What is the endgame between Israel and Iran?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed directly to the Iranians to violate the theocracy after the first attack cycle between Israel and Iran. He said in a video released by his administration that Operation Lion Rising is the code name for the huge attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and military leaders, a “cleaning the way” in a video released by their administration. “The time has come, and work hard to get rid of evil and oppressive regimes to unite your flag and historic heritage,” he said, adding that such regimes are “never been so weak.” Then, in Portsi, Netanyahu “Women, life, freedom” protest In 2022. “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi,” he said. He claimed in another video on Saturday that senior Iranian leaders were already “packing up” and preparing to run away.

Israel’s campaign has rapidly developed its initial goals both military and rhetorical. It attacked Iran’s energy facilities last weekend, including a gas station and oil refinery, triggering fires and emitting smoke amid a vast capital of about 10 million people. Israeli Defense Minister Katz boasted about X. In other cities, they also suffered from energy resources caused by X, destroying Iran’s main source of income. Israeli officials also began telling local and foreign media that the assassination of top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since 1989, which was not a “restriction.” (President Donald Trump reportedly rejected the idea, but Israeli leaders even discussed it with their Washington counterparts, reflecting the range they are willing to go.

Israel has long had a military advantage over Iran. Over the past two years, it has carried out bold air strikes and novel covert operations on allies of the Islamic Republic throughout the Middle East, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Panmotor Forces in Iraq and Hossis in Yemen. It assassinated senior political leaders and killed thousands of combatants. Israel has more motivation now. But achieving a definite outcome would be difficult – whether it is the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, the destruction of its complex missile arsenal, the weakening of its economy, or the spur of counter-revolution.

“The initial attack was so successful that it was hard not to raise the target,” said Frank McKenzie, Jr. , he led the U.S. Central Command from 2019 to 2022, he told me. But, he warned, “You have to know what is feasible.” Israel can “significantly” lower Iran’s nuclear program, but I don’t think it’s possible to eliminate it completely. ” In 2020, McKenzie executed President Trump’s killing order General Qassem Suleimanihead of the Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, he orchestrated dozens of attacks on U.S. targets. However, Quds troops continued to plan attacks on American personnel in the region.

Former Israeli Prime Minister and retired general Ehud Barak estimates that Israel will only delay Iran’s nuclear program in a few weeks. “Even the United States can’t delay it for more than a few months,” Barack said on Friday, and Iran has dispersed its nuclear program in different parts of the country (Tehran claims to be used only for peaceful energy production). One of its main facilities is in Fordow, which is buried over 200 feet below the Zagros Hill, near the Holy City of Qom.

Israel and the international community have long been concerned that Iran’s plans will expand to build bombs. In Washington, the Weapon Control Association, a nonpartisan organization led by nuclear experts and former U.S. officials, warned that Operation Lion could “strengthen Tehran’s determination to advance its sensitive nuclear activities and potentially continue weapons, a step that has not been taken to this point.”

Israel’s elimination of Iranian military brass may be a setback, “but it’s not a strategy to end the Iranian plan,” Wendy Sherman led the U.S. team to negotiate a nuclear deal signed by Iran in 2015 and told me in 2015. (Trump unilaterally withdrew the deal, which restricts Iran’s uranium enrichment restrictions in exchange for economic resilience.) In just two days, Israel assassinated the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, the top commander of the post-revolutionary guard, and the aerospace and its timely and timely aerospace in the country. “The supreme leaders will only replace them with their representatives, their representatives and their representatives afterwards,” Sherman said.

Now, the chances of Israeli-style regime change also seem to be small. On X, Danny Citrinowicz, former head of Iranian analysis for Israeli military intelligence, warned that the Netanyahu government has fought a war based on “illusion” that it could attract the United States to overthrow the “hidden target” of the Islamic Republic. He wrote: “The bigger problem is “After all… Israel intends to[s] End the war and preserve its achievements without entering the war of loss”, just like its open war The Gaza Warthere is no clear exit strategy.

