Israel’s June 13 assault on Iran, designed to decapitate Tehran’s military and nuclear program, is one of the worst setbacks the Islamic Republic has ever experienced. In less than two weeks, the Israel Defense Forces managed to assassinate dozens of senior Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists. The IDF destroyed many of Iran’s air defense systems and damaged its nuclear facilities. Israel bombed Iran’s energy infrastructure, military bases, and various missile production sites. The strikes were precise, indicating that Israeli intelligence had penetrated the highest levels of Iran’s armed forces and government. And toward the end of the attacks, the United States joined in. As a result, the Iranian military is weaker now than it was just a month earlier.
But instead of collapsing under the shock, the Islamic Republic appears to have gained a new lease on life. The strikes caused a rally-around-the-flag effect as Iranians condemned them and celebrated the government’s response. The Iranian regime mourned its lost officials but swiftly replaced them. The operations thus made the Iranian nation more cohesive and strengthened the hand of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Iranian society is unlikely to become more rigidly Islamist in response to the strikes. To maintain internal stability, the government might even tolerate more social freedoms. But the regime will probably become more repressive, arresting anyone it sees as a traitor. And critically, Iranians may be more willing to accept the state as it is. The country could now have a new social contract, one that prioritizes national security above everything else.
Iran’s national security strategy, however, remains broadly unchanged. The Islamic Republic may be weaker in some ways, but its leaders are proud of having withstood the Israeli and American assaults. They see the substantial damage they inflicted on Israel’s cities as a major achievement. And they continue to believe that demonstrating resolve in the face of aggression is the only way to deter their opponents. Iranian leaders will thus set out to rebuild the country’s network of proxies: the so-called axis of resistance. They will trust diplomacy even less than before. Instead, they will lay the groundwork for a long war of attrition with Israel—and a potential nuclear breakout.
UNITE AND FIGHT
In the weeks before Israel attacked Iran, it seemed as if Tehran and Washington might peacefully resolve their dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. For the first time since abandoning the joint comprehensive plan of action in 2018, the nuclear deal that Iran had reached with the United States and other major countries three years earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump’s team indicated it was willing to accept an arrangement in which Iran would be able to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent—the level the United States agreed to under the JCPOA—rather than no enrichment at all. Tehran, for its part, was once again open to speaking directly to American officials rather than exclusively through mediators. Some analysts believed a new nuclear agreement could be near.
But as negotiations progressed, the Trump administration began walking back its initial flexibility, oscillating between demanding zero enrichment and the full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Israel, meanwhile, steadily degraded Tehran’s position by picking apart Hezbollah (Tehran’s most powerful partner), tearing through Hamas, and taking out some of Iran’s air defenses. The Islamic Republic grew even weaker in December, when rebels toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—another faithful Iranian ally. Eventually, a sense of resignation took hold in Tehran: many officials and analysts alike came to believe that—deal or no deal—Israel, the United States, or both would attack.
Tehran still proceeded with caution. It knew that its people were seething after decades of repression and that it risked even more domestic anger if it provoked a direct confrontation with Washington. Iranian officials thus stayed at the negotiating table, hoping to avoid an assault while trying to shore up their domestic backing—for instance, by suspending enforcement of the unpopular law mandating that women fully cover their hair in public and easing other restrictions on freedom of expression.
The Israeli and U.S. attacks led to an outburst of Iranian nationalism.
It is unclear how much these steps helped the government when the first Israeli bombs fell. At first, many ordinary Iranians assumed the conflict would be a short confrontation between two governments that was unlikely to affect them. But as the strikes intensified, targeting infrastructure and killing ordinary citizens, many Iranians began to conclude that the attacks were not merely a war against the regime but a war against the nation itself. These sentiments swelled after Trump and Israeli officials urged Tehran’s residents to evacuate their homes. “I’m no fan of the Islamic Republic, but it’s now time to show solidarity for Iran,” one Tehran resident told the Financial Times. “Trump and Netanyahu say ‘evacuate’ as if they care about our health. How can a city of 10 million evacuate? My husband and I are not going to pave the ground for them. Let them kill us.”
