IRAN DESK
The official narrative in Tehran is that intense daily missile launches on Israeli urban areas and vital infrastructure pushed Israel to cease its hostilities for fear of an economically devastating war of attrition.
This was the stated goal of Iranian armed forces and reports of damage claims registered in the thousands by Israelis show that Iran played its weak card well despite an initially decapitated military command.
As expected, Israel’s strategic goals in its military campaign were shifting and grew more limited as it became clear that no anti-regime protests would emerge in Iran and that no overwhelming cracks occurred to make Iranian authorities falter.
Yet, Israel also puts forward the credible narrative that its primary objective of severely diminishing Iran’s nuclear programme and missile-launching capabilities was achieved. U.S. direct involvement was critical in not only achieving such goals, but also ensuring the end of hostilities.
Despite the 12 days air war being an unprecedented showdown between Israel and Iran, what transpired is that Tehran carefully assessed the situation, backed its actions as much as possible with international law, and calibrated its strikes in a way to minimise Israeli casualties and ward off any major U.S. military involvement.
In other words, Tehran did not lash out or utilise all its options at hand, which further solidifies the view that the establishment is primarily concerned with survival, notably in this critical moment when succession is highly anticipated.
U.S. President Donald Trump gave Israel and Iran a highly choreographed way-out, which both were happy to take to minimise harm to their populations and economies - thus disregarding decades of brazen rhetoric on both sides.
Despite Trump’s “betrayal”, the Iranian government continues to seek any benefit the U.S. president could provide and has moved smartly by recognising cracks between him and Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.
The assessment was to rely on Trump’s pro-peace sentiments, not to go harder into conflict which could have made him change his outlook, but to secure peace at a time when nobody could credibly claim Iran to be “knocked-out”.
This stance surely angered hardliners who do believe that accepting a ceasefire was a grave mistake giving Israel breathing space and allowing it to rebuild stocks in view of attacking Iran at a later point. Nonetheless, they are for now far from the centre stage as the government has been given executive steering by the establishment to manage the crisis.
Ultimately, the government swayed the establishment to choose war cessation to prevent any imminent broader U.S. attack and save Iranians from much deeper pain. It is likely that this level-headed decision may not have been taken so early if a hardline candidate like Saeed Jalili had won the previous presidential election.
The fear remains that with its highly-degraded air-defences, military airports, and military-industrial complex, Iran is now open-buffet for Israeli fighter jets. In terms of defence, many of Iran’s assumptions are now void and the country finds itself back to square one, after more than a century of efforts to prevent Western interventions.
Iranian generals now have much to ponder regarding the future of Iranian defence:
A tactical breakdown of Iran’s post-war military posture and the likely effectiveness of proposed recovery paths.
| Tactics / Arsenal | Assessment | Path Forward | Likelihood of Success |
|---|---|---|---|
| Underground bases | Relative success: Buried deep in mountains, such bases shield military stockpiles but have had entrances/exits buried by Israeli strikes. | Recover and further fortify such facilities. Create less vulnerable and identifiable access points. | Medium to High: Iran can further disseminate Ultra High-Performance Concrete to these facilities and innovate toward impregnable construction materials. |
| Counterintelligence | Massive failure: Israel infiltrated and compromised Iran through technology and HUMINT. | Apply strict communication and intranet measures for security officials, lead a severe crackdown, hire informants to track down saboteurs, seek double agents to gain intel on Israel. | Low: Authorities already knew the risks but implemented no contingency plans. Repressive methods are preferred but yield little results. Corruption within ranks is barely tackled and fosters HUMINT losses. Technology restrictions are ignored by officials.1 |
| “Proxies” | Underutilised: Clear decision by Tehran not to use regional allies, not only due to their downgraded state and political difficulties, but also to avoid regional deflagration. | Iraq remains a potential forward base where relatively untouched short-range Iranian missiles could be launched against Israel. Efforts are needed to re-arm/re-organise Hezbollah, boost Houthis’ strike force, and bring new allies in Syria out of the shadows. | Moderate: Baghdad will complain if Iran transports its missiles to Iraq and will risk Israeli strikes. IRGC Quds Force currently lacks leadership and stamina to reach its goals. It is not in Iran’s interest to re-build a faulty regional security architecture based on militias. |
