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Thursday, June 19, 2025

19: Iran

We Can’t Bomb Our Way Out of This On Wednesday he declined to tell reporters whether he would involve the U.S. military in Israel’s campaign. “I may do it,” he said. “I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.” .......... Israel has destroyed facilities at Isfahan, a major nuclear research center, and might have disabled Iran’s largest enrichment plant, an underground installation at Natanz. However, it does not appear to have damaged a second underground enrichment plant, Fordo, which is probably too deeply buried for Israel to destroy on its own. It would need help from the United States, which possesses a bunker buster bomb that was designed to reach the facility, as well as planes big enough to carry the 30,000-pound behemoth of a weapon. ............ Bombing Fordo — and whatever might come after — might not set back Iran’s enrichment efforts by nearly as long. There are hundreds or more likely thousands of scientists and technicians employed in Iran’s enrichment program. Israel’s killing of leading scientists is intended to set back this effort, but Iran could almost certainly reconstitute its program within 10 or 15 years, even if the United States and Israel succeeded in destroying Fordo and Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium and centrifuge components. ........... And military action is unlikely to be so definitive. Destroying Fordo is relatively easy compared with destroying the cylinders in which highly enriched uranium is typically stored. These cylinders are roughly the same size and shape as scuba tanks. Before the attack in Iran, most of them were thought to be stored underground at Isfahan, where they were regularly inspected. They may well survive attack, if they are still there. It is possible Iran has already moved them, in which case, tracking them will be exceptionally difficult. .......... Destroying Iran’s stockpile of centrifuge components could be even more difficult. If they survive, Iran could assemble new centrifuges and continue to produce highly enriched uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency lost the right to monitor centrifuge components, which are also small and easily moved, with the collapse of the Iran deal during Mr. Trump’s first term. Iran has almost certainly stored these components at multiple sites around the country, precisely so it could recover rapidly from an attack. ............ In his first administration, Mr. Trump also expressed concern that Iran might cheat on the nuclear deal by building secret facilities. Inspectors “don’t even have the unqualified right to inspect many important locations,” he complained in 2018 when he pulled out of the deal. (He was correct that the right to inspect was not unqualified, though the agreement did provide inspectors with unprecedented access and information that would be valuable in detecting any clandestine nuclear activities.) ............ If fears of undeclared facilities were a reason to ditch diplomacy, they constitute an even stronger argument against military action. The United States and Israel can’t target what they don’t know about. Iran may have secret facilities, as Mr. Trump feared; if so, it could reconstitute its program rapidly, perhaps within months. And if Iran follows through on its threat to curtail inspections — as is highly likely if the United States joins the war — the International Atomic Energy Agency’s ability to locate future clandestine facilities will be significantly reduced. ............ There is a clear double standard here. In the United States and particularly on Capitol Hill, diplomatic agreements are scrutinized. The weaknesses that inevitably result from compromise are highlighted, debated and assessed — and rightly so. But as America’s decisions to go to war in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq attest, military options are routinely held to a much lower standard. That’s a very dangerous pattern, especially because

serious questions about the effectiveness of a U.S. attack on Iran abound.

............. How long could it take Iran to reconstitute its program? If Iran rebuilds, is the United States prepared to attack again? And again? Given that Iran could hide new facilities or bury them more deeply than Fordo, would future attacks have any chance of success? Could a U.S. attack push Iran to make the political decision to build a nuclear weapon? If the Iranian regime collapses as a result of a U.S. attack — as some advocates of military action want — is there any guarantee that a new government will abandon the country’s long-held nuclear ambitions? ............... even at this late stage, Iran has indicated a willingness to negotiate. Given its current weakness, Mr. Trump really might be able to secure a better deal than the previous one.

