KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Israel’s stunning and sophisticated June 13 attack on Iran set off a worrying 12-day escalatory spiral. Iran responded in short order with ballistic missile and drone strikes, which led to a series of tit-for-tat exchanges between the two sides. On June 21, the United States struck three key Iranian nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan, in what U.S. President Donald J. Trump described as a “spectacular military success.” Iran responded on Monday with a telegraphed and limited strike on a U.S. air base in Qatar. Hours later President Trump announced that Israel and Iran agreed to a cease-fire that he said would end the war.
These events represent significant escalations in the decades-long rivalry between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other, which stoked fears of a wider regional war. Red-lines have been crossed, deterrence expectations have been shattered and the balance of power among regional powers — especially Iran, Israel and Türkiye — continues to change in favor of the latter two at the expense of the former.
Israel, the United States and other Middle Eastern countries have long faced three primary threats from Iran: regional proxies and allies, primarily in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen; ballistic missiles; and a nuclear program that could produce nuclear weapons. Addressing the nuclear threat has been Israel and the United States’ priority, while regional countries have seen Iran’s proxies as a more of an immediate challenge.
As Iran and its “Axis of Resistance” members gained momentum in the early months of the Gaza War, Tehran’s expanding influence seemed to be on the rise and hard to slow down. However, with U.S. support, Israel dealt significant blows to most of its members.
In addition to mostly destroying Hamas in Gaza, Israel considerably weakened Lebanese Hezbollah, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah, eliminating many of its other senior- and lower-level leaders, degrading their missile capabilities, and reaching an agreement that moved Hezbollah away from the Israeli border, minimizing the risks of future attacks. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria — which Israel claims credit for creating conducive conditions for — and U.S. and Israeli attacks that degraded the Houthis in Yemen reversed much of Iran’s regional gains.
Israel turned its attention on Iran to eliminate its nuclear and ballistic missile threats. While Israel has not formally declared regime change as a goal, it has indicated it hopes that ultimately happens as a result of cascading effects, like a weakened regime in Tehran and the Iranian people rising up. Israel and frustrated Iranians are not alone in thinking only regime change could address their problems with the Iranian regime.
Israel acted during an unprecedented moment to directly strike Iran. In previous decades, Iran and Israel have had their own tensions and violent conflicts with different countries of the region. For example, Iran fought Iraq for eight years in the 1980s and its support enabled the Houthis to attack Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel and ships in the Red Sea in recent years. Since its founding in 1948, Israel has fought with numerous Arab states, including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
However, in the early 2020s, Israel and Iran were both decreasing tensions with key regional countries and even normalizing relations with some. In 2020 and 2021, Israel signed U.S.-brokered normalization agreements with Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco and Sudan, collectively referred to as the Abraham Accords. Since then, all eyes have been on Saudi Arabia — often described as the “holy grail” of potential normalization agreements with Israel. In late September 2023, days before Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attacks, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman confirmed there had been progress in that direction and said reaching an agreement between both countries would be “the biggest historical deal since the end of the Cold War.” While the Abraham Accords were promoted and seen as a peacebuilding construct, Iran and others viewed it as a potential anti-Iran coalition at a time the United States was seen as retrenching from the region.
Iran has also taken steps — especially after the 2018 U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal and the 2020 U.S. killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani — to improve its regional relations, particularly with Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC). In March 2023, Iran and Saudi Arabia signed a China-brokered agreement to restore relations after several rounds of talks in Oman and Iraq. As Iran and Israel exchanged missile and drone attacks in 2024, Iran engaged in active diplomacy with regional countries to explain its position and advance its diplomatic relations.
Rising great power rivalry has also been conducive for the Israel-Iran conflict reaching this unprecedented level of danger.
[Like the Abraham Accords, Iran’s de-escalation efforts were seen positively in the region. But these efforts were also met with some suspicion, seen as a ruse for Iranian efforts to reduce regional countries’ calls for the United States to help address issues like Iran’s support for proxies — including as part of one package in nuclear talks — and Iranian moves to undermine the Abraham Accords. Some in the region believe Iran’s support for Hamas and the October 7 attacks were meant to disrupt not only Saudi-Israeli normalization, but also regional integration projects like the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC).
