POLITICS
In the early hours of June 13, Israel launched a sweeping, carefully coordinated assault on Iran’s nuclear program. The operation began with Mossad agents striking from inside Iran, where they targeted air defense systems, missile launchers, and military command centers. That was just the beginning — soon after came waves of strikes from the air and sea. Once Israel had secured control of the skies, its air force pressed on, hitting not only nuclear and military targets, but also Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure. The official reason for the attack was Iran’s alarming progress toward building a nuclear bomb. But that alone probably wouldn’t have pushed Israel to act. What made the strike all but unavoidable was a unique convergence of factors. Iran’s proxy forces — Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis — were all in a weakened state. Meanwhile, Donald Trump had finally given up on diplomacy, convinced that Tehran was just stalling. The fallout from the strike is already reshaping the region. Iran, now signaling that it wants to de-escalate, but the shockwaves have reached even farther, upending Russia’s calculations too. Trump’s growing frustration wasn’t just with Iran — it also extended to the sputtering peace efforts in Ukraine.
The Israeli strike did not blindside Tehran alone. The idea that an operation like this might happen had been circulating for months, but most analysts thought there would be a formal trigger first. Many expected President Trump to publicly declare the nuclear talks with Iran dead before any missiles were launched. Instead, Israel struck on June 13 — just two days before the next round of U.S.-Iran talks was set to begin. Trump had reportedly told the Israelis to hold off. In the end, it looks like that was all for show — a smokescreen to hide what was already in motion.
Why now?
What made Israel choose this moment to launch its operation against Iran? First and foremost, U.S. negotiations with Iran had truly reached a dead end — even though Donald Trump never said so openly. All five rounds of talks had yielded virtually nothing. Tehran repeatedly rejected Washington’s central demand: the complete halt of uranium enrichment.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration had gradually begun walking back other demands — on Iran’s missile program, which deeply worries both Israel and Arab countries, as well as on its support for militant groups in the region. In other words, the U.S. kept making concessions, but Iran stood firm and refused even to discuss the possibility of halting enrichment.
Trump confirmed this himself after the strikes, writing on his social network Truth Social that the Iranians had stubbornly rejected every available compromise on the issue. Their unwillingness to budge made it clear Tehran was being deceptive and had no intention of abandoning its ultimate goal: acquiring nuclear weapons, which the regime sees as the key to its survival. From Israel’s perspective, diplomacy had run its course. With the 60-day window Trump had set for talks now expired, it was time to test other means.
Tehran’s willingness to compromise had always been questionable. Iran’s leadership has long been suspected of pursuing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon — not just enriching uranium, but developing delivery systems, warhead designs, detonators, and, of course, weapons-grade material.
One of the few public confirmations of this ambition came in 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Iranian officials at the time claimed Ukraine had made a serious mistake by giving up its nuclear arsenal and trusting international guarantees. Iran, it seems, has no intention of making the same mistake.
All of the nuclear negotiations Iran has conducted with Western powers appear, in hindsight, to have served this strategic goal. Tehran only ever accepted deals that placed minimal restrictions on its path forward. That was true of the 2015 agreement brokered by President Barack Obama, and Israel’s government warned at the time that such deals wouldn’t stop Iran. A few years later, Mossad stole Iran’s nuclear archive and revealed to the world that the country was still developing its military nuclear program. Trump eventually pulled the U.S. out of the deal.
The situation leading up to the current conflict looked much the same. Iran entered talks with the U.S. intending either to win favorable terms, or to drag things out for as long as possible. Trump, it seems, quickly concluded he was being strung along — and decided not to stand in Israel’s way.
A second key development, pointing both to the failure of diplomacy and to the urgency of the situation, was a resolution adopted by the IAEA on June 12. The agency accused Iran of violating its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and demanded that Tehran immediately explain the origin of uranium traces found at secret sites the regime had concealed from international inspectors.
The agency concluded that Iran had been covertly pursuing a nuclear program prior to 2003. In addition, the IAEA stated that since 2019, Iran had failed to properly cooperate with inspectors and had continued activities at numerous facilities hidden from international oversight. The resolution declared that the IAEA could no longer guarantee that Iran’s nuclear program was peaceful in nature. In effect, the agency’s findings lent official weight to Israel’s long-standing claim that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Iran refused to fully dismantle its nuclear program
Tehran responded to the resolution with open defiance. Iranian officials began talking about the possibility of withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty altogether. The regime also announced it would activate advanced centrifuges and immediately begin enriching uranium to 60 percent. All of this signaled a refusal to cooperate with international inspectors and an unwillingness to dispel doubts about the peaceful intent of its nuclear ambitions. That stance, too, spurred Israel to act.
The third major factor was Iran’s current vulnerability. The Israeli government had long been preparing an operation against Iran’s nuclear program but had held back for years out of fear of retaliation — not directly from Tehran, but from Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist organization that has been allied with Iran for decades.
Hezbollah’s massive arsenal of rockets had been the main reason for Israel’s restraint, as Israeli analysts warned that the group was ready to unleash its full firepower the moment Iran’s nuclear sites came under attack. This threat played a major role in shaping Israeli decision-making.
Eliminating Iran’s proxies
Everything changed after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, in which the Palestinian group Hamas carried out a massacre of Israeli civilians. Israel responded with Operation Iron Swords in the Gaza Strip.
