Afrasianet - Oraib Rantawi - Israel's war on Iran is still far from the finish line, and may not have reached its peak yet, while the parties involved in it, directly or indirectly, have set themselves goals with high ceilings, which are very dangerous and important, and it is true that it may shape the image of the region, with its balances of power, dynamics, and perhaps maps, for years and decades to come.
From an Israeli perspective, the lightning opening blow of this war, and the military, political, logistical and intelligence preparations it has revealed for a decade or two, reveal that Tel Aviv is planning beyond just inflicting a "chronic obstruction" on Tehran's nuclear program, beyond dismantling this program in the Libyan way, to stripping the Islamic Republic regime of its fangs, ballistic claws and "hypersonic claws", to open the door to the transition from a strategy of "policy change" to a strategy of "regime change."
Israel no longer hides its war objectives against Iran, and we no longer need intelligence reports or estimates of strategic analysts to identify them, as they say them publicly and on the heads of witnesses, and it is wise to take the matter seriously, and not to sleep on the silk of estimates and disappointed bets.
Israel is repeating some of the experiences of its wars against Arabs and Palestinians in its ongoing war on Iran: "strategic deception", "surprise and shock" as in June 1967, "beheading" with the start of the war as in Lebanon, and "strategic security breach".
In order to do so, it intensifies the use of the vocabulary of "istibaha" and "suburb strategy", and even began early to talk about the "day after" in Iran, and to make a series of contacts with the remnants of the ousted Shahnshahi era, and armed opposition factions at home and abroad, including separatists, "mujahideen" and others, and I think that the "Mossad" would not have recorded all these field incursions, relying on its own forces only, but by resorting to these forces, which have the widest reach and ability to move inside Iran.
This does not mean, of course, that everything Israel wishes will be realized. The issue before and after depends on the availability of a set of conditions, which may deepen the gap between "field accounts and al-Baydar accounts":
• The first and most important is Iran's ability to withstand and regain the initiative and the extent to which it has succeeded in rebuilding the balance of "deterrence and balance" in its relationship with Israel.
• Second, the United States is specifically ready to expand its involvement in this war, targeting what the Israeli war machine is unable to target, and to cause maximum damage to the fortified sites on which the Iranian nuclear project is based.
So far, neither condition seems to be met for Israel's most extreme right-wing government: Tehran has not raised a white flag, but on the contrary, has held firm, and has begun to restore "balance and deterrence." Washington does not "commercialize" Tel Aviv in the ceilings of its goals and expectations are very high, and is satisfied with what is below, although it will not mind catching up with Tel Aviv and even preempting it to work to achieve these goals, if it is confirmed for one moment, that there is a chance to achieve them, and achieve them quickly, and with a reasonable amount of Military and economic costs.
From an American perspective, Washington has already accepted Tehran's maintenance of a low enrichment cycle (3.6 percent) of uranium on its soil, sufficient for peaceful and civilian uses, under a barrage of verification, inspection and control conditions. These were the contents of the Vienna agreement in 2015, before the first Trump administration turned against the agreement and withdrew from it, and before Trump, in his second term, talked about "zero enrichment" on Iranian soil.
The United States shares Israel's "concern" about Iran's missile program, and its "destabilizing role in the region," a phrase that has become a "necessity" in the discourse of U.S. foreign policy and many European countries alike.
Washington, whose president came with promises of peace everywhere, on various fronts and crises, driven by the "Nobel Dream" and the highest peace prize, does not prefer to "get involved" in a major war in the Middle East, and does not assess the "same weight" for Tel Aviv's fears and concerns, but the performance of its president, who deals lightly and simplifying with the most complex and sensitive crises and intertwined with the present, history, culture and geopolitics, does not stop launching a barrage of threats and threats, and arbitrarily imposing arbitrary deadlines, which led to the failure to manage most of these files, From Gaza to Ukraine, and today Iran and Israel, instead of failure, claiming to have succeeded in preventing or stopping wars on other fronts: Pakistan, India, and finally Egypt and Ethiopia (?!).
