Israel’s attack on Iran last month and the US bombing of the nation’s nuclear services, the first-ever direct US assaults on Iranian soil, had been meant to cripple Tehran’s strategic capabilities and reset the regional steadiness.
The strikes got here after 18 months throughout which Israel had successfully dismantled Hamas in Gaza, dealt a devastating blow to Hezbollah in Lebanon, weakened the Houthis in Yemen, and seen the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria – a longstanding and key Iranian ally.
From a navy standpoint, these had been outstanding achievements. However they did not ship the strategic consequence Israeli and US leaders had lengthy hoped for: the collapse of Iran’s affect and the weakening of its regime.
As a substitute, the confrontation uncovered a deeper miscalculation. Iran’s energy isn’t constructed on impulse or susceptible proxies alone. It’s decentralised, ideologically entrenched and designed to endure. Whereas battered, the Islamic Republic didn’t fall. And now, it might be extra decided – and extra harmful – than earlier than.
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Israel’s assault – dubbed “operation rising lion” – started with assaults on Iranian radar methods, adopted by precision airstrikes on Iranian enrichment services and senior navy officers and scientists. Israel spent roughly US$1.45 (£1.06 billion) billion within the first two days and within the first week of strikes on Iran, costs hit US$5 billion, with each day spending at US$725 million: US$593 million on offensive operations and US$132 million on defence and mobilization.
Iran’s response was swift. Greater than 1,000 drones and 550 ballistic missiles, together with precision-guided and hypersonic variants. Israeli defences were breached. Civilian infrastructure was hit, ports closed, and the economy stalled
The day after the US strikes, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke with Donald Trump about a ceasefire. He and his generals had been reportedly eager to bring the conflict to a speedy end. Experiences counsel that Netanyahu wished to keep away from a prolonged conflict of attrition that Israel couldn’t maintain, and was already on the lookout for an exit technique.
Crucially, the Iranian regime remained intact. Somewhat than inciting revolt, the conflict rallied nationalist sentiment. Opposition movements stay fractured and lack a standard platform or home legitimacy. Hopes of a well-liked rebellion which may topple the regime expressed by each Trump and Netanyahu had been misplaced.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
Within the aftermath, Iranian authorities launched a sweeping crackdown on suspected dissenters and what it known as “spies”. Former activists, reformists and loosely affiliated protest organisers had been arrested or interrogated. What was meant to fracture the regime as an alternative bolstered its grip on energy.
Most notably, Iran’s parliament voted to droop cooperation with the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company (IAEA), ending inspections and giving Tehran the freedom to expand its nuclear programme – each civilian and doubtlessly navy – with out oversight.
Maybe the clearest misreading got here from Israel and the US treating Syria as a template. The 2024 fall of Bashar al-Assad was hailed as a turning level. His successor, Ahmed al-Sharaa – a little-known opposition determine, former al-Qaeda rebel and IS affiliate – was rebranded as a realistic reformer, who Trump praised as “engaging” and “powerful”.
For western and Israeli strategists, Syria provided a each a solution to weaken Iran and a blueprint of how eventual regime change might play out: collapse the regime, set up cooperative management in a swift reordering course of. However this analogy was dangerously flawed. Iran’s stronger establishments, navy depth, resistance-driven id and existence made it a essentially totally different and extra resilient state.
Tactical wins, strategic ambiguity
Whereas Iran’s regional community has taken important hits over the previous 12 months –Hamas dismantled, Hezbollah degraded, the Houthis depleted, and the Assad regime toppled – Tehran recalibrated. It deepened military cooperation with Russia and China, secured covert arms shipments, and accelerated its nuclear ambitions.
EPA-EFE/Atef Safadi
Each Israel and Iran, nonetheless, got here away with new intelligence. Israel discovered that its missile defences and financial resilience weren’t constructed for extended, multi-front warfare. Iran, in the meantime, gained worthwhile perception into how far its arsenal – drones, missiles and regional proxies – might attain, and the place its limits lie.
Most of Iran’s drones and missiles had been intercepted — up to 99% in the cases of drones — exposing important weaknesses in accuracy, penetration, and survivability in opposition to trendy air defenses. But the few that did break via caused significant damage in Tel Aviv, placing residential areas and demanding infrastructure.
This conflict was not solely a conflict of weapons however a real-time stress check of every aspect’s strategic depth. Iran could now modify its doctrine accordingly – prioritising survivability, mobility and precision in anticipation of future conflicts.
Israel’s vulnerabilities
Internally, Israel entered the conflict politically fractured and socially strained. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition was already beneath hearth for attempting to weaken judicial independence. The conflict has quickly united the nation, however the financial and human toll have reignited deeper issues.
Israel’s geographic and demographic constraints have change into clear. Its high-tech economic system, tightly built-in with international markets, couldn’t climate extended instability. And critically, the harm inflicted by the US bombing was extra restricted than hoped for. Whereas Washington joined within the preliminary strikes, it resisted deeper involvement, partly to keep away from broader regional escalation and largely due to the lack of domestic appetite for war and high potential for energy inflation, if Iran was to shut the Strait of Hormuz.
What occurs now?
The conflict of 2025 didn’t produce peace. It produced recalibration. Israel emerges militarily succesful however politically shaken and economically strained. Iran, although broken, stands extra unified, with fewer worldwide constraints on its nuclear ambitions. Its crackdown on dissent, withdrawal from IAEA oversight, and deepening ties to rival powers counsel a regime making ready not for collapse, however for survival, even perhaps confrontation.
The broader lesson is sobering. Regime change can’t be engineered via precision strikes. Tactical brilliance doesn’t assure strategic victory. And the belief that Iran might unravel like Syria was not technique, it was hubris.
Each side now higher perceive one another’s strengths and limits, a readability that would deter future conflict – or make the following yet one more harmful. In a area formed by trauma and shifting energy, mistaking resistance for weak spot or pause for peace stays the gravest miscalculation.
