Israel has failed to solve the Persian puzzle

The Hindu

09-07-2025

The wedding of Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey at The Twins in the northern riverlands is one of the most consequential events in Game of Thrones. Known as the Red Wedding, it is the setting for the massacre of Robb Stark, King in the North and Lord of Winterfell, along with his pregnant wife, his mother, and most of his banner-men. This brutal betrayal shattered the Starks' military power and ended their bid for independence from the Iron Throne, reshaping the political landscape of Westeros, the fictional continent in the series. When Israeli fighter jets began bombing Iran, in the early hours of June 13, 2025, Israeli generals reportedly dubbed a part of the operation as the 'Red Wedding' — a pointed reference to what they wanted to achieve in the strike.
Israel's primary target was Iran's nuclear facilities. But Israel knew that if it started a war, Iran — a country many times its size and armed with thousands of ballistic missiles — would strike back. So there were three targets — Iran's nuclear facilities, nuclear scientists and the leadership of Iran's armed forces. Much like House Frey slaughtered the banner-men and the leaders of House Stark, Israel had the aim of wiping out Iran's military command, believing that it would cripple Tehran's military response. Israel had pulled off a similar strategy in the past. On June 5, 1967, it launched a massive air strike against Egypt's air force, causing much damage to it on the ground. Egypt never recovered from the initial blow, and Israel claimed a sweeping victory over Egypt, Jordan and Syria in just six days. But in June 2025, the outcome was different.
Operational success
From an operational standpoint, Israel's attack can be seen as a success. Israel had been preparing for a strike on Iran's nuclear programmes for years, a plan that gained momentum after the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas. Israel, which immediately launched a war against Hamas in Gaza, eventually expanded it to a mini-regional war that was aimed squarely at Iran. It dealt a blow to Hezbollah. It bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus in April 2024, and killed several Iranian commanders in Syria. Its relentless bombings in Syria expedited the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime. The return of Donald Trump to the White House further hardened Israel's resolve to test the military option.
On June 13, while Tehran was still engaged in talks with the Trump administration, Israel struck Iran's Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities, killed at least 10 nuclear scientists, and assassinated many top commanders. Executing such a complex operation in a vast country about 2,000 kilometres away was no small feat. Yet, the problem for Israel was that this operational success failed to deliver the desired strategic outcome. For Israel, which has established credible deterrence against the surrounding conventional Arab armies, Iran has always remained a puzzle. Despite its sanctions-hit economy and enduring hostility from the West, Iran managed to build a wide network of influence in the region through non-state actors, while developing an advanced ballistic missile programme and pursuing its nuclear ambitions.
Israel had long nurtured the idea of regime change in Iran — if the Islamic Republic falls, Israel's last remaining conventional threat in West Asia would vanish. Israel prefers a weaker, broken-up Iran, much like today's Iraq, Libya, Syria or Lebanon, which would set the stage for a unipolar West Asia that is dominated by Israel and the U.S. The post-October 7 wars substantially weakened Iran's allies in the region. Still, Iran, with its ballistic missiles and nuclear programme, remained a rebel counterweight to Israel.
In the early days of the 12-day war, Mr. Netanyahu declared that Israel's operation 'could certainly' lead to regime change, insisting that 'Iran is very weak'. He also urged the Iranians to 'to act, to rise up' against the 'evil regime'. During the war, Israel killed at least 30 Iranian security chiefs, threatening to disrupt the entire chain of command. But the Iranian government and the military recovered with remarkable speed, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps taking the lead in mounting a counter-attack. Iran launched a sustained campaign of drones and ballistic missile strikes that exposed vulnerabilities in Israel's much-vaunted, multi-layered, American-assisted defence systems. Within days, Mr. Netanyahu was forced to turn to Washington for help.
That help came on June 21 when U.S. President Donald Trump ordered U.S. air strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, including Fordow, the most heavily fortified facility. Mr. Trump, however, was not interested in a long war with Iran. After the strikes, he claimed that Iran's nuclear facilities had been 'obliterated', declared victory and announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Mr. Netanyahu had no choice but to accept the ceasefire, with the Iranian government still standing with much of its capabilities.
Strategic labyrinth
Early assessments by the U.S. intelligence community claimed that Iran's nuclear programme had not been destroyed by U.S. strikes, but set back by 'a few months'. Even if the nuclear facilities were destroyed, there is no certainty that Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium and all advanced centrifuges have been destroyed. There were reports, based on European intelligence assessments, that Iran had dispersed its enriched uranium well before the Israeli-American strikes. According to Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has the industrial and technological capacity to resume enriching uranium in a few months.
This leaves Israel in a strategic labyrinth. The Iranian state refused to flinch throughout the war despite the heavy blows it suffered. The air strikes failed to destroy Iran's nuclear programme, let alone its nuclear capabilities. Third, the war exposed Israel's over-reliance on the U.S., in both defence and offence, which was not the case in 1967 when Israel claimed its biggest victory.
Survival of the weak
Even though Mr. Trump joined the war on behalf of Israel, there is a clear distinction between the American and the Israeli approaches towards the Persian puzzle. Israel's ultimate objective is regime change but it does not have the resources or the capabilities to achieve regime change. The U.S. does not want a nuclear Iran, but it does not want to get entangled in another prolonged war in West Asia either. Mr. Trump's own MAGA (Make America Great Again) base was revolting against America's intervention in Iran.
For Iran, the Israeli-American attack was another Mosaddegh moment — a reminder of the 1953 Central Intelligence Agency-backed coup that toppled its elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Iran once made a deal with the U.S. and other world powers over its nuclear programme, only to see it torn up by President Trump in his first term. When Tehran returned to talks with Washington again, it ended up facing an Israeli-American war instead. Iran is now racing to rebuild its military capabilities and restore deterrence. Iran's leaders will also find a greater incentive than ever to pursue a nuclear weapon as many in Iran today argue that if Tehran had possessed a bomb, like North Korea, Israel and the U.S. would not have dared launch this war.
In Game of Thrones, the Red Wedding was not the end of House Stark. When Arya Stark, the younger sister of Robb Stark, extracts revenge for the Red Wedding by orchestrating a massacre at House Frey, she declares: 'You didn't slaughter every one of the Starks. That was your mistake. You should have ripped them all out, root and stem.' The 12-day war did not destroy the Iranian regime. Nor did it tear out the Iranian nuclear programme, root and stem. Beneath its rhetoric of victory, Israel, which is now asking the international community to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, knows this all too well. It will only grow more paranoid, closely monitoring Iran's every move, while Tehran replenishes its arsenal, readying itself to fight another day. This war is far from over.
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