The start of that campaign immediately put Hezbollah and Iran in a difficult position. Iran had viewed the Hamas attack as a kind of dress rehearsal for a future full-scale war aimed at destroying Israel. According to documents obtained by Israeli intelligence, Tehran had taken part in planning the assault, weighing several options before ultimately backing Hamas’s decision to act.
But once Israel invaded Gaza in response, Iran and its proxy forces had to decide whether to remain on the sidelines. At that point, it was agreed that Hezbollah would join the war in a limited way — enough to symbolically support Hamas but not enough to provoke Israel into launching a major retaliation on Hezbollah’s bases in Lebanon, which would use up the Shia group’s military potential on the wrong target. In the end, that calculation backfired.
After Hezbollah joined the fight and triggered the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians, Israel’s leadership decided to remove the movement from the equation. In September 2024 it carried out an operation using booby-trapped pagers and targeted strikes to eliminate the group’s leadership. Israeli troops then entered southern Lebanon to clear the area. Hezbollah’s battered forces agreed to a ceasefire and to withdraw from the border area. The group’s domestic standing in Lebanon was also weakened, leaving it unable to launch a war against Israel without first considering how the Lebanese public would react.
Then in December 2024, the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria cut off the land corridor between Iran and Lebanon while also removing another potential threat to Israel. The risk of attacks from pro-Iranian militants — such as the Zeinabiyoun and Fatemiyoun divisions previously stationed in Syria — was now eliminated. And last but not least, Hamas itself was in no position to help Iran in the event of an Israeli strike — for the obvious reason that it remained blockaded in the Gaza Strip.
Due to its exchange of strikes with Israel in October 2024, Iran had lost a significant portion of its air defenses. The regime might have been able to restore those capabilities and patch the gaps in its air shield, but on the night of June 13, its air defenses were still weakened. This created a unique window of opportunity for an Israeli military operation, and once it became clear that diplomacy would not stop Iran’s nuclear program, other methods were used.
Two steps from the bomb
A separate factor was Iran’s proximity to developing a nuclear weapon. Data from the IAEA indicated that the regime was on the verge of acquiring enough material for several warheads of the same type the United States used on Hiroshima in 1945. Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence concluded that Iran had begun active work on assembling such weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, explaining the reasoning behind the decision to launch the operation, pointed not only to Iran’s proximity to building a nuclear weapon but also to the regime’s apparent willingness to pass such weapons on to terrorist groups. From Israel’s perspective, the consequences of Iran becoming a nuclear power would be catastrophic for the entire Middle East, and te U.S., it seems, gave its unofficial approval — perhaps not with the intention of completely dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, but rather in the hope of forcing Tehran back to the negotiating table.
The initial consequences of the strikes have been significant. Iran officially confirmed the deaths of 11 senior military commanders, including Chief of the General Staff Mohammad Bagheri, IRGC commander Hossein Salami, head of special operations command Gholam-Ali Rashid, IRGC Air Force commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh, and IRGC intelligence chief Mohammad Kazemi. The leadership of Iran’s military nuclear program — officially described as “scientists,” but in reality top bureaucrats responsible for developing nuclear weapons — were also killed. Iran’s main air defense systems have been knocked out, and many of its missile launchers have been destroyed. Significant damage was inflicted on the nuclear facility in Natanz, and, according to Netanyahu, on the Isfahan reactor, as well as other parts of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
The consequences of the strike on Iran
Iran has launched retaliatory strikes, which so far have claimed the lives only of civilians — not just Israelis, but also an entire Ukrainian family of five. In addition, Tehran has threatened to attack any country that supports Israel.
Aftermath of an Iranian missile strike in Rishon LeZion
At the same time, Jordan and Syria are shooting down Iranian drones over their own territory, while the U.S. is helping intercept Iranian missiles. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addressed the nation but did not show his face, limiting himself to an audio recording. Given that Israel theoretically does not rule out targeting the ayatollah personally, he may fear for his life.
Putin, caught in the crossfire
It also appears that the Israeli strike has disrupted the plans of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He quickly called Prime Minister Netanyahu to condemn the war and spent nearly 50 minutes discussing Iran with Trump.
This operation made one thing clear: for all his talk about avoiding war, Trump is perfectly willing to back his allies — and to keep their secrets, too, assuming he was even in the loop. Trump does not seem afraid of escalation; on the contrary, he’s now promising that Israel will never run short of weapons.
This pattern could have implications for the war in Ukraine. If Trump were to decide he’s done wasting time trying to drag Putin to the negotiating table, he could also open the floodgates and send Ukraine a wave of next-generation weapons. After all, Trump warned Iran that if they rejected his deal, they’d have only themselves to blame. And when Tehran refused to cooperate, Trump followed through. The American president has already made some biting remarks about Putin, and in light of the Israeli strikes, these comments now seem to carry a different weight.
What comes next?
On June 15, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi delivered a long and carefully worded statement. A few key messages stood out. First, Iran says it is willing to stop fighting provided Israel does the same. Second, Araghchi said Tehran is ready to sign a deal that would guarantee Iran remains free of nuclear weapons. Yet he’s holding firm on Iran’s supposed right to pursue “peaceful” nuclear technology — in other words, Tehran continues to refuse to stop enriching uranium.
Even so, it’s clear the Israeli strike hit a nerve. The regime in Tehran is shaken, and now it is actively looking for a way out. That means there's at least a theoretical chance the fighting could stop soon. But most likely, the operation won’t end until Israel is confident that Iran’s nuclear program won’t be a threat — or, at least, that it will not be a threat for at least the next few years.