| Airforce | Expected failure: Obsolete fighter jets give free space to IAF. After the war, Iran’s defence minister was in Qingdao for an SCO meeting and demonstrated interest in Chinese equipment. | Purchase Russian Su-35 or Chinese J-10. After the war, Iran’s defence minister was in Qingdao for an SCO meeting and demonstrated interest in Chinese equipment. | Low: Russian delivery is incredibly slow due to war bottlenecks while China remains reluctant to procure ready-made military equipment to Iran. |
| Air defences | Relative failure: Domestically-made SAMs were no match for the IAF’s 5th gen fighters but brought good results against combat drones. | Improve systems through iterations, boost multi-layers of defence. Purchase S-400 or Chinese variant. | Low: Very few countries can achieve what Israel did with its air defences, let alone a country 75 times bigger. Procuring better SAMs from allies is also unlikely. |
| Missile/drone waves | Relative success: Adapted strategy for better use of diminishing stockpile, greater impact area and broader list of targets (with multi-warheads), and mix of projectiles to exhaust Israeli defences. In wars, quantity beats quality (cruise missiles were less utilised as they overwhelm Israeli defences less despite higher precision). | Install bigger payload to hit military bases, further innovate on speed and manoeuvrability, increase missile range (to fire from further east), focus on easier to launch solid-fueled systems. | Moderate to High: Without these assets, Iran is defenceless, they will be the priority despite risks of further strikes and Western concerns. |
| Military-industrial complex | Important losses: Although difficult to assess, many production sites were hit and the supply chain of key military assets like missiles or drones needs reconstruction. | Create underground production lines with protected supply chains. Massive orders of materials from Chinese suppliers. Redirect existing industrial capacity. | Moderate: This will take time, but Iran can rebuild its domestic capabilities and find better ways to protect them. Yet, a Russia-like move to military-industrialisation is unworkable due to the nature of air wars, the economy and no precedent. |
| Nuclear breakout | Growing possibility: Surviving Highly-Enriched Uranium could easily be weaponised. | Both North Korea and Pakistan represent models to follow. | Very Low: Iran’s Supreme Leader would need to change and a whack-a-mole game with Israel is to be expected. Having a few nukes also does not ensure nuclear deterrence (i.e. MAD) due to Israel’s larger arsenal and better air defences. |
1 The pagers attack on Hezbollah and assassination of Ismail Haniyeh further gave hints to security officials, with slain IRGC Aerospace Commander Amirali Hajizadeh warning that anyone holding a phone was feeding information to Israelis. Yet, no countermeasure was taken on a large scale until the war when phones were banned for officials and their security personnel – with these restrictions ignored and quickly removed as they led to a breakdown in communications. Domestic pagers exist but are not widely in use.
Israelis will also further adapt their defensive and offensive capabilities, soon adopting the Iron Beam which uses lasers to cheaply and accurately intercept missiles and drones. For this war, Israeli fighter jets, helicopters, and the country’s multi-layered defence systems did a great job at respectively intercepting Iranian drones and missiles.
However, early reports point to a high level of triage to save up on dwindling air defence missiles and similar to Iran, much remains to be determined regarding damage caused to military sites.
While damage there is likely to be small due to bases’ low density and Iranian missiles’ relatively low payload, the fact remains that Iranian mix-and-match tactics continued to test Israeli defences.
Depleted domestic air defence missiles also makes Israel more wary of hitting Iran again and will increase reliance on U.S. and European-made systems in the short to medium term.
Takeaways
The war ended suddenly, with each side claiming victory and leaving an equivocal stalemate that has left neither side unscathed and opens the way for future conflict.
While Iran can impose severe economic and psychological pain to Israel, the latter can at any time interfere in any of its affairs - whether military, nuclear or political - thanks to a supreme airforce and extensive intelligence.
Israel did not cripple Iran and can still be reached by Iranian missiles, but it can rest assured of its military superiority. In contrast, Iranian generals need to think hard about not only rebuilding stocks but also new deterrence that requires outside help. Pakistan’s reliance on Chinese military procurement is seen as the new model but Beijing is not yet willing to go down this route with Iran. Moreover, political will in Tehran to reform the military, make it resilient to infiltration, and provide it with adequate funding remains to be demonstrated.
Israel may increasingly favour covert operations inside Iran, relying on its domestic assets to weaken Tehran from within while avoiding full-scale retaliation.