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Iran tries to buy time to weigh its response to US strikes
With the U.S. joining Israel to strike Iran's main nuclear sites, Iran's clerical leaders face a tough choice: hit back quickly and risk expanding a devastating war, or return to nuclear talks where they would likely have to cede to American demands.
Iranian officials may have bought themselves some time to maneuver Sunday by saying they had minimized the impact from the U.S. strikes to their nuclear program. State media said damage at the key Fordow enrichment facility was limited to the entrance tunnel and that important equipment had been moved out before the bombings. The United Nations' nuclear agency also said there hadn't been radiation leaks. That could reduce the public pressure to retaliate immediately and instead provide the regime room to come up with a plan to deter future U.S. and Israeli strikes.
Iran's choice could prove pivotal, determining not only the stability of the broader region and its energy exports to the rest of the world, but potentially the survival of the theocracy in Tehran.
'Iran is facing a dilemma," said Mohamed Amersi, a Middle East expert on the Global Advisory Council of the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank.
He said it could respond with symbolic strikes against Western assets while trying to negotiate a cease-fire with Israel in exchange for relief from the West's economic sanctions. Or it could choose to raise the stakes by targeting more substantive Western targets in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, along with strategic locations in Israel and strikes in oil-producing regions of the Persian Gulf.
'In the second case, Iran should expect the U.S. to re-engage," Amersi said.
The immediate aftermath of the American strikes saw Iran limit its response to Israel, firing ballistic missiles at several areas of the country and damaging residential buildings in Tel Aviv, according to Magen David Adom, the country's emergency services agency. At least 16 people were wounded.
But should Iran opt to broaden its attacks, its targets could include American bases and embassies in Iraq, Bahrain and other parts of the region. Iran could also try to close the Strait of Hormuz—a transit chokepoint for a quarter of the world's oil—by attacking ships or laying mines.
The goal would be to trigger an oil-supply crisis, a surge in prices and a drop in global stock markets in a bet that would pressure Persian Gulf nations and the U.S. to broker a diplomatic outcome. It is a risky course that could instead lead to more U.S. attacks that could threaten the durability of the regime in Tehran.
Some analysts expect Iran to play it relatively safe.
Iranian Navy soldiers patrolling near the Strait of Hormuz in 2019.
Based on past behavior, Iran could 'harass shipping to boost oil prices, which could hurt the U.S. economy, especially under Trump," said Europe-based Mostafa Pakzad, chairman of Pakzad Consulting, which advises foreign companies on Iranian geopolitics. In 2018, after President Trump took the U.S. out of a pact limiting Iran's nuclear program and ordered an oil embargo on the country, Tehran attacked passing vessels using limpet mines in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran's response to the January 2020 U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq offers further clues to its potential reaction.
Soleimani was widely seen as one of the most powerful men in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at U.S. military bases in Iraq, wounding scores of U.S. troops but not killing any Americans.
A key question now is whether Iran even has the military capability to expand the war after 10 days of blistering strikes by Israel that have targeted its weapons systems, senior leaders and military infrastructure.
Although Iran continues to strike Israel, its arsenal of missiles is shrinking. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Israel has destroyed half of Iran's missile launchers, making it harder to use those that remain.
'Iran, in a conventional contest, is in a much weaker position," said Michael Singh, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 'But we do know that Iran has other capabilities, whether that's cyber capabilities, terrorist proxies and so forth."
Israeli rescue workers at a building in Tel Aviv hit by missiles.
The regional militias belonging to Iran's so-called Axis of Resistance, which Tehran has built and supported for decades, have largely remained on the sidelines so far. But Yemen's Houthi militia warned on Saturday that it would target U.S. warships and commercial ships in the Red Sea if the U.S. bombs Iran.
Mohammed al-Basha, founder of U.S.-based Middle East security advisory Basha Report, said he anticipates 'measured retaliation from Iranian-backed proxy forces…rather than full-scale warfare," with groups such as the Houthis and Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah targeting American regional interests. He said the attacks would likely resemble Iran's nonlethal response to the Soleimani killing, which he described as a symbolic response by Tehran.
Houthi police officers in San'a, Yemen, on Friday.
Still, Khamenei warned last week that if the U.S. attacks Iran it 'must know that our people will not surrender, and any military intervention by them will lead to irreparable consequences."
And on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said it isn't clear how much room remains for diplomacy, saying in a post on X that the U.S. strikes 'will have everlasting consequences." He said 'Iran reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people."
Some members of the Iranian parliament have called for an immediate withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Hard-line factions in the government view building nuclear weapons as the best path forward to regain regional influence and deter threats from Israel and now the U.S.
Yet with the dust still settling from the U.S. strikes, it is too soon to determine what's left of the country's nuclear program.
Write to Sudarsan Raghavan at Benoit Faucon at and Summer Said at
