It took Israel’s top brass just 12 days to see the total victory they claimed in the opening hours of the attack on Iran turn into something more like a strategic defeat. Hence Israel’s initial reluctance to honor the ceasefire. None of Israel’s three stated war goals have been achieved.
1. Τhere is still no evidence that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program has been “totally eliminated,” as Trump claimed. Iran has had time to move its centrifuges, and it is unclear where its existing stockpile of more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium is stored. Meanwhile, the dozens of generals and scientists killed in the opening hours of the attack were quickly replaced. An assessment by the Pentagon’s Intelligence Community found that U.S. military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities failed to destroy key components of Tehran’s nuclear program and only delayed it for a few months.
2. Ιn 12 days, Israel has suffered the kind of damage to residential areas that only Israeli planes had previously inflicted on Gaza and Lebanon, and this has come as a shock to the Israeli state. Strategic targets have been hit, including an oil refinery and a power plant. Iran has also reported strikes on Israeli military installations, although Israel’s strict censorship regime makes these claims difficult to verify.
3. Τhe Iranian regime is still standing. If anything, the regime rallied the nation rather than divided it, out of nationalistic anger at Israel’s unprovoked attack.
Since no one today knows for sure what really happened behind the scenes to arrive at the ceasefire, we have to make some guesses, but the picture seems to be pretty clear.
What the goal of the Israeli attacks was?
Netanyahu wanted to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and has been warning for over 20 years that Iran would build a nuclear bomb in a matter of weeks, months, or at most a year. This never happened, but no Western journalist has ever confronted Netanyahu with the fact that he has been proclaiming this nonsense for over 20 years.
It should also be noted that building atomic bombs is no longer a major technical problem in this day and age. And Iran had plenty of time to accumulate the necessary uranium. If Iran wanted a nuclear bomb, it would have had one a long time ago. Netanyahu attacked Iran and announced that his goal was to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. And Trump knew about the attack plan and supported it.
The target of the Israeli attacks, however, was apparently not the Iranian nuclear program at all, because Israel does not have the weapons that would be needed for it. Moreover, the Iranian nuclear program has existed for over 60 years and was started under the Shah with US support. Thus, the necessary knowledge is available in Iran, knowledge that cannot be bombed.
Even if everyone in the West denies it, the target of the Israeli attacks (approved by Trump) was obviously not the nuclear program, but regime change. Israel hoped that it would be able to eliminate enough Iranian leaders in its first attack, to destabilize the regime and then provoke an uprising that would sweep away the so-called mullahs. This was also supported by Western media reports from the beginning of the Israeli attacks, which actively assumed that the Iranian regime was weakened after the attack and would soon fall. The son of the former Shah had even called on the Iranian people to revolt in a video message and announced his imminent return to Iran. But none of this worked, the Iranian regime remained stable and was still able to militarily resist Israel and cause it great damage.
So Israel with its attacks failed to cause damage to the regime in Tehran, the Iranian nuclear program could only be neutralized with US intervention. But Trump did not want to get involved in a long-term war against Iran, a country of 90 million and highly armed is not easily defeated, and for the US there is also the precedent of Vietnam and Afghanistan. What was the way out for Trump?
Trump bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities and immediately announced with pride that Iran’s nuclear program had been destroyed. In the meantime, however, it has been reported that Iran transported its uranium from the underground facility in Fordow in several trucks before the US attack, which is confirmed by satellite images. If Trump really wanted to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, this would be the moment for the attack. But Trump waited for the enriched uranium to be transferred to another location.
Whatever happened behind the scenes, the current White House administration has apparently accepted that Iran may have a nuclear program. Perhaps there were warnings that Iran would respond to a total destruction of its nuclear program with all-out war, including the sinking of several US warships in the region and a long-term blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Perhaps Putin was able to convince Trump in the many phone calls that Iran did not actually pose a nuclear threat. No one knows today what happened, but something must have happened because Trump apparently changed his mind.
We recall that Trump took office with the promise of ending the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The fact that Trump seems to be serious about this can be seen from the fact that Israel immediately agreed to the ceasefire announced by Trump, after Netanyahu had previously repeatedly vowed a total victory over Iran as a condition for stopping the bombing. Therefore we conclude that Trump put pressure on Netanyahu.
Trump apparently sought a solution in which everyone could more or less save his own prestige. He saved his own prestige by organizing a spectacular attack on Iran, for which he can claim to the public that it destroyed Iran’s nuclear program, even though experts and intelligence agencies, as we mentioned above, say that the nuclear program has been disrupted and delayed for a while at best.
It was clear to everyone that Iran could not let the US attack go unpunished, especially in view of the war with Israel that was already underway. Apparently, as in 2020 after the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani, there was again a deal between Trump and Tehran. Trump allowed Iran to retaliate against US installations in the Middle East, with Iran launching exactly the same number of missiles and bombs at US bases as the US had launched at Iran. Iran had previously warned the US and the Gulf countries hosting US bases about the retaliatory attack. Therefore, the damage was manageable and there were no casualties.
Who mediated this behind-the-scenes collusion, the Gulf states or Russia?
We recall that the Iranian foreign minister visited Putin a few hours before the Iranian retaliatory attack, it does not matter, but it is obvious that this agreement existed. Although Trump has previously threatened the harshest consequences if Iran attacks American bases, he responded to the Iranian attack with a call for peace and a ceasefire. In order to save his prestige, he emphasized how weak the Iranian attack was, which is why the American response was not necessary.
Netanyahu is the de facto big loser, because he has not achieved his pompously proclaimed goals and Iran seems to be the winner of the Israeli attack. Why is Iran strategically the winner of this war?
Iran, to return to peace talks, will need guarantees that Israel will not attack again, guarantees that Israel itself will never give. As we have argued in our previous analysis, membership in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has not served Iran’s interests well enough. It could withdraw from the Treaty, now with every incentive to develop a nuclear bomb to stop Israel from doing so again.
In reality, Iran does not need to do anything. It has survived a decade of maximum pressure sanctions from the West and a 12-day Armageddon with the most advanced American weapons. It does not need a deal. It can rebuild and repair the damage it has suffered in these attacks, and with the experience of the past, it will emerge stronger than before.
Former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, after the ceasefire was announced, noted: “Despite the successes of the Israeli army and intelligence services, the end is bitter. Instead of unconditional surrender, we are entering into tough talks with a regime that will not stop enriching uranium, building missiles, or financing terrorism. From the beginning I warned: There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded lion. A ceasefire without a clear agreement will only bring another war in 2-3 years, under worse conditions. Israel has exchanged Gaza’s home-made rockets for Iran’s ballistic missiles. He has exchanged an indirect enemy and sponsor of proxy militias for a direct enemy, an enemy who has no qualms about sending the entire population of Israel into shelters.”
It remains to be seen whether the ceasefire will hold. It remains to be seen whether it can create stability in the Middle East. And above all, it remains to be seen how Netanyahu’s war of extermination against the Palestinians, which Trump apparently continues to support, will continue, which in turn does not please Iran and therefore there is still a possibility of conflict.
