(OSV News) -- Hours after U.S. President Donald Trump called off his threat to destroy Iran's "whole civilization" and agreed to a two-week ceasefire, OSV News spoke with conflict resolution scholar Laurie Nathan of the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
Nathan, director of the institute's mediation program, has previously served in several capacities at the United Nations. He shared his perspective on the impact of Trump's threat, the prospects for peace in the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, and the broader implications for the international order.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OSV News: As an expert in conflict resolution, how do you view the agreement of a ceasefire after Trump's threat to annihilate Iranian civilization?
Nathan: A ceasefire is often not only the most essential way of protecting human life and community, but it also provides a political breathing space for negotiations to address the substantive issues in dispute. There's no real prospect of imminent serious negotiations while threats are being made and hostilities are underway.
They now have a two-week period in which the two sides or three sides, if you include Israel, have an opportunity to see to what extent they can resolve the critical issues in contention. There's no guarantee that those negotiations will succeed, but at least they've bought enough time for them to take place.
OSV News: Do you think Trump's threat was effective in bringing about the temporary ceasefire?
Nathan: Threats are often counterproductive, and we saw that here. It wasn't as if Trump's threats worked in this case.
Countries threaten each other in order to heighten the risk to their enemy of continuing hostilities. The danger is that the enemy digs in, that the enemy intensifies its resolve and decides, "There's no way we can back down without losing face, and therefore we will not back down."
So I'm very suspicious of threats, and of the efficacy of threats in general and in this particular case.
OSV News: What is your assessment of the prospects for a negotiated end to this war?
Nathan: Many of the points of contention here are very tough to resolve. Yet, there have been at least two periods, if not more, of progress in negotiations between the U.S. and Iran on the nuclear issue.
And in every case, President Trump abandoned the talks and agreements. In 2018, he abandoned the agreement achieved under President Obama (the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was reached to ensure Iran's nuclear program would be exclusively peaceful, not military).
So if you were the Iranian regime, presumably you would think, "I don't trust my enemy to negotiate in good faith, and I don't trust my enemy to abide by agreements that we reach."
That's a general lesson that seems pretty obvious, but I don't think the U.S. administration has heeded it. Every time, in any context, a conflict party breaks faith, it will be trusted less by its enemy the next time negotiations take place.
OSV News: At this point, where does the rules-based, post-World War II international order -- which prioritizes diplomacy over threats and aggression -- stand?
Nathan: The Trump administration has made no bones about it -- it has no regard for international law, but instead takes a "might is right" view in international relations and never mind the niceties of international law.
This is devastating, and will have long-term negative impact on international relations.
The post-World War II order rests not only on international humanitarian law, which says you can't attack civilian infrastructure, you can't commit war crimes, etc. More importantly, it rests on the premise that you may not attack other countries. You may not use force, and you may not threaten force against other countries.
And the reason for that is obvious. It doesn't matter how bad the other country is, because if we say you can attack bad countries -- well, who's the judge of that? If that's the case, then you really have no rule.
Article 2.4 of the United Nations Charter says you may not threaten or attack other countries. The one significant exception is if you are under armed attack, which wasn't the case here.
So I think the Trump administration is doing very serious long-term damage to the international order. And I think they're doing it with their eyes open -- knowingly, not accidentally.
This is a bully posture that reinforces the confluence of Russia and China, as the other great powers, to also adopt bully postures. Russia has, of course, already done it with its war on Ukraine.
So this is not good for the long-term trajectory of international peace and security and stability.
OSV News: With nations operating from different priorities and assumptions, how do we forge a path ahead?
Nathan: We don't have an answer. I don't have an answer. I work closely with the United Nations, the EU (European Union), the African Union, and we're all having this debate.
It's possible to circumvent the U.S. on trade, and to have a new international order on trade. This is what (Canada's Prime Minister) Mark Carney is trying to do -- to have a rules-based trade order that is fair and equitable, one that does not include the U.S. unless the U.S. wishes to adhere to the terms.
But it's not possible to do this for international politics and security, because power will prevail over any alternative arrangement. So you can imagine a coalition of nice states all saying, "We respect and will uphold the world order." But that's of no relevance to the U.S., to China, to Russia.
We can't, through rules alone, constrain the raw exercise of military power by big states, by big powers. It only works if the most powerful are willing to be constrained.
The U.N. Charter works only if powerful states want it to work. The U.N. Security Council works only if the great powers want it to be effective.
OSV News: Several analysts have observed that Trump's threats to annihilate Iran and to attack civilian structures violate both the Geneva and Genocide conventions. Do you see a value in pursuing accountability here?
Nathan: I do. There's an argument to be made both ways and I would come down on the side of accountability.
The argument against accountability is that it would be provocative, it would deepen a sense of international crisis, it would generate a conservative backlash in the US.
The argument in favor of accountability is that there is no norm unless it is enforced, unless there is some accountability if you break it. So if we, the good guys -- including the International Criminal Court -- ignore these kinds of violations, we are effectively saying, "It's OK. Keep at it." We are complicit in the breaking of fundamental norms.
