Israel, US Pursue Iran Talks as Middle East Conflict Enters New Phase

Five months after Israel and the United States launched coordinated strikes against Iran in what became the largest aerial campaign in Israeli Air Force history, the Middle East finds itself suspended between war and negotiation. The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei and senior Iranian commanders, followed by devastating ballistic missile retaliation that claimed Israeli and American lives, has given way to a ceasefire and, now, the prospect of renewed diplomacy. As US-Iran talks prepare to open, the region stands at one of those rare inflection points where the arithmetic of violence has, at leas