Iran vs Israel: The title fight?
After Israel carried out "preemptive" strikes on Iran's nuclear and military installations, Iran launched its own retaliatory attack, sparking fears that a larger regional war was coming.
For years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had talked about striking Iran’s nuclear facilities and, this past week, he and his government made it clear that it was coming sooner rather than later.
Still, few expected it to actually happen, much less without the support and participation of the United States. Israel’s military capabilities are formidable but they are not enough to cripple Iran’s nuclear facilities that are based deep underground.
Yet, that is exactly what happened in the early hours of Friday morning when reports started to come out of Iran that Israeli jets were bombing Iran’s nuclear and military facilities, with the bombings continuing well into the morning in several waves. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the strikes “preemptive.”
Israel also assassinated several top military leaders and nuclear scientists in targeted killings, such as the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Hossein Salami, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces Mohammad Bagheri and the former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Fereydoun Abbasi.
In response, Iran launched around 100 drones at Israel, but it is unclear if any of them struck their intended targets.
Now, many are concerned that a large, destructive war between Iran and Israel, which could take on a regional dimension, is imminent.
What is actually happening?
Iran and Israel are trading long-distance fire, with Israel very clearly delivering the more severe blows.
Right now, Israel is hoping to significantly set back Iran’s nuclear program, which is believed to be close to achieving weapons-grade uranium levels that could then be used to make nuclear weapons. Most estimates said that Iran would need a year or less to make a bomb once the uranium reaches 90 percent enrichment.
However, it is unclear how much damage Israel has actually done to these nuclear facilities, given that Iran built them deep underground in anticipation that Israel would eventually try to bomb them.
The main one that Israel has targeted is Natanz facility and while Israel claimed that it suffered significant damage, it is currently impossible to say if that is true or not and to what degree.
It is also unclear if Israel even bothered trying to target the Fordow facility, given that most analysts agree that Israel is incapable of damaging the facility since it is buried deep under a mountain. In order to destroy Fordow, Israel would need active U.S. support in the bombing campaign, something it does not have right now. Analysts also agree that if Israel is not able to also destroy Fordow, then any setbacks to Iran’s nuclear program would be minimal or at least short-lived.
In response to these attacks, Iran has been launching drones and a few missiles at Israel but, so far, it does not seem like any of them have successfully struck Israel.
Iran was also supposed to meet with the United States over the weekend to continue the talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
These talks had largely stalled in recent meetings with the Trump administration pushing for a complete shutdown of Iran’s nuclear program while Iran insists that this proposal is unacceptable and that it has the right to have a smaller civilian program.
Trump previously threatened that if Iran did not reach a deal with the U.S., then military force would be the only option left. Most reports said that while Israel was looking to strike Iran, no final decision would come until after the meeting between Iran and the U.S. this weekend. Now, it seems more like Israel was looking to sabotage the talks and force the United States to join it in its military efforts against Iran’s nuclear program.
However, Trump, while making threats that worse was to come for Iran if it did not agree to a deal with the U.S., appears hesitant to drag the U.S. into a grueling regional conflict, especially since he has railed against “endless wars” in the Middle East for years. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said that he would still go to the meeting with Iran, but, it is uncertain if Iran would attend the talks after Israel carried out its attacks.
Is a regional war coming?
Right now, the fighting is confined between Iran and Israel, with other regional actors staying out of the conflict for the time being.
Iran’s allies have come out and condemned the attacks as “brutal Israeli aggression,” but have yet to say that they would carry out any retaliatory attacks on behalf of Iran.
The biggest, and arguably the most important, group to take this position has been Hezbollah in Lebanon, which expressed its “full solidarity” with Iran but stopped short of promising to lend military support to Iran. In all likelihood, this is probably due to the punishing war that Hezbollah fought with Israel for just over a year – starting on Oct. 8, 2023 until Nov. 27, 2024 – in which Israel successfully dealt serious blows to the party by killing the vast majority of its military and political leadership – including its famed leader Hassan Nasrallah – and significant portions of its arsenal.
But will Iran’s allies continue to stay out of the fight?
In the various statements released since the start of Israel’s attacks, it is clear that Iran and its allies also blame the United States for the bombings, which could make American military bases or embassies in the region prime targets.
In the days leading up to the Israeli bombing campaign, U.S. embassies in the region were told to evacuate the families of staff there and bases in the region were placed on high alert should Iran decide to target them.
This could mean groups like Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq could start targeting American forces. Even while it is weakened, Hezbollah could still prove to be a serious nuisance to Israel, but, right now, a return to war does not seem to be in Hezbollah’s calculus. In Yemen, the Houthis have continued to launch rockets and drones at Israel, with a few of them making it through, and could scale up their attacks if Iran asked.
Should American military bases and embassies in the region start to be targeted, that is when things would be inching closer to a full-blown regional conflict that would span across several countries.
For the Gulf Arab countries, this is something that they want to avoid as it could have a significant impact on them in terms of oil exports and prices, tourism and the possibility of becoming targets themselves since some of them host American military bases. As much as the Gulf Arab countries do not necessarily like Iran and view it as a threat to themselves, these countries have also taken steps in recent years to better their relationships with Iran in the hopes of averting future conflict.
Still, currently, the fighting is confined to Iran and Israel, but if not handled carefully, it could easily spiral out of control into something much bigger and deadlier, despite that being exactly what many had been trying to avoid.