Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Al Jazeera bureau chief in Tehran, Abdul Qader Fayez, reports from “informed sources” in Tehran that Iran’s clerical Leader, Ali Khamenei, and his National Security Council have still not decided how to respond to the US attack on Iranian civilian nuclear facilities, though they want the response to be appropriate to the damage done them.
Al Jazeera notes, “Fayez pointed out that this Iranian hesitation suggests a tendency to respond in a carefully considered strategic manner not based on momentary revenge, but rather on a more comprehensive approach that allows Tehran multiple options rather than drawing it into a specific tactical confrontation or a direct, ill-considered reaction.”
Fayez says that the Iranian elite is attempting to distinguish between Washington’s attack and the ongoing Israeli escalation, especially since the US bombardment was unprecedented.
They also see the attack as a change in the rules of engagement, potentially replacing the shadow wars of the Islamic Republic and the US of the past with open region-wide confrontation.
I would add (this is Juan Cole speaking) that Iran is weak. It has lost control of its own skies and so is as helpless as Lebanon and Syria before the Israeli Air Force (and the American). Iran still has some drones and hypersonic missiles that can penetrate Israeli defenses, but although it is able to do some damage to Tel Aviv and Haifa, it isn’t anything the Israelis can’t survive.
The weapons of the weak are guerrilla warfare, covert operations and terrorism. The US and Israel do not have troops on Iranian soil, so a guerrilla war against them is difficult to mount. Moreover, Iran has a return address and so cannot pursue classic guerrilla warfare.
Iran can hit bases in the Middle East that host US troops, as it did in January 2020 after Trump assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. In that instance, Iranian commanders were careful not to kill the troops, though the latter did get severe concussions from the missile impacts. Such a response would be purely symbolic and for the sake of Iranian domestic politics, with no military significance. US troops in Iraq and Syria are particularly vulnerable to this sort of reprisal.
If Trump is speaking truly and the strikes really were a one-off, then the direct US-Iran engagement could subside quickly. Iran has no reason to want continued direct involvement with the US while it is facing an concerted Israeli campaign. It should be noted that in his first term Trump bombed Syria, then largely ignored the country except for the Obama-initiated defeat of ISIL in Raqqa. He bombed Afghanistan and then more or less surrendered to the Taliban. He bombed an Iranian general at Baghdad International Airport and watched Iran reply, but then went back to using economic sanctions. Trump has a history of splashy one-off bombings with no follow-through, and this episode could be just as transitory.
During the first Trump round of “maximum pressure” sanctions, Iran covertly set fires to petroleum tankers of the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf. But Iran now has good relations with the Arab Gulf states and is unlikely to take the American strikes out on them.
There may, however, be attacks on other oil pipelines or tankers of states with bad relations with Iran. Oil attacks would benefit Iran by raising the price of the petroleum it smuggles to China and by hurting the US and Israeli economies.
Terrorism is a possibility, but there is a danger it would be traced back to Iran, and it is bad for a country’s reputation, foreign relations, and economic affairs.
Regime change in Iran as a result of the US and Israeli attacks is unlikely. Even Iranians in the opposition are likely to rally around the flag. Some disgruntled ethnic minorities may attempt to take advantage of perceived state weakness, but they are small and cannot disrupt the Persian Iranian Plateau, the regime stronghold. If anything, the Israeli and US attacks may have extended the life of an oppressive government that is widely disliked inside the country but which can now claim to stand against powerful external foes dedicated to attacking and destroying the Iranian nation.
Israel’s defeat of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 6 Day War of 1967 did not cause regime change in Egypt. Likewise the defeat of Iraq in Kuwait in the Gulf War of 1990-1991 did not cause regime change in Baghdad. In recent decades in the Middle East regimes have changed as the result of military defeat only when the enemy army has actually taken the capital, as with the US conquest of Baghdad in 2003. That is a highly unlikely scenario for Iran.
The most likely outcome of the current struggle is that Iran will reply in some symbolic way to Trump’s attack, but will attempt to avoid drawing the US into a wider war. Of course, calibrating these things is difficult and either or both sides could overshoot, leading to a big war. I assess that as possible but unlikely.
Iran will engage in tit for tat missile and drone attacks with Israel until Israel runs out of missile interceptors and has to stand down.
“Azadi 25,” Digital, Dall-E, 2025
Russia, China and Iran’s own factories will gradually replace Iran’s expended missiles and drones, though as covertly as possible to avoid further Israeli strikes. Iranian counter-intelligence will have to up its game considerably if the government is to survive, since it seems clear that the officer corps is penetrated.
If Russia or China wanted to begin giving Iran a security umbrella, which seems to me unlikely despite an apparent recent offer by Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, I think Tehran might be interested. Tehran would be crazy not to purchase as many s-400 Russian anti-aircraft batteries as Moscow would sell them, and given the successes of Chinese fighter jets in the recent Pakistan-India fighting, it must be interested in those, as well. The Iranian leadership was overly confident in its asymmetrical deterrence (Hezbollah rockets) and its own missiles, which, while good for offense, have not helped with defense.
The hot war will end, but the Middle East arms race is with us for the foreseeable future, and the opportunities for Russia and China, should they want them, to play a bigger role in the region have expanded.
America’s credibility as a negotiator and mediator is completely ruined, since Trump hit Iran in the midst of negotiations, which a reader reminded me is a violation of the Hague Regulations of 1907 and was held against Japan in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It is still not clear to me that the ayatollahs’ longstanding opposition to nuclear weapons will change. Many countries throughout the world, however, may now be tempted to go for a nuclear weapon, since the difference between North Korea on the one hand and Iraq and Iran on the other is glaringly clear.
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