Rather than prompting popular outrage at the Iranian state, the attacks led to an outburst of nationalism. As the Islamic Republic weathered Israel’s assault and retaliated with ballistic missiles of its own, the regime’s response was cheered on by Iranian writers, artists, and singers, many of whom are typically apolitical or in opposition to the government. Iranian commentators across the political spectrum likened the Israeli assault to Nazi Germany’s 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, casting the conflict as Iran’s own patriotic war: a national struggle that transcends politics. Even some longtime dissidents and former political prisoners joined in. For instance, hundreds of political and civil rights activists—many of whom have been previously imprisoned—condemned Israel’s attacks in a joint statement. “In defense of our homeland’s territorial integrity, independence, national defense capabilities, … we stand united and resolute,” it declared. These actors carefully kept some distance from the regime. But their emphasis on solidarity aligned with the government’s message. Israel’s strikes thus relieved some of the internal pressure on the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian government is likely to use this respite to accelerate its militarization in preparation for sustained conflict. Less constrained by domestic pressure, it will channel resources into the IRGC and other armed forces and security agencies, especially since many in Tehran expect the fragile cease-fire to collapse at any moment. But it will struggle to prove that it can handle another war, especially given the extent to which its ranks have been penetrated by Israeli intelligence operatives. Critics have accused the regime of prioritizing ideological loyalty over competence, allowing individuals who simply mouthed hardline slogans to rise through the ranks while concealing their true allegiances. Others point out the irony that, as the government fixated on enforcing the veiling law and cracking down on political dissidents under the pretext of fighting foreign subversion, its actual adversaries were quietly infiltrating its most sensitive institutions.
The resulting fallout has triggered calls for investigations, accountability, and even the resignation of the senior officials accused of overseeing such a catastrophic intelligence failure. Whether any top official will actually face consequences remains to be seen. But one response already appears certain: Tehran is likely to launch internal purges, expand its surveillance apparatus, and rely on ordinary citizens to participate in monitoring and reporting suspicious activities.
Iran has been summarily executing those it accuses of collaborating with Israel.
Still, the country’s leaders are trying to keep the country’s society unified. Pro-government preachers across the country have suddenly begun blending iconic, pre-revolutionary patriotic songs into Shiite religious rituals—a mix of nationalism and Islamism that the regime historically avoided but now appears eager to embrace. Similarly, state-controlled media and municipal officials are now invoking pre-Islamic Persian mythology in their messaging, linking legendary figures to slain IRGC commanders. This cocktail has drawn mixed reactions, with many skeptical Iranians arguing that the gestures are merely opportunistic. Yet other citizens are joining in, having concluded that they must confront these external threats with the government they have, not the one they want.
Some Iranians believe that to make sure today’s social cohesion lasts into the future, senior officials will take steps to moderate. The government, after all, has acknowledged the support of Iranians who have historically opposed the regime and, implicitly conceding past mistakes, promised better treatment of the population. It might release political prisoners and repair relations with sidelined moderate figures, including former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, to project national unity. It could also continue to let women go unveiled and allow for more free expression. It has already marginalized some hardliners, who had pushed for Iran to attack Israel before June 13. (Some of these figures and analysts had argued the country was already at war and thus needed to strike, even though doing so risked further upsetting an already fractured populace.)
But whether the government’s promise of moderation signals a genuine opening remains unclear. Many Iranians believe the government will instead double down on its hard-line stance, viewing reconciliation as too risky in wartime and expecting that the wave of nationalist solidarity will allow them to be more repressive while limiting blowback. The state, for example, has been summarily executing those it accuses of collaborating with Israel. It has established checkpoints across major cities to arrest suspected collaborators, as it did during the 1980s—the last time Iran was subjected to similar kinds of attacks. The regime could also mix and match, liberalizing in some respects while growing more restrictive in others. Iranians, after all, are ambivalent about the state’s reaction. “It’s unsettling, but also somewhat reassuring to see them near my house,” a different Tehran resident told the Financial Times, referring to the IRGC paramilitary volunteers. “I could never imagine seeing Basijis and feeling happy.”
STAY THE COURSE
Israeli and U.S. officials are, of course, focused more on whether Tehran is a threat to them than whether it is a threat to its people. And after a year and a half of indirect and direct conflict, many of them believe the regime is nowhere near as menacing as it was before. According to these commentators, Iran’s aggressive Middle East strategy has been a failure, given the collapse of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria, and Hamas in Gaza—plus the damage to Iran’s own military.
The IRGC, however, sees the situation differently. Its leaders believe the country’s forward defense strategy—fighting adversaries by conducting asymmetric warfare near or within their borders rather than on Iranian soil—has been vindicated. This approach successfully deterred Israel and the United States from attacking for years and thus bought Tehran critical time to build up the industrial infrastructure, technical expertise, and institutional resilience it can now use to rapidly rebuild its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, even after the devastating bombings.
