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Al Jazeera
5 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Could Israel be planning a second war on Iran?
Israel's leadership views its 12-day war with Iran last month as a success – several Iranian military leaders were killed, Iran's defensive military capabilities were weakened, and the United States was convinced to take part in a raid on the Iranian nuclear site at Fordow. But while Israeli leaders were quick to claim victory, they emphasised that they were ready to attack again if necessary, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying he had 'no intention of easing off the gas pedal'. And Israel is already looking for the next opportunity to wage another devastating conflict aimed at bringing down the Islamic Republic in Iran, analysts told Al Jazeera. However, to do so, it would require the 'permission' of the US, which may not be willing to give it. Back in mid-June, a surprise Israeli attack led to the war, in which more than 1,000 Iranians and 29 Israelis were killed. Israel justified the war by claiming that it was acting preemptively and in 'self-defence' to take out Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran has long said is for civilian purposes. Speaking to Al Jazeera earlier this week, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed doubt over how long the current ceasefire will remain in place. 'We are fully prepared for any new Israeli military move, and our armed forces are ready to strike deep inside Israel again,' he said. Cause for war Despite Israel's emphasis that it was targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, it mainly assassinated high-ranking government and military officials, indicating a clear attempt to weaken and possibly bring down the regime. Trita Parsi, an expert on Iran and the cofounder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, a left-wing US think tank, believes Netanyahu is looking for an opportunity to resume that mission. 'The reason the Israelis want to attack again … is because they want to make sure they turn Iran into the next Syria or Lebanon – countries Israel can attack anytime with impunity,' he told Al Jazeera. Israel's next opportunity to muster up a pretext for a war could come after European countries reimpose debilitating sanctions on Iran. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reported to have held a call with his counterparts from Germany, France and the United Kingdom earlier in July, in which they agreed that United Nations Security Council sanctions would be reimposed if a new nuclear deal was not agreed upon by the end of August. The sanctions had been lifted when Iran and several Western countries agreed on a nuclear deal in 2015. The US pulled out of that deal two years into President Donald Trump's first term in 2018 and restored sanctions as part of a maximum pressure campaign. Now, European parties to the deal could do the same, and that could prompt Iran to walk out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, warned Parsi. 'That would provide [Israel] with a political window to [attack again],' he told Al Jazeera. Meir Javedanfar, Iran lecturer at Israel's Reichman University, added that Israel would nevertheless have to muster up or present credible intelligence that suggests Iran is rebuilding or repairing its nuclear programme. He warned that, 'to launch such an attack, Israel would need the agreement of the United States and its President Trump', permission he regarded as less likely in light of US concern over Israeli attacks on Syria. Israeli operations While Israeli strikes on Iran may not be imminent, a report in The New York Times on Wednesday suggests that it is carrying out covert operations responsible for sudden explosions and fires across the country. The paper cited three informed officials and a European diplomat who attributed the apparently random fires and explosions at apartment complexes, oil refineries, near an airport and a shoe factory, to acts of sabotage likely carried out by Israel. 'I think Benjamin Netanyahu has found a formula where it is able to attack Iran with impunity despite pushback from Donald Trump,' said Negar Mortazavi, an expert on Iran with the Center for International Policy (CIP), a think tank based in Washington, DC. Any ongoing covert operations are a result of Israel's extensive infiltration of Iranian security and infrastructure that became apparent during the early stages of the June conflict, with individuals targeted through what was presumed to be teams of local intelligence operatives and drones launched against Iranian targets from within Iranian territory. There was no evidence to suggest that Israel's network within Iran had ended with the war, analyst and Iran expert Ori Goldberg said. 'Israel has built a robust [security] system within Iran and, like all such systems, its muscles need flexing occasionally,' he said from Tel Aviv. 'Sometimes this isn't for strategic reasons, so much as tactical ones. As soon as you have infrastructure or people in place within another country, you have a limited time to use them, so if that's setting fires or setting detonations, it's a way of keeping them active and letting Iran know they're there.' Likelihood of new war Few could have predicted the complete absence of restraint with which Netanyahu, previously a figure considered to be somewhat averse to conflict, has attacked neighbouring states, Syria and Lebanon, as well as regional actors, such as Yemen and Iran, while maintaining his brutal assault upon Gaza. But while a renewed offensive upon Israel's historical bogeyman, Iran, might prove popular in the face of growing internal division over Israel's war on Gaza, how well received it might be by his principal ally remains to be seen. 'Trump is a concern and Israel will want to keep on the right side of whatever line he's drawn [on its actions],' Goldberg said. 'But Iran is a consensus issue within Israel. People might argue about Gaza, but never Iran. If Netanyahu feels himself under threat, he's going to want to crack the Iranian whip and unify people behind him.' Iran, for its part, won't be caught flat-footed a second time, say analysts. Mortazavi told Al Jazeera that Iran is expecting Israel to continue its aggression, even as it still holds out hope to reach a deal on its nuclear programme through diplomacy. 'I think they know that a deal will reduce the chances of an Israeli attack,' she said.
