If President Trump decides to send American bombers to help Israel destroy an underground uranium enrichment facility in Iran, it will likely kick off a more dangerous phase in the war.
And if the United States assassinates Iran’s supreme leader, as Mr. Trump hinted was possible, there are no guarantees he will be replaced by a friendlier leader.
Iran’s autocratic clerical leadership, which has ruled for nearly half a century since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, has proved its staying power, even in the face of multiple domestic uprisings. Demolishing Fordo, the enrichment site buried deep in a mountain, may not obliterate Iran’s nuclear program and could lead the country to broaden the war or accelerate that program.
Here are some ways it could play out if the United States enters the war.
Iran could negotiate
Before Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear program and other targets last week, Iran and the United States were discussing limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment program. It was rapidly producing fuel close to the levels needed for nuclear weapons, and in exchange for new limits on the program, Iran would win relief from economic sanctions.
The two sides were nowhere near a final agreement, but signs of a possible compromise had emerged by early June. When Israel attacked Iran, the negotiations collapsed.
Yet Iran has signaled that it remains willing to talk, and even a strike on Fordo would not necessarily wipe out prospects of a return to the negotiating table.
If the Trump administration follows an attack on Iran with an enticing offer, such as large-scale sanctions relief or peace guarantees, there is still a chance that Iran would consider making concessions, said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
“Is there an offer on the table that the Iranian people in this moment can actually rally around?” he said. “If it’s only a stick, then they’re going to fight.”
So far, Mr. Trump has not extended many carrots.
He called in a social media post on Tuesday for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
Iran may lean into nuclear activity
All eyes are on Fordo. But it is possible that Iran has secret nuclear sites aimed at producing weapons that the United States and Israel do not know about, though no public evidence has emerged of such places.
If they do exist, Iran could use whatever it has left to try to accelerate its nuclear program in the wake an American attack.
With the damage Israeli airstrikes have done to nuclear facilities and the killings of top nuclear scientists, Iran probably lacks the capacity to build a nuclear weapon quickly, analysts said. Still, it could move in that direction and would have fresh incentive to do so.
“You would begin to see that broader escalation that they’ve held back on,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House. After all, Iran would have few other options left for deterring future attacks, she added.
Iran’s Parliament has publicly discussed a withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The treaty, of which Israel is not a signatory, currently requires Iran to submit to oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency and other transparency obligations and to commit to not building a nuclear bomb.
So far, the government has reiterated its longstanding insistence that Iran’s nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes. But Iran has firmly refused to capitulate to a central American demand that it give up uranium enrichment, saying it has the right to a civilian nuclear program.
The war could get bigger and messier
Over the past week, Iran has avoided striking American troops or other targets that could pull the United States into the war.
Its leaders may still be hoping to make a deal with the Trump administration to end the conflict and wary of taking on the U.S. military on top of Israel’s.
Though Iran has responded to Israeli attacks with missiles and threats of its own, it has refrained from hitting American troops or bases in the Middle East. It has also not struck Arab countries allied with the United States, such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
Nor has it sent global oil prices soaring by sealing off or harassing traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping channel to Iran’s south. But at least one Iranian official has warned that Iran could do so if the United States enters the war.
And Iran’s allied militias in the region, including the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and armed groups in Iraq, have not joined the fight. Many of them have been seriously weakened over the past two years.
But those Iranian allies could still join the fray if the Trump administration decides to strike.
If the United States tries to force Iran to capitulate, “Iran will keep hitting until the end of the missile capabilities,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Talk of regime change
Mr. Trump said on social media this week that the United States is weighing whether to kill Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but had decided “not for now.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a Fox News interview this week that changing Iran’s regime “could certainly be the result” of this war.
Even if the United States assassinates Mr. Khamenei, however, the religious-military establishment that has tightly held power in Iran for nearly five decades may not fall.
With a war raging, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful branch of Iran’s military, could seize control of the country, said Mr. Nasr, the professor.
They might put in place a more Western-friendly government, or, more likely, replace Mr. Khamenei with a more extreme figure who would dig in for a long fight, Mr. Nasr added.
If the military does not assert itself quickly, some analysts fear that Iran could plunge into chaos or civil war as different factions struggle for control.
But they see little chance for Iran’s liberal opposition, which has been weakened and brutally repressed by the regime, to prevail.
Iran’s people could rise up again
Mr. Netanyahu encouraged the Iranian people last week to capitalize on Israel’s attacks on their government and “rise up” against their “evil and oppressive regime.”
Iranians have staged mass protests against clerical rule several times in recent history, most recently with the “Women, Life, Freedom” demonstrations of late 2022. Each time, the opposition has faced a harsh crackdown by government security forces.
Some Iranians so despise the clerical leaders that they have at times looked to Israel as an ally and openly hoped for the United States to install new leadership.
Some Iranian opponents of the regime cheered Israel’s initial attacks on Iran, which they saw as more evidence of their government’s incompetence and mismanagement. But the growing death toll, the attacks on civilian infrastructure and the panic gripping Iranian cities are hardening many in the country against Israel.
Iranian social media platforms have been full of patriotic posts in recent days, expressing unity against foreign intervention, if not exactly support for the regime.
Leily Nikounazar and Parin Behrooz contributed reporting.
Vivian Yee is a Times reporter covering North Africa and the broader Middle East. She is based in Cairo.
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