IRGC leaders had argued for years that they needed to take the fight abroad to protect the nation—claiming, for example, that failing to shore up Assad in Damascus would lead to strikes in Tehran. In a sense, they have now been proved correct. Iran had designed its regional posture to create layers of defense in the form of its various partners, believing that this network would force adversaries to penetrate multiple fronts before striking the homeland. That, of course, is exactly what Israel did. In other words, the way the war has played out allows the IRGC and its hard-line allies in the regime to assert that their strategy worked as intended. This argument is easy to rebut: the layered defense delayed, but did not prevent. attacks on Iranian soil. But for Tehran, that delay is precisely the point: it bought the government time to prepare, learn from Israel’s tactics, and cast the war as an existential national struggle.
Iran is therefore unlikely to behave much differently after this attack, although it will make some adjustments to reflect the realities that have emerged in the past year and a half. The regime could look to reconstitute the axis of resistance by rebuilding Hezbollah as a more agile, small force closer to its original form rather than as the quasi army it had become. (It would still equip the group with advanced missile capabilities.) In Syria, Tehran will try to take advantage of the current power vacuum by empowering grassroots militant groups. Neither of these steps will be easy: Hezbollah is under pressure from Lebanese officials and continues to suffer Israeli bombardment, and the new Syrian government, which is consolidating control over its territory, is hostile to Iran and has begun moving closer to Israel. Still, Tehran sees openings. The war in Gaza has fueled widespread anger toward Israel across the region, driving bottom-up demand for renewed resistance to the Islamic Republic’s enemy. In fact, Iran’s survival and its missile strikes on Israeli territory have also earned it admiration among many Arab populations.
Tehran will likely continue to pursue nuclear ambiguity.
Tehran, meanwhile, is more skeptical of diplomacy than ever. The shock of the attacks—which included the assassination of senior IRGC commanders and a failed attempt to kill a key nuclear negotiator, Ali Shamkhani—has drained away whatever credibility American assurances might once have had. In the past, Iran distrusted Washington but saw talks as a potential avenue for sanctions relief and de-escalation. Now, Iranian officials will not only assume that the United States will violate any agreement but also that negotiations are a cover for coercion or military action, given that Israel’s attack occurred just two days before scheduled talks between Tehran and Washington. Nevertheless, Iran is likely to remain engaged, combining maximum resistance to the regional order with maximum diplomacy, in order to communicate its redlines and further expose what it views as the West’s bad faith. By doing so, Tehran can justify its behavior to both internal and external audiences and put pressure on Israel and the United States.
Still, Iran does not appear to be rushing toward the bomb. By crossing the nuclear threshold, Tehran would validate the very accusations it has long denied and risk triggering a larger conflict with U.S. forces. Iran also does not see nuclear weapons as a substitute for a strong conventional military. It is a large country that has porous borders with multiple unstable neighbors. It is involved in overlapping territorial disputes about oil fields, water resources, and maritime boundaries. These external challenges are compounded by Iran’s internal vulnerabilities, including chronic ethnic tensions along its periphery. And it has a long history of enduring foreign invasions and meddling. There is a reason why generations of Iranian leaders have invested extensively in building a conventional military, regardless of the type of regime.
Instead of rushing for a bomb, Tehran will likely continue to pursue nuclear ambiguity, suspending cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Doing so will also pressure the IAEA to lobby against future attacks on Iran, since the agency can resume inspections only if Iran’s nuclear sites are no longer under threat. Tehran believes this approach, which conceals its enrichment activity, will also provide it with greater flexibility to advance its program without notice. And it sees the suspension as a just comeuppance for the IAEA: Iranian officials are incensed that the agency has not condemned the Israeli and American attacks even though Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (from which it has threatened to withdraw), which guarantees members the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In fact, Iranian officials believe the IAEA gave Israel and the United States useful intelligence and was exploited to justify the attacks. As Tehran pointed out, the agency released a report just a few days before the attack, declaring that Iran’s cooperation with IAEA inspectors was “less than satisfactory.”
That doesn’t mean Iran will eventually build a nuclear weapon. Whether or when the country will obtain the ultimate deterrent remains an open question. But what is clear is this: Iran is unbowed and unlikely to behave differently than it did before. That means Israel may decide to strike again. Iran could swiftly retaliate. The conflict between these parties is far from over, and the Middle East should expect more turbulence ahead.
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Great Job Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar & the Team @ FA RSS Source link for sharing this story.
