Iran has undergone a second aggression in its four decades of revolutionary profile, and is literally at the verge of an existential crisis. The first salvo to be experienced was at the hands of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a war that lasted for eight years (1980-88), as the Baathist leader was acting as a mole of the Western powers to make the newly-founded Islamic Republic bite the dust. At the same time, Iranian leader Syed Khomeini’s adamant attitude not to agree for a ceasefire led to prolong the conflict as he, and his coterie of men in power corridors, saw it as an opportunity to “strengthen” the revolution at home, which cost it more than a million casualties and left behind a traumatized nation that is still reeling under war-hysteria.
This is where Iran’s nomenclature shifted towards a military state, coupled with a hybrid governance where absolute power rested with the unelected clergy and the IRGC. inc that suppressed civil verdict and enterprise for all times to come. The second and the most lethal attack to come on Tehran is from the Jewish state in June 2025, exposing the faultiness of the clergy-clustered rule in all adversity.
Though the duel was underway for the 10th day (as these lines were written), and both Iran and Israel had inflicted heavy toll on each other, apart from endangering world peace and security, the tale of Iran’s decimation was surprising and untenable. It was shocking to acknowledge that the Islamic state was deeply penetrated by Zionist agents, and the very first few hours of aerial bombardment and precision-guided strikes on Iran led to its literal strategic collapse.
Almost the entire military command was caught off the guard, and were exterminated in their living rooms; the allpowerful Islamic Republican Guards were in quandary as the county’s aerial defense system was knocked down, and drones reportedly flown from inside Iran by Mossad agents were lethal to the core.
This drawdown was a complete failure of Iranian intelligence, and it called their bluff. Someone, somewhere should take the blame for it and that too in the highest echelons of power for this fiasco, mortification and unprecedented compromise in the security domain. Perhaps, the republic and its governing arms were more into public vigilance to crush the so-called reformists than focusing on national security.
The regime’s tendency to propagate chauvinism has cost it dearly, and its decades of policies to keep the enterprising nation isolated fearing intrusions from the outside world proved to be an utter failure.
Israel’s decision to formally attack its arch-foe under the pretext of nuclear talks making “no headway” was just an excuse. Iran literally had been taken for a ride by the Zionist state as for the last two years it had been testing its patience, and slow poisoning its security edifice in the form of eradicating all of Iranian proxies in the Middle East; including the killing of Hamas chief in Tehran in 2024; the elimination of Hezbollah; and last but not least the bringing down of President Ebrahim Raisi’s copter.
Unfortunately, Tehran opted for tactical silence and the only response was flying a few dozen drones and missiles over the Iron Dome that were duly shot down. This episode of death and destruction in Iran has come when it is immune, and its regional power potential is compromised. But Tehran by nominating a second-tier military leadership to fight on an indispensable war has won heads and hearts at home, and admiration on the streets of the Arab world. For millions around on their social media and television sets, it is amazing to see Iranian missiles hit real targets in Israel.
Perhaps, for them atrocities on Gaza, Lebanon, Damascus and Sanaa are being revenged by Tehran, and that too by making the Jewish dispensation realize what it matters to be if unarmed people are maimed and killed. With Haifa port on fire, and dozens of strategic installations in flames including civilian abodes, Tel Aviv is perplexed and its last resort is to seek refuge in American retribution on Iran.
The million-dollar question is what’s next?
• Will this war lead to capitulation of either party or engulf the entire region in an unending catastrophe?
• Will Iran experience a change in regime, or Israel be on its knees, as it has almost lost the Iron Dome, if the United States refused to take on Iran?
Dr. Hussain Nadim, an acclaimed policy expert named in “Forbes’ 30 Under 30”, and former Executive Director Islamabad Policy Research Institute, in an ‘X’ post believes that, “We may have already crossed the early markers of World War III.” He goes on to elucidate that, “Today, key superpowers are entangled in dangerously knotted conflicts:
Russia in Ukraine (the European theatre), the US in the Middle East, China in the Asia-Pacific, and India and Pakistan in the Subcontinent (a new volatile theatre). The sequence is already set. The only thing missing is the trigger… War may be an accident; Great War is an alignment”. This makes a comprehensive abstract of where this Iran-Israel war of attrition is dragging a hapless world that has very recently emerged out of a supply chain crisis as there was an evident thaw between Russ0-Ukrainian conflict, and the Covid-19 pandemic took a backseat. Let us analyze the evolving conflict in three connotations:
The Evolving Warfare
Israel despite its immense power clout, military hardware and unprecedented technological supremacy is in search of allies. It is desperately banking on the United States to intervene in the conflict on its behalf and that seems to be a hard nut to crack. The volume of American investment in the Middle East and Gulf Sheikhdoms makes it literally impossible for Washington to make use of their soil and territorial waters to stage an attack on Iran! Will it gamble or not for the sake of Israel’s political exigency is anybody’s guess!
