Decades of tensions with Iran culminated in the short but sharp 12-Day War in June. The United States and Israel won the battle, but this is just one round in the war Tehran still intends to win.
Iran’s atomic infrastructure is entombed in rubble. Many of its top military commanders and nuclear scientists are dead, and its air defenses and long-range missile launchers are decimated. The regime’s losses, and its unpreparedness, magnify its deeper failures to govern the country. The regime has been hit hard on other fronts, too, as the London-Paris-Berlin “E3” troika snapped back strict UN arms embargoes and tough economic sanctions last month.
Iran’s longstanding certitude, that merely feigning interest in diplomacy reliably kept pressure at bay, is now an open question after such foot-dragging triggered airstrikes and snapback. It likely never thought enemy kinetic and covert action would be so effective. Nor did it expect America and Europe to actually uphold their oft repeated redlines.
Fearing further Israeli attacks if it rebuilds too openly or rapidly, the regime could again seek to exploit the prospect of negotiations to freeze Israel’s freedom of action and buy precious time and cover to reconstitute. Especially as hardliners try to entrench control in Tehran’s postwar uncertainty, its leaders could be tempted to view U.S. military intervention as opportunistic piggybacking on Israel’s initial success, rather than representing a fundamental shift in posture.
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