Eurasia Press & News
The Israeli attacks against the Iranian military command system and defensive and offensive capabilities put the coming developments in the context of a set of trends and paths that can be formulated based on the overall events in the region and Iran’s proxies since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip. Also, based on the size of the strikes themselves, which do not appear to have come as a passing event or just a pressure paper on Iran, but mainly aimed at consolidating the regional landscape and engineering of the post-war.
On the morning of June 13, 2025, Israel launched a military operation against Iranian capabilities, which included a series of strikes against the Iranian leadership and military system, which came within several waves that are still ongoing, and led to the killing of a number of Revolutionary Guard commanders and nuclear scientists, and the destruction of military and nuclear facilities, including the Natanz facility. In fact, the operation launched a new round of escalation between Israel and Iran, different from previous rounds of escalation between the two parties, whether in objectives, strategies and tactics, or in describing them as a round of escalation or an integrated “war”, as a link in a long series of secret war between Israel and Iran over at least two decades, and an advanced episode of confrontations between the two parties since October 7, 2023. This raises questions about the developments of the coming days, which put the scene in front of three tracks related mainly to the nature of the Israeli attacks and their purpose and the methods of the escalating Iranian response to them.
Military operation against Iranian capabilities
Israel carried out a series of military strikes against Iran’s military command system, nuclear facilities, and several other targets. During the first wave of attacks, Israel killed a number of members of the military’s triple head: the Revolutionary Guards, the General Staff, Khatam al-Anbia, including Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami, Iranian Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, Deputy Chairman of the General Authority of the Armed Forces Ghulam Rashid, and a number of other senior air force commanders, including Air-Station Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh, UAV commander Taherpour, and Chief of Air Defense Daoud Sheikhan. In addition to Ali Shamkhani, Supreme Advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In addition to the assassination of nine nuclear scientists, including former head of the Atomic Energy Commission Fereydoun Abbasi and nuclear scientist Mehdi Tehranji. In addition to the destruction of military facilities, including the Natanz nuclear facility, and Tabriz airport. These strikes later evolved into civilian targets and some energy facilities, apparently closer to tactical targeting of strategic targeting.
Operationally, the Israeli attacks are a continuation of a continuous series of direct strikes by targeting Quds Force commanders responsible for directing Iran’s operations abroad, especially in Syria and Lebanon, and Iran’s military infrastructure in the two countries, or indirectly through the compound targeting of Iran’s arms in the region: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as Syria itself before the fall of the regime. These strikes also came in light of the continuation of the negotiating track between Iran and the United States on the Iranian nuclear program, and after the end of the deadline granted by US President Donald Trump to Iran to agree to the US terms of the agreement, which is sixty days.
Similarly, the operation reveals the extent of Israel’s infiltration of Iran, similar to the one that has previously killed Hezbollah’s leaders and military capabilities. The military operation included complex and complex activities, including the presence of Israeli intelligence agents on Iranian territory, and the implementation of military activities, including the smuggling of advanced weapons into Iran used in the destruction of air defense batteries, and in the implementation of assassinations against army commanders and nuclear scientists, and cyber attacks that led to the disruption of many air defense systems and radar network, in addition to the role played by about 200 Israeli aircraft targeted during the first wave about 100 targets, according to Israeli army data, including strategic military facilities, which is reminiscent of what was pointed out by former Iranian President Ahmadinejad in June 2021 that “the head of the secret unit tasked with tracking Israeli Mossad agents inside Iran, was himself a Mossad agent, and that the person in question was not moving alone, but was coordinating work with about 20 other elements within the same unit, all of whom work for the Israeli Mossad.”
In fact, the above indicates that the Israeli strike was not only designed to destroy specific targets of different extents of those targets, as the operation is still ongoing, but it also came to ensure that Iran is deprived of the ability to respond, as it put the decision-making institutions in a state of shock, and in a defensive position in an attempt to reduce the impact of the attacks that have already occurred or are already coming, in addition to the destruction of ballistic and hypersonic missile platforms that were previously prepared to respond quickly to any Israeli attack, which puts the Israeli moves in front of a set of tracks that may reach their goal of overthrowing the regime
Iran’s Response and Rapid Out of Shock
The Iranian response in this escalatory round showed many differences from the previous responses, as it showed a coherent speech on the first day of the Israeli strikes despite the intensity of those strikes and the losses and destruction they caused, and new appointments were announced for the senior military commanders who were liquidated, at the same time that the series of Iranian military responses began to be graded from the bottom to the top, or from the least to the most momentum, to the use of new weapons for the first time, such as the advanced Arsh suicide marches with a range of 2000 km, and hypersonic missiles that exceed five times the speed of sound, unlike the Israeli attacks that began from the top to the bottom, or from the most momentum to the least.
In parallel with all this, there are many Iranian internal data and regional and international variables that cast a shadow over the war, foremost of which, at the internal levels of Iran, the consolidation of the idea of (martyrdom and martyrs) in the Shiite religious doctrine among the general Iranian people, as in the military doctrine of the security forces, the army and the Revolutionary Guards, in addition to the ability inspired by history to be patient and endurance of suffering and the length of the soul, as happened during eight years of the Iranian-Iraqi war, which constitutes a great “objective equivalent” in the face of the loss of senior leaders, at the same time as it increases the Iranian ability to mobilize leadership vacuums quickly and new generations believe in the same faith.
