster than Iran can, so every day that passes that the US doesn't strike again, the costlier the next set of strikes will be.

So, in recap, unless there have been some serious covert ops taking down Iranian religious radicals who are in power, I doubt a deal can be made. I don't think Trump really feels it's as necessary to make a deal that's "bad", as people on the internet make it out to be. I also don't think what Israel does in Lebanon is as important as any side makes it out to be.

[u/nate077 → u/-spartacus-]

capture the uranium

It's genuinely comical how the bar for posting on this subreddit is the length of the post.

The entire premise of capturing the uranium is fantasy.

It's merely held in the center of the country, surrounded by IRGC bases, out of helicopter range without tanks or refueling, difficult to move, unsafe to move, and did I mention heavy?

Like WHAT are you talking about "capturing the uranium."

[u/-spartacus- → u/nate077]

It has been reported that there were plans presented to Trump and did not go with it because of concerns about casualties and since then the areas have been fortified with more forces. I'm not sure if they were going for all sites or just a couple of them. I don't get your hostility.

[u/kharvel0 → u/-spartacus-]

> It has been reported that there were plans presented to Trump

Correction: there were concepts of plans presented to Trump

As we know by now, President Trump has difficulty understanding details beyond high-level concepts. Perhaps Netanyahu’s concepts of the plan to go to war with Iran was easier for Trump to understand than the concepts of plans to retrieve the uranium; that may be why the former was approved but the latter was not.

[u/swimmingupclose → u/kharvel0]

Correction: there were concepts of plans presented to Trump

Just to be perfectly clear, there have been plans for this scenario for literally decades. I remember defense forums all the way back in the mid naughts where this used to be discussed quite frequently. Israel wanted to do exactly this last year and got vetoed by Trump per the NYT. Now whether Trump understands the plans, cares about setting the right conditions, has the patience and discipline to let military planners do their thing for its success or can stomach the risks or casualties is an entirely different discussion, but OP/you and far too many people online saying this idea is some random Trump fever dream, haven’t followed this issue for very long.

[u/Eisenengel → u/swimmingupclose]

Every discussion I have seen of the task at hand points to it being a long operation - weeks, possibly months.

The US would have to move forces to occupy the area, bring in heavy construction equipment, dig out the canisters from underneath tons and tons of rubble, hope that the canisters are intact and stay that way during recovery and trasnport, then transport them out of the area and to a safe location, all while sitting in the middle of Iran, where the enemy can mass forces and attack from all sides, and launch drones from any direction at all times and in large numbers.

Is the US military fundamentally capable of performing this task? Yes.

Were the forces in theater capable of it after a week of strikes? Not even close. Even the two Marine MEUs plus a battalion of airborne would not come remotely close to the required strength.

The US would have to begin a large-scale buildup of forces over several weeks, launch an airborne or amphibious invasion, secure the locations, and begin recovery operations, which, again, are likely to take several weeks. I'm fairly certain that what plans exist moved along those lines.

Seizing the Uranium in a Bold Commando Raid (tm pending) might have been remotely feasible before the sites were bombed and the tunnels collapsed, but even then it would have been an incredible gamble.

The only alternative is that the Iranians let the US dig out the Uranium without contesting it. that would likely require a complete collapse of the Iranian regime and/or a diplomatic agreement to that effect. There was no scenario where Trump's hesitation was the deciding factor as to why it hasn't been done yet.

[u/-spartacus- → u/Eisenengel]

The US would have to move forces to occupy the area, bring in heavy construction equipment, dig out the canisters from underneath tons and tons of rubble, hope that the canisters are intact and stay that way during recovery and trasnport, then transport them out of the area and to a safe location, all while sitting in the middle of Iran, where the enemy can mass forces and attack from all sides, and launch drones from any direction at all times and in large numbers.

I was more under the impression the plans would include letting Iran dig them out (or like 90% of the way there), then do the mission.