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Pentagon provided $2.4tn to private arms firms to ‘fund war and weapons', report finds
A new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon's discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a 'continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing'. The report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War project at Brown University said that the Trump administration's new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark. That will deliver a projected windfall of more than half a trillion dollars that will be shared among top arms firms such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as well as a growing military tech sector with close allies in the administration such as JD Vance, the report said. The report is compiled of statistics of Pentagon spending and contracts from 2020 to 2024, during which time the top five Pentagon contractors (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman) received $771bn in contract awards. Overall, private firms received approximately 54% of the department's discretionary spending of $4.4tn over that period. Taking into account supplemental funding for the Pentagon passed by Congress under Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act', the report said, the US military budget will have nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000. The rapid growth in military spending that began under the Bush administration's post-9/11 and the 'global war on terror' has now been continued on spending to counter China as the US's main rival in the 21st century, as well record foreign arms transfers to Israel and Ukraine. 'The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in September 2021 did not result in a peace dividend,' the authors of the report wrote. 'Instead, President Biden requested, and Congress authorized, even higher annual budgets for the Pentagon, and President Trump is continuing that same trajectory of escalating military budgets.' That contradicts early indications from Trump in February that he could cut military spending in half, adding that he would tell China and Russia that 'there's no reason for us to be spending almost $1tn on the military … and I'm going to say we can spend this on other things'. Instead, the spending bill pushed by Trump through Congress included a $157bn spending boost for the Pentagon. The growth in spending will increasingly benefit firms in the 'military tech' sector who represent tech companies like SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril, the report said, that are 'deeply embedded in the Trump administration, which should give it an upper hand in the budget battles to come'. 'High Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are 'for the troops',' said William D Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an author of the report. 'But as this paper shows, the majority of the department's budget goes to corporations, money that has as much to do with special interest lobbying as it does with any rational defense planning. Much of this funding has been wasted on dysfunctional or overpriced weapons systems and extravagant compensation packages.' 'These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing,' said Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War project. Calculated for inflation, the military spending dwarfs an approximate $356bn that Congress had appropriated for US diplomacy, development and humanitarian aid. The Trump administration has continued to slash money spent on aid. Last month, the Guardian revealed that a White House review of grants to the state department recommended a near total cut on democracy promotion programs. The Guardian has contacted the Pentagon for comment.
Al Jazeera
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Will Iran double down on its nuclear programme after the war?
The Bottom Line Iran expert Trita Parsi on the fallout of Israel's unprovoked 12-day war against Iran and implications for Gaza. United States President Donald Trump can force Israel to end the war on Gaza if he shows the same gumption as he did with Iran, argues Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Parsi discusses the wider implications of the 12-day war on Iran with host Steve Clemons, including: Will Iran double down on its nuclear weapons programme? Will improved Iran-US relations lead to sanctions relief? Why did European leaders legitimise the unprovoked US and Israeli attacks, instead of calling for the 'rules-based order' as they do in Ukraine? Does Iran have allies? Video Duration 24 minutes 01 seconds 24:01 Video Duration 23 minutes 56 seconds 23:56 Video Duration 24 minutes 08 seconds 24:08 Video Duration 24 minutes 01 seconds 24:01 Video Duration 24 minutes 03 seconds 24:03 Video Duration 24 minutes 10 seconds 24:10 Video Duration 24 minutes 01 seconds 24:01
Time Magazine
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Time Magazine
How Bombing Iran May Have Made Nuclear Diplomacy Much Harder
What began as a military campaign against Iran's nuclear infrastructure may have given way to a more enduring crisis: the collapse of decades-long efforts to contain nuclear proliferation through diplomacy. After days of escalating airstrikes between Israel and Iran that killed hundreds in Iran and dozens in Israel—and the United States' decision to involve itself—one of the most lasting, and difficult to quantify, losses may be the fragile framework of international nuclear cooperation. Read More: Trump Brokers Ceasefire to End '12 Day War' Between Israel and Iran While the full scope of physical damage to Iran's nuclear facilities remains unclear, analysts warn that the attacks may have pushed Iran to the brink of abandoning the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the foundational agreement designed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and promote peaceful atomic energy that Iran has been a party to for five-and-a-half decades. Iran is now 'quite likely' to withdraw from the NPT under which it pledged not to develop a bomb, warned Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group. Outlining 'worst-case scenarios' in an essay for TIME, Vaez suggested: 'Over time, Iran's regime could attempt to reconstitute its nuclear activity from the rubble, only with an explicit aim of fashioning a weapon in the shortest possible time as a means of deterrence in the future.' Read More: Where Iran's Nuclear Program Goes From Here Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute in Washington, D.C., said in a post on X that Iran's nuclear program 'has at best been set back, but certainly not destroyed, while dramatically increasing Tehran's determination to achieve nuclear deterrence.' He added that Iran having a damaged but not fully dismantled nuclear program makes any future peace between Iran and Israel even more precarious. Israel, which is believed to have its own clandestine nuclear weapons program and is not a member of the NPT, has stated that it cannot allow nations hostile to it to develop a nuclear weapon. 