As for the military leaders, as for the physicists and experts of the nuclear program, despite the great loss of cumulative experience resulting from their assassination, there are other important “objective equations”, on top of which is that the development research has been achieved has become a reality and can be built on the one hand, and the presence of a large number of scientists and experts capable of resuming such research on the other hand, in light of the readiness of some countries to provide assistance to Iran in this area, especially on the part of North Korea directly, China, Russia and even Pakistan, indirectly.
At the domestic level, the fact that the whole world was waiting for the Israeli strikes on Iran and expected it, and at the heart of that world Iran itself, and therefore it was natural that Iran take all measures that raise its readiness for those strikes, foremost of which is the transfer of all important assets and the change of their places, which contributes to reducing Iranian losses to a large extent, and the lack of departure of strategic facilities from service, which was pointed out by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in his interview with Channel 12 at the end of December 2024 that “Israel does not have the ability to carry out a surgical air attack in order to postpone Iran’s arrival to nuclear for more than two months.”
At the level of regional and international variables, it is clear that Iran is engaged in an existential battle after the harsh strikes it received from Israel after October 7, 2023, directly or indirectly, and the collapse of its axis in the Middle East, which raises the level of its readiness to fight the confrontation as a fateful or decisive confrontation, at the same time as the positions of the countries of the region and the world are changing rapidly towards this confrontation.
At the regional level, the rejection of the Arab countries active in the war, and fear of its repercussions, especially from the Gulf countries, and shows the position of Pakistan expressed by its Minister of Defense on June 14, 2025, which confirmed his country’s stand with Iran with all its strength, and its call for the Islamic world to confront Israel, in addition to the Turkish fear of extending the confrontation coming to it in the event of the defeat of Iran.
At the international level, the overlaps of the Russian, Chinese and North Korean roles with the Iranian situation economically, politically and technologically cannot be ignored, even if they do not reach the degree of direct military support for Iran, in addition to the “decline” in the intensity of the American positions after the first day of the confrontation, perhaps by virtue of the unexpected ceiling reached by the Iranian responses to the Israeli attacks, or by virtue of the failure of the betting to force Iran to return to the negotiating table with the United States after receiving these strikes, as promoted by the Israeli Prime Minister
The Tracks of the Israeli Military Operation
The Israeli attacks against the Iranian military command system and the defensive and offensive capabilities put the coming developments in the midst of a set of directions and paths, which can be formulated in view of the overall events witnessed by the region and Iran’s proxies since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, and the size of the strikes themselves, which do not seem to have come as a passing event or just a pressure card on Iran, but mainly aimed at consolidating the regional scene and engineering of the post-war, and this puts it in front of a set of tracks that lead to the completion of one of them towards starting with the other, as follows:
The first track: Continued pressure to urge Tehran to make strategic concessions
In fact, the tracks of the pre-2015 Iran-U.S. negotiations coincided with pressure on Iran to make certain concessions, and those pressures continued even after the US withdrew from the 2018 Joint Labor Agreement, which was followed by the imposition of a policy of “maximum pressure”, which was based on the escalation and exacerbation of economic crises in Iran. But after the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel exerted military pressure on Iran either directly or by pressure on its allies, to which the United States indirectly joined by integrating targets through Israel’s maximum military pressure to engineer the results of that pressure politically. It is possible that the strategic Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear, air and military targets, and its quest to paralyze the Iranian defense and offensive system, will push it to make fundamental and strategic concessions in its military and nuclear doctrine, in this case; the results may be translated when going to the next round of Iranian-American talks in isolation from being postponed until another date, and is more responsive to US demands to completely stop uranium enrichment, and in fact led – before – Israeli military strikes against Hezbollah’s command and military system to push it to compromise and accept the ceasefire agreement signed on November 27, 2024, during which the party accepted to separate its project from the broader Iranian project “Unity of Arenas” and abandon its military infrastructure stationed from the border to the Litani River.
However, Iran seeks to block the Israeli path, as the difference in the centrality of the Israeli “home front” as a direct war zone in the recent Iranian responses, most of which focused on the “Greater Tel Aviv” center area, which is inhabited by more than half of Israel’s population, and this did not happen in Israel’s previous wars, where the arenas of confrontation relied on “external fronts,” and raises questions about Israel’s ability to withstand a long period of continuous Iranian strikes. This advantage is Iran’s advantage with its vast resilience and strategic losses in its assets and the ranks of its leaders.