In 2003, President George W. Bush launched Operation Iraqi to freely destroy Baghdad’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The implicit goal is also to overthrow President Saddam Hussein at that time. However, Iraq proved to be without any weapons of mass destruction – the United States was trapped there for eight years, and this occupation created the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, led by prisoners detained by U.S. troops. Sherman noted that Israel’s Salvos in the current conflict “reminiscent of our shock and awe when everyone thinks we are so powerful,” Sherman noted. “Then shock and awe are in trouble.” In any country under attack, people tend to gather around the flag. Persian nationalism dates back about five thousand years, when tribes united to create the world’s first major empire. “I don’t think it’s easy to die,” Sherman said. “And, when you try to destroy, you don’t know what you are creating.”

For three decades, I had a conversation with Nasser Hadian, an American-educated political scientist who taught at Columbia University and Tehran University. We talk again – I’m in Washington, he’s in Tehran – this weekend through WhatsApp. He said about 80% of Iran’s 90 million people opposed the country’s tough leadership, but only “a small number” would accept Netanyahu’s call for regime change. At least for the time being, Israel’s storm makes it less likely that any “attempt to replace the government” will be replaced. He said that even in Iran’s geographical and political periphery, where turmoil may occur among minorities, such as the Baroque and Kurds, the Iranian state still “has enough support to survive.”

Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. professional intelligence official, recently wrote that many Israelis once thought that political change in Iran would “promote a new, better day” because “nothing worse than the current Theocracy.” But, he warned that history proved that alternatives “always worse.” In an article by the Atlantic Council, Panikoff said in an article by the nonpartisan think tank in Washington, the result was not a democracy, but a more radical “revolutionary guards.” “In this case, Israel may find itself in a timeless, persistent and more intense war that is no longer in the shadows as many years have.” Or, other experts warned that Iran might fall into a state of failure like Iraq, with unexpected consequences throughout the region.

Ali Vaez, director of the Iran program at Iran International Crisis Group, told me that so far there are no opposition groups (whether in Iran or exiles). Reza Pahlavi, son of The Last Shah, who was overthrown in the 1979 revolution, lived in Washington DC for more than 40 years. I once asked him at a Washington dinner party. “English or French”. He doesn’t remember dreaming at Falsey.

Now, under the siege, Tehran has few choices. Vaez said its only “good strategy” was unwilling to back down. Its huge energy resources and geographical strategic position in the Persian Gulf does provide some leverage, and oil prices have also soared since the outbreak of hostilities. In the first twenty-four hours, U.S. crude oil prices rose 7%. Iran has the world’s third largest oil reserves; it also controls the Hormuz strait, with about one-fifth of the global energy supply passing every day. If the war spreads outside the Middle East, Tehran may hope that the international energy market will become more rattled, Wiz said, “Trump will blink first and let Israel stop.”

As the number of destruction and deaths in both countries is increasing. In Iran, more than 200 people have been killed and thousands have been injured. In turn, Israel was deeply shocked by retaliated missile attacks, killing at least twenty people and injuring hundreds. On Saturday, Iran withdrew from nuclear talks scheduled for the next day in Oman. However, the Trump administration insists that diplomacy is not dead. “Iran and Israel should reach an agreement and will reach an agreement,” the president said on Sunday, claiming that many calls and meetings occurred behind the scenes. “I did a lot of things and never get any praise for anything, but that’s OK, people understand. Make the Middle East great again!”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Israel of undermining diplomacy on the nuclear issue on Sunday. He told foreign diplomats that Tehran has been willing to limit its controversial plans, but also does not want to lose its right to affluent uranium at the lower levels for peaceful applications. (As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to produce civilian nuclear energy.) Iran needs nuclear energy to meet the needs of its growing population; sporadic blackouts are already common.

In April, the Trump administration set a sixty-day limit on negotiations on a new nuclear deal. (The 2015 agreement took two years torture diplomacy, eventually with one hundred and fifty-nine pages of documents, plus attachments.) Israel’s attacks on Friday took place on the sixty-fourth day. Political scientist Hadian told me that many Iranians now believe that the United States is engaged in “deception” with Israel. It will be hard to just get back on the table. Despite Iran’s losses, it’s almost certainly more difficult to reach a new deal. The revolutionary regime is essentially paranoid. Just like Trump’s efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine or the Gaza war, it’s unlikely that the president will end new hostilities in a lasting way. ♦