The reason is simple: Tehran will fire-back and with immense potential. That is an unaffordable equation for Sheikdoms as well as Europe, and the rest of the world, who see nuisance if this conflagration drags on.
The dare-devil and myopic decision, nonetheless, of President Trump to fly in Stealth Bombers directly over Iranian airspace on the midnight of June 22, 2025, has sealed the fate. It is now no more a war between Iran and Israel, and the jumping in of the US has come to the blessing of Iran, which is now scot-free to defend itself by attacking any of the western allies, including the US bases in the region.
Trump’s claim that a “very successful attack” on three nuclear sites in Iran has been carried out, including at Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan is highly troublesome, and entirely changes the spectrum of warfare, with instant fears of radioactivity and a more than lethal retaliation from Iran – this time in the tactical nuclear domain itself.
This brinkmanship came from the US as Trump had sought two weeks from Israel to respond, but could not wait for long! Earlier, the Pentagon had already approved significant force posturing including changes in the US CENTCOM that came with a large deployment of KC-135/KC46 aerial refueling tankers in the region. Two strategic carriers, USS Harry S. Truman and USS Carl Vinson, are already in Mideast waters, along with USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116) repositioned in the Eastern Mediterranean to support the Israeli air defense system.
Diplomatic Wrangling
Though diplomacy has taken a backseat, it is still showing some crosscurrents as Russia, China and Turkey are pondering over their alignment strategy in a war that has direct US footprints in it. So is the case with the Muslim world, which is in a state of coma fearing Arab street response in support of Iran, 15 years after the Arab Spring.
Pakistan, an immediate neighbor of Iran, is in a fix and its locus standi is far from clear as it has to listen to the US and at the same time to the voice of conscience of its nation.
The emergent huddle, however, between President Donald Trump and Army Chief Gen Asim Munir in Washington D.C, is a case in point that could turn out to be a precursor for a broad-based thaw, wherein Tehran is “”influenced” by Islamabad for settling on a middle ground, providing the Jewish state with a face-saving as it is in dire straits. That could entail a “new Sykes-Picot order” in the region. Such a move has already been castigated by Turkish President Recip Tayyab Erdogan, as he called for solidarity among Islamic nations to counter Israeli actions and regional destabilization, and not to give into the Israel-US duo.
Russia and China are in the ring and they are yet to come up with their alignment postures. The Kremlin’s assurance that Iran is “not” preparing to obtain nuclear weapons, a stance advocated by the IAEA too, is one of the biggest talking points for returning to the negotiating table. But it seems an attack on Iranian nuclear sites has torpedoed that possibility. Yet, Trump is banking on Vladimir Putin’s good-offices for a breakthrough. Moreover, the silver-lining is an earlier bilateral understanding, vague though, between Tehran and Moscow wherein the latter will take control of enrichment uranium, providing the Islamic Republic with due security guarantees and a firewall of impregnable defense.
Last but not least is the reported presence of Chinese warships, including a radio-electronic reconnaissance vessel, in the Persian Gulf as Beijing maintains a strategic silence, apparently awaiting Washington’s next move on warmongering in the region. The Houthis too have warned to attack US and European flagship commercial vessels in the Straits of Hormuz that carries more than 20% of world trade, if Iran is directly attacked by Washington or any of the Arab allies are found to be complicit in it. The diplomatic costs are aggravating in the Arab world as Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia have officially called for de-escalation, despite enjoying normal ties with Israel. That ‘neutrality’ might have a price-tag for Arab Sheikdoms and could jeopardize decades of special relationship with the White House. The flying in of aid by the UAE to Israel, and the rumours that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan shall recognize Israel as part of a greater deal to bring the war to an end, and address the nuclear and Palestinian imbroglios for all times are there to be watched in weeks to come.
The Forecast:
Israel wants destruction of Iran’s nuclear gear and its ballistic missile production capabilities, and the United States a political surrender with a regime change. That probability will depend on how Iran amasses its cards in days to come and, especially, what it decides in the enrichment realm.
A possibility is that Iran will tactically go nuclear by exploding a crude device that must be enough to change the game-plan for the region and beyond. Will Israel in retaliation encroach into contested territories in Lebanon and Syria at the behest of the US – where it already sits pretty cool – is difficult to answer taking into account its vulnerability, and the strong push-back the Jewish state is witnessing from its own populace. The annihilation path, though unlikely at this point of time, could be a surrender of Iran – leading to unprecedented consequences in the form of a renewed power struggle inside the fallen republic between the all-powerful IRGC and the Leftist elements. Secondly, the region will witness mass migration as have-not and victimized Iranians will be out in search of greener pastures. The less said the better about nuclear contamination and its fallout in months and years to come. The way forward is to stop the war, but that moment has passed. The sole consolation at this point of time will be to somehow avoid a World War-III, and let the battered world order re-erect itself on its weak tentacles. The foregone conclusion is that Israel and Iran shall never be the same as they stand decimated and destroyed.
