Israel Iran - is there a way out?

How did we get here?

The Israeli assault on Iran which began a week ago did not come from nowhere.  We forget just how durable a figure PM Netanyahu is in Israeli politics, but 13 years ago, he stood in front of the UNGA with a cartoon-style drawing of a bomb with a lit fuse and drew a red line drawn across its top marked 90%, to highlight the stage of the nuclear process beyond which it was intolerable for Iran to continue.

The Iranians continued to claim that its enriched uranium was for civil nuclear uses. But, as Sir John Sawers pointed out on the Today programme this morning, since civil nuclear uses require uranium to be enriched to only 3.67%, there is no conceivable civilian nuclear programme that could require that quantity of uranium enriched to that level, leading ineluctably to the conclusion that the only explanation of the Iranian enrichment programme was a military one. 

By early July 2025, Netanyahu was convinced that Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme had passed his red line and was on the way to being able to weaponise its enriched uranium. The IAEA’s report at the beginning of the month helped Netanyahu reach that conclusion.  Their Report concluded that Iran was in breach of its non-proliferation obligations and that Iran had become a “threshold state” (one with technical expertise and capacity to weaponise its nuclear programme): Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium was more than 400kg and its total stockpile of enriched uranium exceeded 8,400kg. 

These quantities mean that Iran had the capacity to produce sufficient fissile material for several nuclear bombs.  But there is much more debate about whether Iran was capable of or about to weaponise its uranium.  Certainly, many Western intelligence analysts, the IAEA and, notably, Tulsi Gabbard President Trump’s NSA, do not think so and the accepted wisdom is that Iran was between 18 months to three years from being able to convert weapons-grade uranium, fit it with an explosive package and then deliver it via a missile.

Which leads us to the Israeli air assault.

Clearly, there are many within the Israeli political, military and intelligence communities who have long been in favour of a show-down with Iran.  And events since October 2023 have been moving Israel inexorably to the current situation.  Israel has eliminated its enemies in a ruthless, methodical manner.  First Hamas in Gaza, although not wholly crushed, it has been so degraded that it no longer has the capability to pose a significant threat to Israeli citizens (and is likely to be dragged into a prolonged and bloody civil war against militia groups that Israel has acknowledged arming).  Then Hizballah in Lebanon (decapitated by exploding pagers and then decimated in a brutally efficient air and ground war).  The defeat of Hizballah meant it would not come to the aid of the Assad regime in Syria as it wobbled.  Assad’s fall robbed Tehran of a key regional ally.  Air raids by Israel, the US and the UK on the Houthis in Yemen had degraded their unpredictable threat. The brief exchanges of fire and missiles last year following Israel’s bombing of the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus and the war with Hizballah, had left Iran’s air defences severely-damaged and its skies essentially, therefore, undefended. And so, by the beginning of July, Iran – once ringed by its ‘Axis of Resistance’ – stood alone.

Netanyahu saw an opportunity.  Realised it might be transient (the Iranians had proved surprisingly flexible in offering concessions in the ongoing negotiations with the US) and began preparing for a major offensive.  President Trump inadvertently set the deadline for Israel to act when he publicly gave Tehran 60 days for talks on nuclear weapons to reach an agreement.  The moment that 60-day deadline passed, Israel acted.

Israeli intelligence prowess

Whether or not you like them, or approve of their actions, there is no denying the daunting capabilities of the Israeli intelligence agencies.  Their coverage of Iran is impressive; their information is extraordinarily accurate and current; and their ability to operate within Iranian territory is astounding. The first wave of strikes was pinpoint – ballistic and nuclear facilities, nuclear scientists and military leaders fell alongside the few remaining air-defence systems.  Within hours of taking off, the 200 Israeli warplanes had fatally weakened Iran’s ability to fight back.

War aims/Mission Creep?

The problem for Israel is that knowledge cannot be unlearned.  Bombing their nuclear facilities (even with the support of US bunker-busting munitions) may set back Iran’s nuclear programme by a year or two.  But it will not stop it.  And it is that realisation which underpins the expanding war aims.  Whereas the first intention was clearly to disable Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the broadening of the targets and increasing mention of regime change demonstrates Israeli awareness that bombing alone will not stop the Iranian march towards nuclear-power status.  That can only be achieved by bringing Iran in from the cold, toppling the theocratic machine that has led it since 1979 and replacing it with one which, if not best friends with Israel, at least chooses to co-exist with it. 

And how about Iran?