'While Trump may have genuinely envisioned a one-and-done,' Parsi said, U.S. intervention at the request of Israel has signaled that, should Israel or Iran choose to reignite the war, Israel will have 'succeeded in trapping him in a long, if not a forever, war.' Read More: In Bombing Iran, Trump Looked Past 80 Years of U.S. Regime Change Mistakes For diplomacy to resume, he argues, 'Trump's only exit out of this is to discard the Israeli red line of zero-enrichment and return to the American red line of no weaponization.' A blow to non-proliferation diplomacy The diplomatic fallout is already materializing in Tehran. Iran's parliamentary national security committee passed the outline of a bill on Monday to suspend Tehran's cooperation with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog—the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—so long as Iran's nuclear sites remain vulnerable to military attack. Committee spokesperson Ebrahim Rezaei reportedly told semi-official Tasnim news agency that the bill would mean a suspension in installing surveillance cameras, inspections, and submitting reports to the IAEA. Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said the government is planning to restore its nuclear program as it evaluates what damage has been done. 'Preparations for recovery had already been anticipated, and our plan is to prevent any interruption in production or services,' Eslami said in a statement reportedly carried by government-affiliated Mehr News. Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, told reporters on the sidelines of an emergency IAEA board meeting on Monday that U.S. involvement in the strikes had 'delivered a fundamental and irreparable blow to the international non-proliferation regime conclusively demonstrating that the existing NPT framework has been rendered ineffective.' Scope of physical damage to Iran's nuclear facilities remains unclear The breakdown in diplomacy is unfolding as questions hang over just how significant the physical damage is to Iran's nuclear infrastructure—an element that may carry long-term consequences for non-proliferation efforts. After the U.S. dropped 30,000-pound bombs on three of Iran's key nuclear facilities and risked a wider war, President Donald Trump declared from the White House that 'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.' 'THE NUCLEAR SITES ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED!' President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday. Earlier the same day, he posted: 'IRAN WILL NEVER REBUILD THEIR NUCLEAR FACILITIES!' But Iran's nuclear program has at most been set back a few months, according to a reported initial assessment by U.S. intelligence. A leaked Defense Intelligence Agency preliminary report, which members of the Trump Administration have claimed is wrong, found that Iran's nuclear facilities were damaged, but not severely degraded, and that Iran still has the ability to enrich uranium. Earlier damage assessments by U.S. and Israeli militaries using satellite images of Fordow also suggested that the site had not been obliterated. Read More: Democrats in Congress Fume as Iran Strike Briefing Is Abruptly Cancelled Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a news conference on Sunday that the country is 'calculating the damages' from the strike. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told the U.N. Security Council that there are visible craters at Fordow, and that entrances to tunnels used to store enriched uranium appeared to have been hit at Isfahan. But he also cautioned that 'no one, including the IAEA, is in a position to assess the underground damage.' Some observers believe Iran may have preemptively moved enriched uranium to undisclosed locations. The IAEA confirmed last week it was unable to track Iran's stockpile amid the ongoing bombardment. Iran had previously warned the IAEA that its stockpile, which is typically secured at Isfahan, could be moved in the event of an Israeli attack. Grossi said after the U.S. strikes that 'Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,' suggesting that the strikes may not have hit uranium stores directly. Still, he urged Iran to disclose the new location of any relocated nuclear material and reaffirmed Tehran's obligations under the treaty. Read More: Breaking Down the Environmental Risks From Strikes on Iran's Nuclear Enrichment Sites Iran's legislative response suggests a hardening stance. 'Iran has no plans for non-peaceful activities, but the world witnessed clearly that the IAEA has not honored any of its commitments and has turned into a political instrument,' parliamentary speaker Mohammed-Bagher Ghalibaf said during Monday's session. 'This war makes it more, not less, likely that the Iranian government will eventually build a nuclear weapon,' argues Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of Win Without War, a progressive Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group. 'Israeli—or even U.S.—airstrikes cannot wipe out the knowledge behind the nuclear program or reliably destroy all centrifuges and uranium in a country over twice the size of Texas.' Iran more likely to withdraw from nuclear diplomacy Whether Iran was actively pursuing a nuclear weapon remains in dispute. U.S. intelligence concluded earlier this year that the country had no plans to develop a nuclear weapon, while Trump and Israeli officials have insisted it did. Iran has maintained that its uranium enrichment is in line with its right to peaceful enrichment for energy purposes under the NPT. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated that view on Tuesday, reportedly telling regional officials that Iran is interested only in pursuing its 'legitimate rights' and has no ambitions 'to acquire nuclear weapons.' Iran and the U.S. had been in the midst of protracted talks centered on Iran's nuclear program when Israel launched its surprise attack on Iran. The war put a halt to further talks with the U.S.—although Iran continued talks with European officials—and it is unclear whether they will begin again. