The Israel-Iran confrontation enters its sixth day as both sides continue to trade daily strikes, fanning the fear of a wider war in the region. The simmering tensions boiled over into a direct conflict when Israel launched a lethal aerial assault on Iran in the early hours of Friday, June 13. According to the Israeli military, they used 200 fighter jets, striking over 100 targets and dropping 330 varieties of munitions across multiple provinces in Iran in the opening salvo of Operation Rising Lion.
The strikes hit key nuclear, military, and missile sites, including Natanz, Isfahan, Tabriz, Khorramabad, Parchin, and areas around Tehran. Israel’s initial strikes also aimed at decimating Iran’s command and control structure and killed top military and nuclear figures like IRGC chief Hossein Salami, Armed Forces head Mohammad Bagheri, senior nuclear scientists and advisors like Fereydoon Abbasi, Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, and Ali Shamkhani, a top advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Iran quickly restructured its command structure and responded six hours later by firing a barrage of drones at Israel. This was a largely ineffective play and signaled that a significant number of Iran’s missile launchers were disabled by Israel’s operations. Iran eventually intensified its response, named Operation True Promise III, by launching ballistic missiles at Israel, some of which pierced the highly advanced Iron Dome air defense system, and as explosions were heard across Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
As of the evening of June 17, there have been 197 confirmed Israeli strikes on Iran and 39 reported/confirmed ballistic missile or interceptor impacts on Israel, as per the Institute for the Study of War. Strikes have continued since then, with explosions heard across both Tel Aviv and Tehran. On June 18, Iran also declared its decision to move from a defensive to a more offensive posture and launched the Fattah-1 hypersonic missile at Israel. Israel has continued its strikes and warned that Iran will pay a “heavy price” for its missile strike.
The conflict currently stands at a critical juncture with reports suggesting a growing possibility of American involvement. Having backed Israel from the sidelines so far, Washington is now reportedly prepared to enter the conflict directly. That potential shift would mark the most serious escalation yet, with the risk of taking this bilateral confrontation into a wider geopolitical crisis.
With the stakes at their highest in years, some questions demand closer scrutiny: Why did Israel strike now? How was Iran so unprepared? And what exactly is the endgame?
Why did Israel strike now?
Despite the framing of its offensive as a preemptive response to an urgent, imminent Iran threat, Israel’s strikes were planned, calculated, and driven not by an immediate risk but by the rare convergence of timing and strategic opportunity.
Netanyahu first gave the directive to destroy Iran’s nuclear program in November 2024, shortly after Israel killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and successfully degraded Iranian air defenses in successive campaigns. By February, media reports citing multiple U.S. intelligence assessments, warned that Israel was planning a “preemptive attack” on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz, within the first six months of 2025. These reports noted that Israel saw a narrow window to act while Iran was internally and regionally weakened.
Iran had lost its deterrence in the region. It was economically weak under American sanctions, strategically isolated, its once dominant network of proxies had either collapsed or was crippled, and internally Iran was stretched thin. Although attempting to project deterrence by rebuilding its air defenses and flashing underground missile cities, the convergence of these crises had Iran at its most vulnerable in years, making it the perfect opportunity for Israel.
Even Israel acknowledged that the original date for the strikes had been set for April 2025. However, U.S. President Donald Trump intervened, asking Israel to hold off on the strike, giving Iran an ultimatum to reach a nuclear deal in 60 days.
Netanyahu doesn’t believe in diplomacy with Iran, yet he agreed to hold off as the U.S. pursued talks. During those 60 days, indirect negotiations between U.S.-Iran began but they unfolded under the shadow of a potential Israeli strike, deliberately used by both the U.S. and Israel to exert pressure. However, the negotiations recently reached an impasse after Iran refused a deal proposed by the U.S. and insisted that it maintain nuclear enrichment on its soil. This fit squarely into Israel’s narrative that Iran was only stalling to buy time to move its nuclear stockpile somewhere safer, and deeper.
Finally, the 24 hours before the strike were crucial in setting the stage.
With the 60-day ultimatum at its end, news broke that Oman would host the sixth-round of indirect negotiations between Iran and the U.S. However, Trump said he wasn’t too optimistic about the meeting given the deadlock.
Then, the International Atomic Energy Agency censured Iran for consistently failing to comply with its non-proliferation commitments, particularly citing the failure to provide information about nuclear material and activity at undeclared locations. The IAEA has previously passed censures on Iran’s nuclear program, including one in June 2024 for not cooperating with nuclear inspectors, and another one in November 2024 over its growing uranium stockpile. However, this marked the first time since 2005 where the watchdog called Iran in breach of its non- proliferation obligations. Although the IAEA report didn’t provide any new information, the formal reprimand framed the issue with a lens of urgency.
Finally, Iran rebuked the IAEA censure, calling it political and questioning IAEA’s “credibility and prestige” and defiantly added that they would now open a new enrichment facility “in a secure location,” and replace thousands of old centrifuges at Fordow with better, more sophisticated ones.
With a clear provocation from Iran, the international legitimacy provided by the IAEA censure, and what appeared to be a quiet nod from the United States, Israel finally had the premise, push and timing, it had been waiting for.
On day 61, Israel launched its offensive.
Iran’s miscalculations and missteps
The writing was on the wall, but it seems like Iran had its back to it. Just a day before the Israeli strikes, IRGC chief commander Maj Gen Hossein Salami, now killed, declared that Iran was “fully ready for any scenario.” Yet when the Israeli offensive began, Iran was caught unprepared, unraveling under the weight of grave miscalculation and internal complacency.
