A man holds a flag with a picture of late leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, late Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, during a rally in Tehran, Iran, April 29, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

As President Trump negotiates, the world stands on edge to see if he will sign a deal with Iran or return to combat.

Amidst a mountain of misinformation, disinformation, and wild speculation, here’s what we can determine — based on public and non-public sources.

Statements from the White House indicate that a deal is closer than ever, yet statements out of Iran indicate an unwillingness to budge on Washington’s core red lines, such as abandoning its nuclear program. Each side has accused the other of leaking draft agreements that are “complete fabrication,” and other dramatic adjectives.

I’ve previously discussed in-depth that Iran is notorious for making verbal promises that suddenly disappear in its written drafts, thus creating an intentional confusion about how close an agreement really is.

As the old saying goes, “Iran has never won a war, and has never lost a negotiation.”

American military supply planes and refueling aircraft have become a constant overhead fixture in Israel and the region. What does it mean?

It would be a huge waste of fuel and time to use Israel as a mere logistics hub — America has ongoing patrols around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, but other bases are much closer. So if these resources aren’t being used elsewhere, then that means they’re staying here in Israel. And accumulating. This has been going on for so long that, by now, it represents a very significant accumulation.

In short, this doesn’t look like the verge of a ceasefire deal.

On the other hand, moving military assets around is not only a way of preparing for war, but also a kind of communication. For example, US President John F. Kennedy’s naval “quarantine” of Cuba in 1962 wasn’t only a military action but also an element of negotiations with the Soviet Union that ultimately de-escalated the Cuban missile crisis.

Non-Public Sources

We are hearing contradictory information from non-public sources. We saw a similar pattern prior to Operation Rising Lion (the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities last June), and also just prior to America’s B-2 attacks at the end of the operation.

Filtering out the various contradictions, here’s what sources are saying (insofar as we can share):

1. There probably won’t be a deal; but

2. If there is a deal, it will be harmful and dangerous for Israel; and

3. In any case, the Iranian regime will fall.

At RealityCheck, we are less confident that the Iranian regime will fall if it achieves the right deal.

Iran’s annual oil revenue in 2011 (pre-sanctions) hit $95 billion while its current budget stands at only $80B, of which only $25 billion is needed to fund its military

In other words: if Iran were to resume oil sales at full capacity under a deal, the regime would have more than enough revenue to reconstitute its ballistic and nuclear weapons programs, even while continuing to fund proxies, terrorism, and internal oppression of its own people.

Imagine an armed robber: you can take away his gun, but if he has money and a gun store, he’ll be re-armed before long. In this case, the “money” is sanctions relief and financial incentives, which are rumored to be part of the potential deal, and the “gun store” is China, which has proven more than willing to supply Iran’s military machine.

Due to the regime’s apocalyptic ideology, Israelis and many of the Gulf Arabs see Iran like a cancer: you can excise 99% of a tumor but it will still grow back and kill you. We’ve previously discussed Iran’s ideology in depth, including how it makes the regime immune from deterrence and un-restricted by written agreements.

Nonetheless, our non-public sources seem to express a higher degree of confidence about the regime’s eventual collapse, which may point to other factors. Yet Israeli officials believe that even if the regime eventually collapses, its leaders will try to inflict as much pain as possible on their way out — and any deal will maximize the price Israelis will pay in blood.

War in the North

Despite the fictional “ceasefire” with Lebanon, Israeli communities are getting hit by Hezbollah rockets and drones more and more each day. Israeli soldiers are being injured and killed almost daily, with 13 fatalities just since the beginning of the “ceasefire.”

This damage is, to a great extent, due to Hezbollah’s “Ukraine style” fiber optic drones, which are cheap, plentiful, and frequently able to evade Israeli defenses. For Israel’s part, it has concluded that if it cannot effectively stop Hezbollah’s drone attacks, then the IDF must stop the people who launch them. Accordingly, IDF forces have continued pushing north into Lebanon, recently crossing the Litani River toward Hezbollah strongholds previously thought safe from IDF ground troops. Yet an American deal with Iran might end up tying Israel’s hands, even in Lebanon.

Just a few dozen miles away in Tel Aviv, life remains strangely normal.

Of course, for us “normal” is already a pretty high degree of readiness: bomb shelters are open and prepared, the IDF’s Home Front Command just released a major update to the app that informs civilians of incoming missiles, and most of us keep a supply of extra food, water and batteries at home.

Iranian Crown Prince-in-Exile Reza Pahlavi called President Trump’s current messaging “confusing,” and “mixed signals” to the Iranian people. Indeed, the White House is sending mixed signals to all of us, and that includes the Iranian regime. If operations last June in Iran and last January in Venezuela are any indication, that confusion may be, at least partly, intentional.

Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.