With the ceasefire between Iran and Israel so far holding, a preliminary assessment of the 12-day campaign is now possible. Jerusalem and its US ally achieved a considerable amount. Iran’s deficiencies on a tactical level were laid bare. Structural flaws in Tehran’s strategy of war by proxy have been made apparent. Both the nuclear and ballistic missile programmes have been significantly damaged. The hands of the doomsday clock, which were getting close to midnight, have been vigorously pulled back.
Unlike the actual digital clock in Tehran’s Palestine Square, however, which was destroyed by Israeli ordnance during the campaign, the Iranian strategy for the destruction of Israel has not been comprehensively defeated. Nor does the regime appear to be currently in danger for its existence. This was not a Waterloo moment. Iran has suffered a series of telling blows which significantly weaken it, without fundamentally changing the strategic picture.
Iran’s proxies were the pistol that failed to go off in the third act
With regard to the nuclear programme, the joint US and Israeli action against nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordow, Tabriz, Arak and Isfahan caused considerable damage. Precisely how much cannot yet be conclusively ascertained. A leaked defense intelligence agency report has suggested that the nuclear programme has probably been set back by only a few months. Iran’s supply of around 400 kilograms of enriched uranium remains intact. This means that Iran is likely to recommence efforts toward reassembling its capacities for uranium enrichment.
The killing of a number of the most senior nuclear scientists, again, will complicate and set back Iranian efforts to get the programme back on track. At the same time, the Iranian-based knowledge which produced these scientists has obviously not been destroyed.
Israel’s successful targeting and removal of top figures in Iran’s scientific and military establishment was one of the most notable elements of the events of the last days. Jerusalem revealed what had long been suspected: that its intelligence organisations have thoroughly penetrated Iran’s centres of government and that it possesses an organisation on Iranian soil.
This structure, apparently staffed largely by Iranians themselves under Israeli direction, can be activated at will and can then strike with telling effect before disappearing back into the shadows. The assembling of this body is a significant achievement for Israel and will be giving Iranian officials pause. It can and undoubtedly will be used again when Israel deems it appropriate. Israel has shown in recent days that this structure is able to engage in sabotage using drones and explosives, as well as the targeting of specific regime figures.
Another notable detail of recent events was the failure of Iran’s proxy strategy. Over the last forty years, Teheran has invested heavily in the building of and/or sponsoring of a number of Islamist political-military organisations across the region. The Qods Force, the external operations wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was responsible for the management of this project, in accordance with the vision of its long-time leader, the late Major-General Qassem Soleimani. According to this strategy, Iran-supported organisations would become the most powerful element in their local arena, and would then be available both to advance Iranian power projection and to assist Iran when needed.
This strategy had appeared to pay dividends in recent years. On the eve of the current war, in October 2023, the Lebanese Hezbollah organisation, Iran’s prototype proxy, was the most powerful political and military force in Lebanon. The Shia militias of the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Units) dominated Iraq. The Ansar Allah (Houthis) controlled the Yemeni capital and a stretch of the coast. Hamas, Iran’s Palestinian clients, controlled Gaza and were the best organised and most popular force among the Palestinians. And Bashar Assad, Tehran’s sole state ally, had been saved by the IRGC’s methods and appeared victorious in his country’s long civil war.
Israel had long feared that the proxies, and specifically Hezbollah, would strike the Jewish state with a missile barrage in the event that Jerusalem took action against the Iranian nuclear program. In the event, however, Soleimani’s vision, like other ideological constructs before it, had evidently failed to factor in a crucial element: namely, the preference given by the various proxies to their own local interests over their supposed obligations to the Iran-led alliance.
Hamas’s independent decision to launch its war from Gaza on 7 October reflected its own independent decision-making. The half-hearted and partial response of the various proxies reflected theirs. This piecemeal response also enabled Israel to focus on the various components of the Iran-led bloc, and then on Iran itself, without ever facing a concerted effort from the alliance. The result: none of the proxies were able or willing to come to Tehran’s aid when Israel turned its attention to their patron. Iran’s proxies were the pistol that failed to go off in the third act.
Iran succeeded, nevertheless, in penetrating Israel’s air defences on a number of telling occasions. The Israeli death toll, 28 civilians killed, is considerable. A well-organised Home Front Command, which issued clear instructions and a well-prepared infrastructure of shelters, undoubtedly prevented a much higher death toll. But the damage to property and infrastructure was extensive and leaves many questions to be answered.
The US decision to rapidly force through a ceasefire and President Trump’s subsequent public berating of Israel point to significant differences between Jerusalem and Washington. While for Israel, the Iranian threat is central and existential, the US president appears to operate from instinct rather than strategy, now backing an ally with unprecedented determination, now rapidly bringing the campaign to an inconclusive halt.
Ultimately, the events of the last 12 days must be seen as an episode in a long and ongoing conflict, rather than a final or decisive moment. Israel and the United States have broken the taboo and dispelled the sense of dread that surrounded the notion of military action against the Iranian nuclear program. Iran has been revealed as far weaker than its propaganda would suggest. Nevertheless, the regime is not broken. Its ambitions remain intact. It will now set about trying to revive its capacities.
The question now remaining is whether Israel will, in line with its practice in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, be able to commence periodic but ongoing operations against Iran in order to disrupt and frustrate Iranian attempts to rebuild the nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Until such time as the Iranian people can organise to rid themselves of a regime which a large majority of them clearly reject, this will be the key imperative.
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