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Israeli defense chief says Iran leader ‘cannot continue to exist’

Ali Khamenei: Backed into a corner, Iran’s ruthless leader faces fight for survival Over several decades in power, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has built up regional proxy forces and a formidable missile arsenal with the aim of deterring precisely the kind of direct assaults being carried out by Israel. With his allies defanged and Israeli planes controlling the skies over Tehran, Iran’s supreme leader is now fighting for his survival and that of his regime, with few options left. ........ In five days of bombardment, Israel has decapitated Iran’s top military brass, repeatedly struck its main nuclear sites, and killed many of Khamenei’s closest aides. It has also bombed other parts of the state and security apparatus as well as key energy infrastructure, triggering an exodus of Tehranis from the capital. ......... While Iran has responded with deadly strikes on Israeli cities, the mismatch in firepower has left Tehran at the mercy of the Israeli air force, facing the possibility of a US intervention on Israel’s side – and with no major allies to call upon. ......... Many Iranians will feel they have been there before. The Islamic Republic was just one year old in 1980 when it was dragged into a gruesome eight-year war by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein – who at the time enjoyed the backing of most Western and regional powers. ............ The enduring trauma of the Iran-Iraq war persuaded Khamenei to build a coalition of proxy forces in the region that would engage in asymmetrical warfare and, crucially, deter Iran’s foes from directly attacking its territory. For further deterrence, the Islamic Republic also rushed to build up its missile and drone manufacturing capability, acquiring what was believed to be the largest missile arsenal in the region. ............ Those deterrents have long allowed the hardline ruler to keep up his rhetoric of confrontation with the US and project an image of power to rival Israel’s, while keeping conflict away from Iran’s borders and giving the regime a free hand to crack down on dissent. .............. Since the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, however, Khamenei has looked on impotently as his key allies – Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Hamas in Gaza, Yemen’s Houthis and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad – have been defanged, diminished or toppled, one by one. The demise of the “Axis of Resistance” has effectively stripped Khamenei’s regime of its outer defences, allowing Israel to bring the fight directly to Tehran. ............ Iran's air defences took a first pummelling when the two bitter foes exchanged missile strikes last October.

With Israeli jets now in control of the Iranian air space, and free to track down Iranian missile launchers, it is unclear how long the Islamic Republic’s other key deterrent – its ballistic missiles arsenal – can sustain the fighting.

................ Netanyahu neither denied nor confirmed media reports that US President Donald Trump rejected an Israeli plan to assassinate Khamenei. .......... “It's not going to escalate the conflict, it's going to end the conflict,” Netanyahu insisted, adding that Israel was “doing what we need to do”. ............. The supreme leader has not left Iran since taking up the position and made his last foreign visit to North Korea in 1989 while still Iran’s president. His movements are subject to the tightest security and secrecy. ............ “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” the US president wrote. “He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.” ............. Known for blending ideological rigidity with strategic pragmatism, Khamenei has shown a willingness to bend when the regime’s survival is at stake, including on the nuclear dossier. He notably offered guarded endorsement of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers including the US, calculating that sanctions relief was necessary to stabilise the economy and cement his grip on power. .............. More than a decade earlier, amid the fallout from the 2003 Iraq invasion, Iran's supreme leader had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, condemning nuclear and chemical weapons – though critics have questioned its real worth. .............. “The irony is that Khamenei, through his indecision and his supposed fatwa, has been one of the factors in Iran for not developing nuclear weapons,” said Rouzbeh Parsi, a Middle East scholar and senior lecturer at Lund University in Sweden. “If he is removed, it will destroy all chances of resuming negotiations and guarantee that Iran goes for nuclear weapons.” ............ The mere fact that assassinating the Iranian leader is part of the conversation is a measure of how far Israel has pushed its paradigm shift for the Middle East, with at least the tacit support of the Trump administration. According to Parsi, it also reflects the lack of a clear strategic objective for Israel’s military operation. .............. “Ultimately, the political solution is either a negotiation with Tehran or a removal of the Islamic Republic,” he said. “The Israelis have made clear they don’t want any type of negotiation with the Iranian regime, but they also cannot bring about regime change without US help.” .............. He added:

“The US could indeed destroy the Islamic Republic, which begs the question that these wars never answer beforehand, nor explain afterwards, namely: what would replace it?”