The Iranian leadership is increasingly presented with the unpalatable choice of agreeing a deal with the US which would require it to surrender its nuclear programme (and be viewed as capitulation), or continue fighting (which, as its military stockpiles dwindle, is simply not realistic).  Given how unappealing the first option is, it seems likely that Iran will continue launching missiles towards Israel for as long as its magazines (and Israeli attrition) allow, in the hope that the damage it inflicts on Israel and surging global energy prices might force world powers to impose a ceasefire.  But the leadership knows that its missile stockpiles are not limitless (and in any case are much shallower than Israel’s), which is why the leadership has already reached out to Gulf countries, Turkey and Cyprus to try and find a path to a ceasefire. 

The longer the unequal battle goes on, the more the objective becomes regime survival.  To return to John Sawers again, he argued that the regime would not collapse since there was no alternative waiting in the wings ready to take over.   Other commentators have made the same argument: the absence of a credible alternative option remains the strongest deterrent protecting Iran’s rulers.

That may be the case, but there was no viable alternative to Saddam Hussain, or to Ben Ali in Tunisia, or Muammar Ghadaffi in Libya: that did not prevent their regimes crumbling at startling speed.  Once a population really turns against its rulers, it is surprising how fast they can fall (Mubarak appeared impregnable on 25 January: he was gone within 18 days).  And today’s Iran is a very different society from that which fought against Saddam Hussain’s Iraq – then, revolutionary fervour served to bring the country together to bear the horrors of the eight-year war.  But, now, with the 1979 revolution receding in the collective memory and a population fed up with living under sanctions and a failing but still autocratic theocracy, unconditional support for the state is far from guaranteed.

Is this war winnable?

Israel’s assault on Iran has significantly weakened the Iranian military and depleted their stockpiles of available weaponry.  Before the Israeli assault, best assessments calculated Iran had at most 3,000 missiles capable of reaching Israel, but many of those (and their launch sites) were destroyed before Iran even fired a shot; it is unclear whether the reduction in the tempo of Iran’s volleys of missiles since its first retaliatory salvo is a result of Israel’s relentless bombardment, or is a deliberate tactic to exhaust Israeli antimissile interceptors, before overwhelming what is left with what remains of their stockpiles. 

With Israel also burning through its stockpiles of drones, missiles and interceptors, neither side can sustain the military pace indefinitely (even if it is likely that Iran will reach the end of its hardware before Israel does).  The bigger question may be what the respective population’s resilience thresholds are - Iran showed an astonishing willingness to absorb huge losses during its eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s: Israel, on the other hand, has yet to be tested in a prolonged and attritional air campaign.

For now, though, the attack on the hospital in Soroka overnight and the deaths caused by the indiscriminate Iranian shelling have done anything to tame the Israeli appetite for further attacks.

What does Trump do?

To again quote John Sawers (sorry John!), having gone this far, it makes sense to finish the job and destroy the deeply-buried nuclear facility at Fordow.  The redeployment of the USS Nimitz from the South China Sea towards the Middle East is a clear signal that President Trump is contemplating helping Israel complete the job of dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme. 

A bombing raid deep into Iran is a complex operation and, given the glare of global media coverage, it is unlikely to be possible to conduct it in secrecy.  Search-and-rescue teams, fighter jet escort and mid-air refuelling will be part of the plan (along with mobilisation of Special Forces units) - and the US has recently moved a number of those assets to Europe.  The US will want to be reassured that Iranian air-defences and electronic and GPS jamming capability has, indeed, been supressed. And will seek to ensure that its military bases in the region move to a state of maximum alert and readiness. Even through news reports this morning suggested that President Trump had approved the plan and all that was missing was his final green light, military planners will want to make full use of the seven days that it will take the Nimitz to reach the Gulf and provide its reassuring force protection, before launching any raid.

But the decision about whether to join forces with Israel and attack Iran is not a simple foreign-policy calculation: there are strong domestic political considerations as well.   President Trump was elected on a platform of America First and ‘no more forever foreign wars.’  And his base holds true to that premise.  Whilst it may be possible to fly in the heavy bombers, drop the bombs, destroy Fordow and go home again without any damage, there is no guarantee that the bunker-buster would, in fact, destroy Fordow – there seems to be a discrepancy between the depth at which the bomb is effective (60 metres) and the depth at which Fordow is reportedly buried (90-100 metres).  And there is no guarantee that such an intervention would not drag the US slowly into another foreign war. 

Trump is aware that foreign involvement risks splitting his Republican coalition.  A foreign war is inimical to the MAGA base – as we heard from Steve Bannon, who warned that US involvement in another war in the Middle East would “tear the country apart”. Tucker Carlson, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene have all voiced their opposition and the latest public opinion polling shows the majority of Trump supporters oppose the US striking Iran.  Pitted against them are establishment Republicans such as Mitch McConnell, who has previously warned Trump of the dangers of “isolationism”. Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, have also been hawkish for action on Iran, saying Trump should “go all in” in destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities.