If the Trump administration, while dealing with some of the crises in our region, has shown a degree of "distancing" from the priorities of Israeli policy and Netanyahu's calculations, as in approaching the Syrian file and opening up to the new regime, as well as in opening channels of direct communication with Hamas against the Israeli desire, concluding an agreement with Ansar Allah in Yemen, and getting out of the "absurd war" it waged on this country that is exhausted by its wars and the wars of others against it, this administration reaffirms its attachment to the Israeli agenda on pivotal issues. More important, especially in the cases of Iran and Gaza, even if they have their "preferences" different from Netanyahu's, they always return to adjust their steps to the Israeli rhythm.
Will Washington enter the Israeli war on Iran through the gate of the world's deadliest and most destructive strategic bombers and bombs?
I think it is a miscalculation and lack of wisdom to drop this "scenario", but we believe that it will progress in one or both of two cases: First, if the responses of Iran and its allies to the Israeli aggression deviate from the red lines, such as targeting American bases, assets and interests in the region, then the intervention will become wide-ranging. It will be supported by the broadest segments of the American leadership and institutional spectrum, and will have European support that seems guaranteed in advance, especially from the three "troika" countries: London, Paris and Berlin.
Second, if Washington feels that Tel Aviv is in real danger, beyond the balance of daily losses that we are monitoring and following so far, and if it appears to it that this war will end in a defeat for Israel, squander the gains of the past twenty months, and rehabilitate the Tehran axis, which was injured in more than one death as a result of the Israeli wars on multiple fronts and tracks that followed the seventh of October 2023. Then the large-scale US intervention will be the practical embodiment of the pledges of Trump and his administration, and even the various successive US administrations, to commit Israel's security, defense and superiority preservation.
This dictates that Tehran and its allies look at the calculations of politics and the field from this complex perspective and avoid miscalculation, and I think that behind the smoke of the fiery statements of some Iranian leaders and officials, there is a "cold Iranian mind", which is undoubtedly now engaged in conducting such calculations and exercises.
From an Iranian perspective, there is a top priority to restore the "devastation" inflicted by Israel on the command, control and control system, as Tel Aviv succeeded in "beheading" the security and military apparatus, and kidnapped the lives of elite Tehran's scientists and engineers, followed by the priority of restoring prestige and building "balance and deterrence" in the face of a project aimed at turning Tehran into a new southern suburb, and Isfahan into "Khan Yunis 2".
In Iran, there is no voice louder than the voice of revenge and revenge, whose red flags were raised over the minarets of mosques and husseiniyas. There is no proposal for direct or indirect negotiations with Israel under the rubric of "ceasefire", and no rush to resume negotiations with Israel's partner in this war, the Trump administration.
Most importantly, there is no concession to the minimum that it accepted in the five rounds of negotiations before the start of the Israeli war against it: 3.6 percent enrichment on Iranian soil, recognition of Tehran's legitimate nuclear rights to the civil-peaceful use of nuclear energy, and no discussion of its missile project or its regional role.
Any concession of these titles/rights means that Israel has won in imposing its dictates on it, and it will also mean that Trump, who sought to use the "Israeli baton" to overcome the obstacle of Iranian rejection of his dictates, scored a landslide victory over them .
Iran can go far in providing guarantees and reassurances about the peacefulness and civility of its nuclear program, and if any upcoming agreement includes sufficient conditions and rules of transparency, verification, inspection and control, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, or the bulk of them, otherwise Israel will have succeeded in enabling Trump to declare the victory of the "diplomacy of force" that he replaced with "the power of diplomacy."
The war is still in its infancy, and it is risky to make estimates of its conclusions, but we can already know the elements of victory and defeat: Trump wins if he forces Iran to dismantle its nuclear program and maintain structures that are worthless not in themselves, but in supply chains from abroad, which are often controlled.
Netanyahu wins if he strips Tehran of its nuclear claws and ballistic fangs, and his victory becomes "absolute" if he puts the "regime change" project on the track to be implemented, by launching internal dynamics that can accomplish the task, albeit after a while.
Iran will triumph if it regains the balance of "balance and deterrence", albeit under more difficult conditions than before, and if it preserves the minimum of its nuclear rights as it has defined it itself, in hundreds of speeches, positions and correspondence. The war is going on and talking has a connection.