............... In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Netanyahu suggested that “regime change” could be the outcome of the Israeli strikes, while insisting that it would be for the Iranian people to bring this about. He claimed that “80 percent of the people would throw these theological thugs out” once they had realised the regime's weakness. ............ Writing in Le Monde, Iran expert Farid Vahid said the “rupture between Iran’s people and the regime has grown so deep” the Islamic Republic can no longer count on patriotic sentiment to drum up support among the population. However, the Iranian opposition, both at home and in exile, remains riven by division, and while Persian-language television channels based abroad have broadcast images of groups shouting anti-Khamenei slogans, there have been no reports of mass protests. ................ “The idea that this ends in a popular uprising that changes the regime or gives power to someone in the Iranian opposition abroad has no basis in reality,” said Iran expert Arash Azizi, a senior fellow at Boston University, in an interview with AFP. .......... Iran watchers say a more plausible outcome would be for elements within the regime to seek to wrest control from Iran's ageing supreme leader. ............ “Khamenei is at the twilight of his rule, at the age of 86, and already much of the daily command of the regime is not up to him but to various factions who are vying for the future,” said Azizi. “This process was already underway, and the current war only accelerates it.”

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Tom Friedman on Israel, Iran and the War That Could Change Everything

A New Middle East Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes It might be difficult to discern through the black clouds billowing from bomb craters in Tehran, but Iran has spent most of the 21st century as the region’s rising power.......... Until recently, things had really been going its way. In Iraq, the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, then departed, having turned Iran’s largest and most dangerous neighbor from an enemy to a vassal even before Tehran’s militias rescued Baghdad from ISIS, and then stayed. The forces Iran sent to Syria did double duty, rescuing the Assad regime while opening an arms pipeline to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia fighting beside them. Based in Lebanon, Hezbollah was the crown jewel in the “Axis of Resistance” that Iran had arrayed against Israel. .......... Removal of the Jewish state from “Islamic lands” is core to the ideology of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which casts Iran in the unlikely role of leader of the Muslim world. America is the Great Satan, but for Iran’s proxies in Baghdad, Lebanon, and Yemen, Israel is the target. So on the eve of Oct. 7, 2023, the leaders of Hamas, the only prominent Palestinian node in the axis, had reason to assume that after breaching Israeli defenses on the Gaza Strip and pouring into Israel by the thousands, they would not be fighting alone for long. ....... But the axis of resistance barely resisted at all. ......... The Gulf states aligned with Israel in large part out of a shared enmity for Iran. As home to Islam’s dominant Sunni branch, the kingdoms know Iran not only as radical, but as the nominal leaders of the minority Shi‘ite branch, and thus a rival. Saudi Arabia, custodian of Islam’s holy sites, has its own claim to leadership of the world’s Muslims. ......... As autocratic states, the Gulf kingdoms were also eager clients for an Israeli tech sector that had grown out of its military. Surveillance, not least of millions of Palestinians under occupation (and obliged to use Israeli phone systems), generated startups like the spyware firm NSO Group, which soon found clients in the Arab regimes. One, the United Arab Emirates, was the first nation to cement diplomatic ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords, the signal diplomatic achievement of the first Trump Administration. Three other Arab states followed, and the Saudis keep signaling their intention to do the same once the situation in Gaza permits. ................ But Gaza churns on, a war Israel had not expected, and has no plan to win, because at bottom it’s not a military affair. The Palestinian question—What to do about the people who claim the same land Jewish Israelis do?—will still be waiting when the shooting stops. The war on Iran, by contrast, is one Israel spent years planning for, and opened with the playbook of deception, decapitation, and precision strikes on missile sites that decimated Hezbollah in the space of a month last September, freeing Israelis from the dread of the militia’s 100,000 missiles, and exposing Iran to the Israeli offensive that began June 13. .............. That day, a shepherd posted cell phone footage of an Israeli C-130 low in the sky over Syria, sheep bells clanking over the roar of the engines. The Assad family had fled the country months earlier, helpless to keep rebels out of Damascus without Hezbollah. Iran sent a plane to evacuate its generals to Tehran. There, the question is how Israel will choose to define victory. Regime change did not go so well in Iraq. And the stated goal of demolishing Iran’s nuclear facilities appears impossible without U.S. airstrikes. .............. In 1945, the mere prospect of an Israeli state inspired a boycott by every Arab one, in the name of the Palestinians. Eighty years later, an Arab nation can declare outrage that 55,000 have been killed in Gaza, then dispatch jets to intercept Iranian missiles aimed at Tel Aviv, joining Israeli warplanes in the skies over a new Middle East.

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