Iran’s nuclear weapons programme has been decades in the making. So has Israel’s resolve to neutralise it, by military strikes if necessary. Until the early hours of June 13, 2025, the international community still lulled itself in the belief that sanctions and diplomacy could avoid both scenarios – a nuclear-armed Iran or an Israeli pre-emptive attack. In fact, neither sanctions nor diplomacy stopped Iran.
When US President Donald Trump entered direct negotiations with Iran last April, diplomacy had little time to avoid a showdown. Iran had all the building blocks in place for a nuclear weapon. That’s why President Trump stipulated a two-month window to reach a deal that could avert kinetic action. Iran assumed it could indefinitely procrastinate and manipulate American negotiators into making concessions that could leave Iran’s capabilities intact.
A few hours after Trump’s ultimatum expired, Israel launched a devastating pre-emptive attack, likely on the heels of actionable intelligence: Iran was nearing the point of no return. US forces have stood by. Trump has already voiced robust support for Israel’s actions and satisfaction at the initial outcome of Israel’s operation. If Iran now miscalculates by attacking American forces in the region, it will bring the full might of the US Air Force on itself.
Even without the US by its side, Israel’s opening salvo has been devastating and has exposed Iran’s vulnerability to Israel’s military and intelligence ingenuity. Its first wave of attacks came from drones Israel smuggled inside Iran alongside its operators – a remarkable feat that evokes uncanny parallels with Ukraine’s recent, brilliant drone strikes against Russia’s fleet of strategic bombers.
Israel has largely neutralised Iran’s air defences and ballistic missile launchers. It has also decapitated Iran’s military high command and eliminated key nuclear scientists. Tehran’s leadership is in disarray and likely in fear of both traitors in its midst and a restive population that, sensing weakness within the regime, may rise against it.
Israel’s campaign is far from over, and it will take longer to assess the extent of its damage. Much can go wrong – Israel could lose aircraft and pilots or fail to destroy critical facilities more hardened than the initial targets. Leaving those standing may allow Iran to reconstitute its programme, while using Israel’s attacks as a pretext to make a dash for the bomb. Iran’s retaliation may yet penetrate Israel’s defences. Iran could also unleash terrorism against soft targets in the West.
Despite uncertainties ahead, Iran has clearly miscalculated and overplayed its hand, not only with Trump but, more significantly, in the region. Its biggest blunder, perhaps, was to gamble its extraordinary defensive assets long before it needed them to shield its nuclear programme from Israel’s preemption.
Lacking a border with Israel and with inferior long-range capabilities to inflict a decisive blow on its adversary, Iran has traditionally relied on its proxies to deter Jerusalem, first and foremost Hezbollah, the jewel in the crown of Iran’s regional defence architecture. Hezbollah, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, and Hamas, were all tools of Iranian dissuasion – meant to raise Israel’s costs to unbearable levels if it dared attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Yet, on October 7, 2023, Iran unleashed its proxies against Israel, while its race to a nuclear bomb was still incomplete. It was Iran’s hubristic ambition to destroy Israel and subjugate the region that triggered that conflict. Israel was expected to be overrun by the combined onslaught of Iran’s proxies.
Instead, the opposite happened. In 20 months of fighting, Israel degraded Hamas, decimated Hezbollah, penetrated Iran’s air defences, left Iran exposed and vulnerable to strikes, and finally facilitated the collapse of Iran’s proxy regime in Syria.
Iran’s ring of proxies, particularly Hezbollah and Syria, were meant not only to encircle Israel but also to shield Iran’s nuclear programme, aiming to deter Israel from ever attacking. With its protective shield degraded, Iran found itself in a catch-22 situation. By dashing to the bomb, it could reconstitute its lost deterrence and use a nuclear umbrella to reconstitute its outer ring of proxies. But dashing to the bomb, if detected, could trigger an attack when Iran was most exposed.
By entering negotiations with the US, the Ayatollahs must have reasoned they could bamboozle the Americans as they had done multiple times in the past: dangling a prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough to drive a wedge between Washington and Jerusalem, while buying time and pushing their clandestine activities toward the finish line.
The opposite happened. Mr. Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu clearly played Iran by engaging in a good-cop, bad-cop strategy. Iran thought that running the clock would expose Trump’s ultimatum as a bluff, corner Netanyahu and lead to a new agreement that would let Iran keep its nuclear capabilities intact. Of all Tehran’s recent blunders, it was probably the worst.
Now, Tehran’s air defences are in tatters, its leadership is dead, hiding, or looking over their shoulders. Iran’s abilities to counterstrike are curtailed, and its nuclear programme exposed.
Rising Lion, the codename for Israel’s operation, is still ongoing. But its opening salvos have already exposed the Iranian leadership’s dangerous miscalculations and changed the region forever.
Emanuele Ottolenghi is a Senior Advisor to 240 Analytics, a risk mitigation platform focused on identifying terrorist and terror finance networks.
