Although there is a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Iran, we don’t know how far US President Donald Trump will go to help Israel. For many, the war is not yet over, although the guns have fallen silent for now.
But my feeling is that the Iranians don’t want to fight a major war with the United States. This is evidenced by the fact that they gave advance notice of their retaliation missile attack on 23 June on the American al-Udeid military base in Qatar. For his part, Trump even thanked Iran for the light response.
That is not to say the fighting will end completely. Iran has not agreed to end its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, nor is it clear that it will allow intrusive foreign inspections. Israel’s targeting of domestic security institutions and statements from Israeli leaders and Trump himself have led the remaining Iranian leadership to conclude that Israel and the United States aim to bring down the Islamic Republic sooner or later.
Read more: Iran is further from regime change than Israel thinks
Realistically, however, the Iranian regime is not going to fall. We have never seen a regime change result from a hard, sustained campaign of air and missile strikes. There is no strong, armed opposition capable of seizing government institutions, as was the case in Libya in 2011 or Syria in 2023, nor a clear opposition figure around whom large segments of the public can rally, as was the case in Iran itself in 1979.
Instead, the Israeli attack and the American and European support ensure the weakened Iranian state will be hostile towards Israel and the United States.
Without trust that Israel and the US would stop undermining its government and economy, Iran has no incentive to relinquish its nuclear and missile programmes unconditionally, and it has the technological ability to rebuild them gradually. The voices of those inside the Islamic Republic who urge building a nuclear weapon quickly will be louder than ever.
Read more: Attacks on Iran make a nuclear bomb more likely
Race for the bomb?
Looking at the success of North Korea, the surviving Iranian leadership may well decide that only a nuclear weapon will deter further external threats to the regime. And in response, the Americans and Israelis will use intelligence, which is not always accurate, to strike any suspected new nuclear site and its workers.
This aerial strike campaign will resemble in some ways the American hammering of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq between the Kuwait war and the American invasion in 2003. However, a scientist and head of the Carnegie Institute’s Nuclear Policy Programme in Washington, James Acton, warned in the New York Times on 19 June that no aerial bombardment campaign alone has ever stopped a nuclear programme completely if the country attacked is determined to continue its programme. Only the American occupation of Baghdad and direct inspections by American experts convinced Washington that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programme was finished.
Those urging Trump to attack Iran never acknowledge that deployment of ground forces would be necessary to enforce with complete certainty the elimination of the Iranian domestic nuclear and missile programs. Trump does not want to escalate against Iran. He wants Iran to surrender at the negotiating table. The question is whether he can compel Iran to negotiate a quick surrender.
Trump will never deploy a large American invasion force to Iran. He likely would accept using air strikes in a low-risk environment, although it is worth remembering that he is tired of the air campaign against the Houthis in Yemen. In addition, Trump would authorise intensified naval patrols and stop any Iranian oil exports, including to China. His goal would be to starve the hostile Iranian government of foreign exchange. Cutting off Iranian oil exports would further weaken Tehran and delay efforts to rebuild the nuclear and ballistic missiles programmes, but it wouldn’t strangle it completely.
Weaker Iranian allies
A sustained, low-intensity confrontation between a weakened Iran and the United States and Israel will weaken Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Iraq. With less Iranian funding available, and a government in Damascus hostile to Iran and its allies, Lebanese Hezbollah will also face greater challenges rebuilding its military, political and financial strength.
From salaries for fighters to rebuilding shattered parts of the Dahiyeh and downtown Beirut, Hezbollah will have a harder time finding money to buy support. Moreover, it is clearer than ever that Hezbollah cannot confront Israel, which will diminish the group’s justification for its very existence. President Aoun’s announcement on 18 June that he would dispatch more Lebanese Armed Forces soldiers south of the Litani River was an indication of the Lebanese state’s gradually increasing assertiveness.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the pro-Iranian militias have captured parts of the oil-rich state apparatus and are in a better position financially, but they too will be weaker. The Iraqi government, including most Shiite Islamist elements, wants to keep Iraq out of the Iranian battle and has pressed the pro-Iranian militias to avoid attacking American bases.
There were demonstrations in support of Iran in many Shiite communities on 20 June, but the demonstrators denounced Israel and America without praising the pro-Iranian militias. Muqtada Sadr, who mobilised the demonstrations, urged the militias to avoid involvement in the war between Israel and Iran.
Unable to use resistance to the United States to justify their existence, in the coming months before the Iraqi parliamentary elections in November, the pro-Iranian militias will have to focus more on domestic issues, where their corruption and oppressive tactics will make winning wider support more difficult.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is weaker financially and militarily, will not have the same level of influence in Baghdad and southern Iraq as it did previously. Public criticism in early June from the leader of the Abbas Combat Division, an element of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, against the PMF leadership for corruption and interference in Iraqi politics is another sign of contention within Shiite Islamist ranks. These splits will give Prime Minister Al Sudani and his political allies space to gradually impose further limits on the activities of the Iranian-backed militias.
At the same time, Baghdad’s fear of a renewed threat from elements in eastern Syria will spur it to maintain a security relationship with Washington. The Americans, meanwhile, will press Baghdad harder than ever to respect American financial sanctions against Iran, and the Trump administration will sanction more Iraqi financial institutions that engage in any financial transactions with Iran, while it also insists that Iraq halt its energy trade with Iran.
Israel more powerful
As a regime change in Iran is unlikely, Israel will need more support from the United States. The Israeli Air Force achieved remarkable successes against Iranian targets, but the limits to Israeli capabilities were visible with, for example, its inability to destroy the underground Iranian nuclear production facility at Fordow.
In addition, Israel needed urgent American reinforcements for its anti-missile defences, including an American Navy destroyer deployed off Israel’s coast and additional THAAD missile defence units from the small American stockpile. Under this American umbrella, Israel will likely not only continue occasional strikes against suspicious sites in Iran but also its repression of Palestinians and gradual annexation of the West Bank.
The outlook for the Palestinians is grim, but Israel’s credibility and support among younger Americans who support the Democratic Party continues to diminish. That trend has been visible for almost ten years. Younger Americans of the Republican Party are also less supportive of Israel, which is new. The short-term domination of Israeli supporters in the American Congress will continue for the next three years, but as American budget problems grow and domestic social programs face big reductions, there will be more and more questions about unconditional American support for Israel.
Read more: Why unconditional US support for Israel must stop
Expanded Abraham Accords?
Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia will have a complex consideration after the present fighting diminishes and Washington again presses for them to normalise relations with Israel. In his 14 May speech in Riyadh, Trump hoped that Saudi Arabia would normalise ties with Israel, although he acknowledged that the timing depended entirely on Riyadh.
Some members of the Arab League, such as Algeria, Tunisia and Yemen, will not normalise relations with Israel, but Israel is interested in formal political and commercial relations with all the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia. A much weaker Iran reduces the incentive for these Gulf states to work with Israel to deter an Iranian attack. Therefore, if their governments resent Israeli repression of Palestinians or sense domestic disgruntlement, they might instead choose to continue the present approach of discrete cooperation with Israel.
Whether or not they choose to normalise relations with Israel, Gulf states will redouble efforts to have good relations with Washington as they perceive the extent of Israeli military power. And they will hedge by also building relationships with China and Russia.
Before October 7, there was much discussion of an economic corridor that would link the Mediterranean markets through the Arabian Peninsula to India and even the Far East. And Gulf states have their individual plans for economic diversification and growth. However, if the Americans and Israelis are regularly bombing Iran, the regional environment for investment will not be ideal.