According to a New York Times report, while Iran anticipated the strikes, they did not expect Israel to hit before the nuclear negotiations on Sunday, June 15. Despite multiple reports warning of an Israeli attack, Tehran dismissed them as propaganda, assuming it was aimed at pressuring Iran into agreeing to a deal on U.S.-Israeli terms. This was their first miscalculation.
Then, despite advice and imminent threat of Israel’s strikes, Iranian military officials refused to move to safe houses and instead stayed at their own homes. A decision that proved fatal, since Israel struck these very apartments with precision and killed them.
Finally, when it became apparent that an Israeli strike may be coming, despite directives against congregating in one spot, the commander of IRGC’s aerospace unit, Brig Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh, convened an emergency meeting at a military base in Tehran with several top officers. When Israel struck, the base was among those attacked, and Hajizadeh, along with the other senior officers, was killed.
While Israel’s level of intelligence and success in the first wave of strikes was stunning as it is, the most damning revelation came in the aftermath when Mossad’s role was revealed. According to the Times of Israel, over months, Mossad smuggled commandos and precision weapon systems into Iran and established a secret drone base on Iranian soil close to Tehran. On the night of the attack, these drones were activated and struck surface to surface missiles aimed at Israel while the smuggled systems disabled Iran’s air defense systems, giving Israel operational supremacy over Iran. Finally, the commandos positioned precision missiles near anti-aircraft sites in central Iran, allowing Israel to execute its plans seamlessly. This level of infiltration and access took even Iranian officials by surprise, exposing their vulnerabilities and shattering the illusion of internal security.
Endgame remains elusive
Through this offensive, Israel aims to completely dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, degrade its missile arsenal, and ultimately trigger regime change. But at the present juncture of the conflict, achieving these outcomes in their entirety is unlikely.
Israel’s aerial campaign has managed to inflict serious damage to Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities. At Natanz, Israeli strikes took out the electrical infrastructure of the main Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) and functionally destroyed the above ground part of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, seriously damaging the underground cascade halls, as per the IAEA. At Isfahan, the strikes damaged a main chemical lab, uranium conversion plan, Tehran reactor-fuel manufacturing plant, and the under construction enriched uranium metal processing facility. However, for Iran, these blows are not beyond recovery.
Additionally, Israeli strikes have been unable to impact the underground site at Fordow, Iran’s second largest nuclear site built deep underground. Israel lacks the deep-penetration weaponry required to destroy Iran’s fortified nuclear site, a capability only the U.S. possesses. Unless Israel can convince the U.S. to either get involved in the conflict, or give them the 30,000-pound bunker busting bomb, impacting the underground nuclear stockpile will be difficult. Even if Israel manages to get this access, any damage will only manage to set the program back. Iran could rebuild and perhaps this time, it may do so in deeper secrecy and with support from its nuclear power friends like Russia, China, and North Korea. Thus, Israel can seriously damage Iran’s deterrent capabilities, even severely set them back, but they cannot completely get rid of them.
The strikes also risk unraveling the fragile global nonproliferation regime. Iran is already threatening to withdraw from the NPT, and on June 16, Iranian officials said their parliament was drafting a bill to that effect. A formal exit could not only remove any international oversight on Iran’s nuclear program but spark regional defections and accelerate a Middle East nuclear arms race.
Major powers of the world are broadly united in their view that a nuclear-armed Iran would have a destabilising impact on the world, owing to its relationship with non-state actors and its proxy network. Some experts even believe that a nuclear armed Iran would mirror modern day Pakistan- supporting terrorism with impunity while deterring any meaningful response with its nuclear shield. Israel shares this fear and for nearly three decades has sounded the alarm bells at Iran’s nuclear program, calling it an existential threat. It has also made this a key rhetoric of its security and political narrative.
However, Iran maintains that it is not pursuing weaponisation; this claim is corroborated by the IAEA and U.S. intelligence reports as recent as March 2025. Thus, while Israel’s concerns are legitimate, its framing of Iran’s nuclear threat evolving into something more dangerous, needs deeper scrutiny. Additionally, its consistent push for military action while actively undermining any effort at global diplomacy, has made a lasting deal with Iran more elusive.
Complicating this further is Israel’s own opaque nuclear arsenal. With an estimated 90 nuclear warheads and fissile material for 200 more, Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the region, and the only one outside the NPT framework. Free from international inspection, backed by Western allies, and equipped with advanced military capabilities, Israel possesses maximum deterrence, making its claims of the existential threat from Iran less convincing.
Israel’s ultimate goal of regime change is also less likely to materialise, at least immediately. Israel’s attacks have exposed the weaknesses of the regime, yet, despite the wide criticism Iran’s theocratic regime garners over its oppressive policies, experts believe the people of Iran are wary of Israeli interference, especially while under attack. Additionally, the attacks are also galvanising nationalistic sentiment among Iranians who are seen rallying around the flag, not out of a change of heart about the regime, but for the defense of its country. Israel’s strikes on civilian infrastructure like oil facilities and on state media studios and police headquarters- tools used by the regime to control people, could weaken the regime and eventually trigger unrest, but such fallout remains unpredictable.
While it is difficult to predict how much of its objectives Israel will achieve against Iran, the strikes have managed a secondary purpose for Israel by diverting the global focus away from Gaza. Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid, regular strikes, and the growing death toll in the Gaza Strip were under major global scrutiny. The UK, and France, along with Canada, even threatened strong actions, including sanctions, against Israel. Now, the European countries that criticized Netanyahu, stand in support of Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ against Iran.
The endgame of the conflict remains elusive, but Israel may need to accept that despite the strategic threat that Iran poses to them, they cannot neutralise it militarily. Diplomacy, however frustrating, may be needed to prevent a bigger regional crisis.
