Even for news hounds, keeping track of the fast-moving U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict in the last two weeks has been a big challenge, never mind making sense of it.
Still, one moment stands out as a potential key for understanding what is playing out among the three countries. On Monday, after U.S. B-2 bombers dropped bunker-busting munitions on Iran’s nuclear enrichment infrastructure over the weekend, President Donald Trump declared that the United States had achieved the “[o]bliteration” of the sites and taunted Iran for its “very weak” reprisal attack against a U.S. air base in Qatar.
Analysts have widely understood Iran’s retaliatory attack as a way to show its domestic audience that despite being pummeled for days by Israel, and then by a 30,000-pound weapon unique to the U.S. arsenal, the Islamic Republic was still able to fight back.
But Iran clearly had another audience in mind as well, and the message for it couldn’t be more different. As U.S. officials acknowledged, Iran deliberately signaled its attack in advance. By giving early warning and thus preventing U.S. casualties, Tehran was effectively saying that it was eager to end this phase of an immensely costly conflict.
Trump’s comments about Iran’s counterattack reveal Washington’s own need to save face in the wake of the first stage of what promises to be a complex and protracted series of moves by the three parties to this conflict. Indeed, his triumphalism over what he has grandiosely called the “12-Day War” seems as directed at a U.S. domestic audience—and as empty—as Iran’s rhetoric about its “powerful and devastating” attack on the base in Qatar.
Although Trump claims that the U.S. strikes “completely and totally” destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities—including one deep within a mountain at Fordow—the reality likely offers far less to boast about. Preliminary U.S. intelligence estimates have reportedly suggested that the U.S. attack only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months.
Given all the talk about Washington’s possible entry into the war prior to the weekend strikes, it would be surprising if Iran did not relocate much of its stock of highly enriched uranium or find a way to conserve some of its advanced centrifuges. Meanwhile, despite the demonstrated prowess of Israel’s intelligence and military in killing some of Iran’s top nuclear scientists, it is highly unlikely that the know-how necessary to resuscitate Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts has been entirely eliminated.
Where does this leave things? At a minimum, from the U.S. and Israeli perspectives, nothing definitive has been achieved. In fact, one may look back on the events of this month in the years ahead and conclude that this brought the opposite of progress.
For one, in the wake of Israeli and U.S. attacks, it is becoming harder than ever to imagine that Iran will choose to abandon all nuclear ambitions.
This is not merely because Iran is a theocracy long at odds with the West. Iran’s efforts to master nuclear technologies date to the 1970s, a time when the country was still a darling of the West, led by a shah whom the United States had effectively installed. Already, Iran had concluded that its sheer size, wealth in oil, and need for self-defense in one of the world’s toughest neighborhoods necessitated nuclear armament.
Another important incentive was that by the late 1960s, Israel had acquired a nuclear arsenal of its own. If Iran could reach such conclusions in an era when it did not even consider Israel an enemy, the incentive stands to be all the greater now, even if there is sudden or eventual regime change in Tehran.
Meanwhile, the United States, Israel, and the broader West have likely lost a considerable advantage as a result of an inconclusive attack: international inspectors’ ability to access Iran’s nuclear sites. Previous negotiated arrangements, which sought to prevent Iran from enriching its uranium stock to the 90 percent purity required for nuclear weapons, may have been imperfect, but at least they offered the West a chance to better evaluate the country’s nuclear program.
These factors raise the possibility that even though Iran has been greatly weakened by the recent attacks, it will pursue the development of its uranium enrichment program in secret and do so self-righteously, as a matter of what it may perceive as national survival.
There are yet more losses in this lamentable tableau. Far from a resounding demonstration of its competence, the United States has lost credibility on the global stage. Just think of Trump’s ruses in the lead-up to the U.S. attack, especially his invocation last Thursday of a two-week period of deliberation—and, implicitly, negotiation—before any decision to strike Iran.
Think of Trump’s wild rhetoric of recent days, hardly befitting the leader of a rules-based international order. Think of the neck-snapping inconsistencies between his words and those of his principal deputies—such as Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—on the question of whether the United States is pursuing regime change in Tehran, the fate of Iran’s stockpile of uranium, and the relevance of U.S. intelligence on the decision to strike the country.
While U.S. commentators speak of Iran as a dangerous “rogue state” led by “butchers,” much of the world looks on agog at the language and comportment of the United States and its unbridled president.
Finally, consider the cost to U.S. democracy when the country launches itself into a war of opportunity without the congressional authorization required by law, without debate, and—for days afterward—without even classified briefings to U.S. lawmakers.
It is true that U.S. presidents have been making a habit of flouting the authorization requirement for decades, but with each new conflict entered this way, the country registers a further decline in its democratic culture and institutions. That’s what happens when war becomes a national reflex—and when rushing to declare success takes precedence over thinking about the consequences down the road.
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