On the other hand, Israel may not have integrated capabilities to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, as much as it will work to obstruct them and delay the resumption of uranium enrichment for several months, while the process of complete destruction of nuclear facilities requires direct American involvement in the operations, which has not yet been shown
Track Two: Going towards the Total Destruction of Iran’s Military and Nuclear Capabilities
In fact, the scale of the attack and the targeting of the country’s military leadership, and a number of political leaders within the institution of the Supreme Leader, indicate that Israel is going to repeat its attacks in Syria after the fall of the regime, during which it eliminated about 80% of the Syrian air, land and naval military capabilities, and this means that the Israeli attacks will continue until the destruction of Iranian military capabilities in full or sufficient to prevent Tehran from posing any current or future threat, including the destruction of its nuclear program completely. It seems that recent events and developments are moving in this direction, as the paralysis within the system, the state of shock, the destruction of air defenses and the openness of Iranian airspace to Israeli military aviation, gives way to achieving these goals and resolving the scene against Iran in full, and it is clear that the events are heading towards this path, and this requires monitoring and follow-up of the scope of the upcoming Israeli strikes, which are supposed to target the remaining nuclear facilities, especially the Frodo uranium enrichment facility, after the first wave targeted the Natanz nuclear facility, along with the sites of manufacturing and storage of ballistic missiles above ground and below ground. The United States may join at this stage the strikes because it has more destructive capabilities, especially since it has prepared for it in advance with its fleet of strategic bombers of a type. B-52 AndB2 It is centered in the area and on the island of Diego Garcia.
On the other hand, Iran has revealed in the past few days impressive military capabilities in a way that may have significant repercussions on Israel, especially if it targets an Israeli security, political or economic strategic structure, especially since it used in its attacks on the night of June 15, hypersonic missiles with a large explosive capacity, which led to unprecedented scenes of destruction in the Bat area of Tel Aviv, and if such weapons are used against economic assets or major military and air bases, this may lead to having part of the initiative in the ongoing escalation, and the balance of the initial Israeli superiority, which will be reflected in the form of the decline of Israeli targets and return to the primacy of the negotiating track.
The third track: Going towards creating a vast vacuum that leads to regime change
The destruction of Iran’s entire offensive and defensive military capabilities may provide an opportunity for Israel to seek regime change. This path is very complex, complex, and sensitive. On the one hand, the Iranian regime has already lost its nationalist pillars on which it has been based for decades. Since the outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023, the Israeli strikes against Iran and its proxies have undermined the Iranian nationalist narrative, which has long been a material to feed the orientations of the Iranian leader and the militants around him. In the event that military and nuclear assets are completely damaged during the current attack, as the second track indicates, this means that the regime’s ability to thwart any popular attempt to overthrow it and replace it with the leadership of moderates is very limited, especially since it has previously suffered in putting down the demonstrations that sparked after the killing of activist Emisa in 2022. But it remains unlikely that the people will act against their regime in a state of war.
However, the success of this path is linked to widespread complications, leaving Iran in a state of security and military vacuum, until the strikes and rely on the response of the Iranian people to the situation by acting against the regime, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already sent a message to the Iranian people demanding action to change the regime. But it could take months and maybe years, and it might not happen at all, as Iran has a history and a position that prevents it from going toward regime change with Israeli engineering, and no movement can obtain national legitimacy to do so.
The second possibility is by repeating the experience of the United States in overthrowing the Taliban rule in 2001, when it supported the movement of the armed opposition, and in the case of Iran, the movement of the armed opposition may begin to control the border crossings, especially as they are stationed in the border areas, and then begin to gradually encircle the country to the capital Tehran, but what remains unlikely is that the armed opposition is mostly composed of minorities and may not be welcomed by the Iranian people, which may serve from the momentum of its move quickly.
The overthrow of the regime in Iran can repeat the Iraqi model in 2003, through the entry of US and Israeli ground forces into Iranian territory, to control the capital Tehran, and then contribute to the establishment of an alternative political system of opposition forces at home and abroad, and this option is considered unlikely, traditional wars in this pattern are no longer popularly acceptable in the United States or desirable among its political elites, where Washington has become focused on indirect involvement in conflicts, as in the case of supporting Ukraine in the face of Russia and Israel currently. In addition to the need for such a huge funding option, military forces of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, years and perhaps decades to reach a fragile state of stability, and perhaps a confrontation with armed resistance that may lead to a repeat of the experience of US forces in Afghanistan, which the Taliban returned to rule in 2021, two decades after its overthrow of the United States.
Finally, there is still the possibility that Iran will absorb the shock and change the equation, as Iran can disrupt its path by using concentrated military force as a tool to bring about a strategic shift in the Iranian doctrine, by engineering a new “negotiable environment” from a position of Iranian weakness or in dragging it into internal weakness in the face of external exposure, it is to resort to a complex strategy that allows it to move from the traditional response to creating “simultaneous battlegrounds”, so that the Yemen-Iraq front is ignited by sporadic tactical missions that affect US or Israeli military bases, or hit sensitive targets in the region in response to the use of its airspace in attacks, and to transfer the confrontation to Israel through complex attacks that include cyber operations that precede accurate bombing strikes or targeting and disrupting economic interests, or attacks from cells pre-programmed to carry out assassinations or hitting critical infrastructure, such as water and electricity networks. In addition to the possibility of expanding the escalation towards the entry of international parties on the crisis line in providing support to Iran, specifically Russia, China and North Korea, which can provide military support capable of balancing Iranian deterrence in the equation of escalation, and prolonging its capabilities to repel and respond, in a way that may push Israel to give up first in the war
