The full-scale Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure on Friday needs to be added to the list of pivotal, game-changing wars that have reshaped the Middle East since World War II and are known by just their dates — 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2023 — and now 2025.
It is far too early, and the possible outcomes so multifold, to say how the Middle East game of nations will be changed by the Israel-Iran conflict of 2025. All I would say now is that the extreme upside possibility — that this puts in motion a set of falling dominoes, ending with the toppling of the Iranian regime and its replacement by a more decent, secular and consensual one — and the extreme downside possibility that it sets the whole region on fire and sucks in the United States are both on the table.
Between these extremes still lies a middle-ground possibility — a negotiated solution — but not for long. President Trump has deftly used the Israeli attack to, in effect, say to the Iranians: “I am still ready to negotiate a peaceful end to your nuclear program and you might want to go there fast — because my friend Bibi is C-R-A-Z-Y. I am waiting for your call.”
Given this wide range of possibilities, the best thing that I can offer to those watching at home are the key variables that I will be tracking to determine which of these — or some other I can’t anticipate — is the most likely outcome.
First: What makes this Iran-Israel conflict so profound is Israel’s vow to continue the fight this time until it eliminates Iran’s nuclear weapon-making capability — one way or another.
Iran invited that, vastly accelerating its enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade. It had begun aggressively disguising those efforts to such a new degree that even the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Thursday that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations, the first time the agency has declared that in 20 years. Israel has cocked its gun and aimed at the Iranian nuclear program several times in the past 15 years, but each time either under U.S. pressure or doubts by its own military, it stood down at the last minute — which is why it is impossible to exaggerate what is happening today.
Second: The big technical question I have is whether Israel’s bombing of Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities, like Natanz, which is buried deep underground, induced sufficient concussive shock to the centrifuges used to enrich uranium — and overcome their shock absorbers — to make them inoperable at least for a while. If nothing else, one has to assume that the Israeli strike most likely bombed the entries to underground facilities to slow down their work. The Israeli Army spokesman said Israel inflicted significant damage to Natanz, Iran’s biggest enrichment facility, but it’s less clear how Fordow, another enrichment facility, might have been affected, if at all.
If Israel succeeds in damaging the Iranian nuclear project enough to force at least a temporary halt to its enrichment operations, that would certainly be a significant military gain for Israel, justifying the operation.
Third: What actually interests me just as much is the impact this conflict could have on the region — particularly Iran’s longstanding, malign influence over Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, where Tehran nurtured and armed local militias to indirectly control those countries and ensure that they never moved toward pro-Western consensual governments.
Removing the dead hand of Iran from the neck of these regimes, which began with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to decapitate and cripple Iran’s Hezbollah militia, has already paid dividends in Lebanon and Syria, where new, pluralistic leaders have taken power. Alas, they are both still in a frail state, but they have hope — in Iraq as well — that did not exist before. And their escape from Iran’s sphere of influence has been broadly popular among their people.
Fourth: One of the things that has always struck me about Netanyahu is his strategic acumen as a player in the regional theater and his strategic incompetence as a local player vis-à-vis the Palestinians. It is because as a regional player his mind is for the most part unencumbered by ideological and political constraints. But as a local player in Gaza, for instance, his decision-making is not just influenced by, but dominated by, his personal political survival needs, his ideological commitment to preventing a Palestinian state under any condition and his dependence on the crazy right in Israel to stay in power. He has therefore mired the Israeli Army in the quicksand of Gaza — a moral, economic and strategic disaster — with no plan for how to get out.
Fifth: If you are asking yourself how this conflict might affect your retirement investments, the thing to watch most closely is whether Iran tries to destabilize the Trump administration by taking actions to deliberately drive the price of oil into the stratosphere — and create inflation in the West. For instance, Iran could sink a couple of oil or gas tankers in the Strait of Hormuz or fill it with sea mines, effectively blockading oil and gas exports. Just that prospect is already pushing up oil prices.
Sixth: How is Israeli intelligence on Iran so good that it pinpointed the locations of and killed its two top military leaders, not to mention a number of other senior officers? Of course, the Mossad and the Israeli NSA cybercommand, Unit 8200, are very good at what they do. But if you want to know their real secret, watch the streaming series “Tehran” on Apple TV+. It fictionalizes the work of an Israeli Mossad agent in Tehran. What you learn from that series, which is also true in real life, is how many Iranian officials are ready to work for Israel because of how much they hate their own government. This clearly makes it relatively easy for Israel to recruit agents in the Iranian government and military at the highest levels.
This reality not only pays first-order dividends like the precise targeting manifested in Friday’s strike but also produces a second-order advantage for Israel: Every time Iran’s military and political leaders gather to plan operations against Israel, each one has to ask himself if the person sitting next to him is an Israeli agent. That really slows down planning and innovation.
Add to this the fact that Iran’s supreme leader just saw his two top generals assassinated — the chief of staff of the armed forces and the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards. He surely realizes that Israel could eliminate him. One has to assume, therefore, he is hiding deep in a bunker somewhere, which also has to slow down decision-making.
Seventh: If Israel fails in this endeavor — and by failure I mean this Iranian regime is wounded but is still able to reconstitute its ability to build a nuclear weapon and try to control Arab capitals — it could mean a war of attrition between the two most powerful militaries in the region. This would make the region even more unstable than ever, spiking oil crises and possibly prompting Iran to lash out and attack pro-America Arab regimes and U.S. forces in the area. That would leave the Trump administration no choice but to jump in, probably with the goal of not just ending that war but ending this Iranian regime. Then who knows what would happen.
Last, unlike in Gaza, Israel has gone out of its way to avoid killing large numbers of Iranian citizens, because ultimately Israel wants them to take out their rage on their regime for squandering so many resources building a nuclear weapon — and not on Israel.
Speaking in English in a video shortly after the attack, Netanyahu addressed the Iranian people directly: “We do not hate you. You are not our enemies. We have a common enemy: a tyrannical regime that tramples you. For nearly 50 years, this regime has robbed you of the chance for a good life.”
Iranians are not going to be inspired by Netanyahu, but there should be no doubt that this was already an unpopular regime and you can’t predict what might happen now that it has been militarily humiliated by Israel. It was only three years ago that Iran’s clerical regime arrested over 20,000 people and killed over 500, including some who were executed, in an effort to stamp out a popular uprising that exploded after the regime’s “morality police” detained a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, because she had not fully covered her hair underneath a compulsory veil. She died in custody.
Looking forward, the two most important lessons one can derive from history are: Regimes like Iran’s look strong, until they don’t — so they can go quickly. And in the Middle East, the opposite of autocracy is not necessarily democracy. It can also be prolonged disorder. So as much as I would like to see this government be toppled, beware of the falling pillars.
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Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Opinion columnist. He joined the paper in 1981 and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won the National Book Award. @tomfriedman • Facebook
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