As a result of these developments, Iran and Israel found a less hostile region. Saudi Arabia — which once called for the United States to “cut the head of the snake” in a not so veiled reference to Iran — strongly condemned Israel’s June 13 attacks. GCC countries have felt the negative impact of the Gaza war on their development plans, and don’t want to see yet another war.
Rising great power rivalry — with the United States supporting Israel and China and Russia supporting Iran — has also been conducive for the Israel-Iran conflict reaching this unprecedented level of danger.
Speaking before the nation on Saturday evening, President Trump said, “There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed” in the first eight days of the war. If the cease-fire does not hold, Iran, Israel or the United States could escalate, and the scenarios are many.
Iran could, among other things, increase its missile attacks on Israel, attack U.S. interests and other allies in the region directly or through regional proxies, and block the Strait of Hormuz. Iran could be emboldened to take such actions if it feels China and or Russia would support them in meaningful ways. The Iranian regime could withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and pursue building nuclear weapons, which it has denied pursuing so far. Israel and the United States can also escalate with more attacks on Iranian military and economic targets, such as oil fields, or go all the way to aggressively pursuing regime change.
In the end, Iran and Israel are regional powers that are not going anywhere, with or without regime change in Iran or government change in Israel. Throughout Iran’s conflicts in the Middle East, friends and foes would point out that the Iranians are “carpet weavers,” a skill that requires patience, precision and creativity. The Iranians bring these traits to conflict — gathering information, cultivating networks and surprising their adversaries with their actions. But Israelis have shown they are carpet weavers in their own right, as most recently demonstrated by their deep penetration of Hezbollah and Iran’s state and society, developing human networks, waiting for the right moment, striking effectively and leveraging modern technology to the fullest.
Despite the cease-fire, many questions remain regarding Iran’s next moves.
Has Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, followed in his predecessor’s footsteps with this cease-fire? Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ultimately agreed to end the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and likened the painful decision to drinking a chalice of poison. That decision saved the country from further destruction and Iran became stronger after.
Will Khamenei allow for more moderate Iranians to lead, open up society, and re-engage with the world constructively? Or will the aging leader go down a more ideological path — especially if the war resumes — and invoke the martyrdom spirit (viewed as suicide from others’ perspective) among Iranian young people? A precedent for this comes again from the Iran-Iraq war, when thousands of young ideologically mobilized Iranians sacrificed their lives to clear landmines on the frontlines as they attacked the Iraqi army.
Could Iranian youth mobilize in rage for change as they did in 1979, 1999, 2009 or 2022? Youth energy is there, but will they let the moment go by out of fear of the regime or because the regime’s weakness was afforded to them by an outside aggressor?
There is a massive deficit of trust between Israel and the United States on one side Iran on the other. And there are ample reasons for that mistrust. Still, talks remain indispensable to bringing the current war to an end and to possibly putting the broader conflict on a more de-escalatory path. More than any time in recent history, regional countries have the interest, relations and agency to play a role in ending the war and building toward a better future.
The problems with Iran and Israel are multi-faceted. It would take different processes, actors and timelines to find breakthroughs and new pathways. Qatar played a key role in mediating the current cease-fire. Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Türkiye are better positioned to engage with Iran and the United States and smaller subset of this group can work with Israel, too.
More than any time in recent history, regional countries have the interest, relations and agency to play a role in ending the war and building toward a better future.
In the immediate term, the focus will be on maintaining the cease-fire and ending the war. If that happens, it could offer ingredients and pathways for longer-term efforts toward conflict transformation and peace. But there are many barriers. For example, Iraq has a law that prohibits engagement with Israelis. Across the region, there are hardliners, armed groups, historical grievances and untruths that are passed on from generation to generation. Religious, academic, media and non-governmental organizations and the use of modern technology could foster people-to-people engagement to overcome some of these obstacles.
Over the longer term, important questions remain. Now that the parties to the conflict tested each other’s abilities and resolve, with huge cost, will they de-escalate or go back to covert operations and upgrade their capabilities for the next round? What lessons are Israel, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE drawing from Iran’s regional expansion and forced retreat? Can the region build on the rapprochements and normalizations that were underway to varying degrees before October 7? Much of this will hinge on what happens with the war in Gaza.
Ultimately, the United States, Israel and Iran have examples from their own histories of transforming relations with other countries that were once defined by violent conflict to more peaceful and cooperative ties. Why not again?