On balance, it seems that President Trump remains confident that if he decides to bomb Iran, he can make the argument that doing so is in defence of his America First agenda and that (in Bannon’s own words) in the end, ‘the MAGA movement will support President Trump.’  The question, given his ‘I will decide in two weeks’ statement this evening and the apparent ongoing communication with the Iranian regime, is whether, in the end, he will decide to unleash the heavy bombers.  On balance, I am beginning to think he will not…

Wider Geopolitics…

And, of course, this being the Middle East, it is not simply a question of US, Iran and Israel. 

Russia too has a stake in the outcome of this conflict, as Iran is a key regional ally of Moscow.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Iran became an important military partner to the Kremlin – supplying Moscow with Shaheed combat drones which were used to deadly effect in air-strikes on Ukrainian cities. Iran also helped Russia build a drone production facility, modelled on Iranian designs. 

For its part, Russia is Iran’s leading foreign investor – mainly in gas, energy and infrastructure projects – and, since the partnership with Iran relies more on a shared hostility towards the west and the experience of navigating life under sanctions, rather than shared traditions and history, if the regime falls it will difficult for Russia to retain its assets and influence in the country. The fall of the Iranian regime (coming hard on the heels of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria) would therefore be a reputational and geostrategic blow for Moscow, which would not only lose the benefit of years of investment of political and economic capital, but would also face a newly-reconstructed Middle East dominated by US-aligned powers.

There is little in practice that President Putin can do to affect the course of events. Even if it wanted (or was able) to, Russia cannot risk defending Iran militarily, as it is not prepared to risk a confrontation with Israel (and even less with the USA) and is also concerned that siding too openly with Iran could jeopardise its fledgling relationship with Saudi Arabia.  Moscow in any case, has its hands full with the Ukraine war (to which N Korea sent more troops earlier this week).  The best it can do is to appeal to the US not to get involved militarily, but rather to intervene diplomatically to de-escalate the conflict (although, given that Russia no longer needs Iranian Shaheed drones, there are some within Putin’s entourage who will welcome the Israel-Iran conflict continuing for a bit because its inflationary effect on oil prices offers Moscow a much-needed economic boost just when falling global energy prices had threatened to squeeze its wartime budget).

And the Israel-Iran conflict also has implications for Ukraine.  As global attention shifts away from Ukraine, US armaments and foreign policy focus will likely do the same. President Trump has not mentioned Ukraine since Israeli warplanes took to the sky last week.  He left the G7 Summit in Canada a day early, missing the scheduled meeting with President Zelenskyy.  The EU is left groping at empty air, with Trump publicly slapping down President Macron’s assertion that he had signed up to a ceasefire deal.

And finally, Gaza.  With all eyes on the Iran-Israel aerial duel, media attention has drifted from Gaza, but every day, there are more deaths at food distribution centres and hunger continues to stalk the strip.

Is there an off-ramp?

It is difficult to see what the way out might look like. 

Israel does need an off-ramp to avoid an endless war against an adversary which potentially remains capable of and willing to absorb appalling loses. But, since Israel holds all the military cards, its current incentive to seek a peaceful outcome is non-existent, especially as its initial war aims have now morphed into regime change. 

PM Netanyahu lacks the bunker-busting bombs and bombers needed to destroy or decommission Iran’s deeply buried nuclear sites. So, unless the US does enter the conflict, the Israeli offramp may be to keep hitting Iran hard enough and long enough to force its leadership out (or at least into submission).  The risk of mission creep is important here: will Israel know when it has destroyed enough of Iran’s military capability?  Or will it keep going, everlastingly widening its target lists in the hope that it can force the regime out?  There is a risk that it could overplay its hand - continued air assault could serve to stiffen Iranian opposition to Israel, forcing the two countries into an extended war of attrition fought between proxies.

For the US, Iran under the Ayatollahs has been a thorn in the side of successive American Presidents.  Regime change - being the President who finally tumbled the regime - is a legacy that actually might actually be quite an attractive option for President Trump.

There is though, a narrow path back to peace.  The combination of President Trump’s hesitation over getting involved in foreign wars (and possibly his uncertainty that the bunker-buster will actually work) and Iranian outreach to find a diplomatic solution, taken with President Trump’s view of himself as the Deal-Maker In Chief (and his reported hankering after a Nobel Peace Prize – after his failures to make peace in Gaza and Ukraine) suggest that, if all sides play their cards right, a negotiated settlement is still, just, possible: such an outcome would be to the immense relief of regional countries, as well as to Russia….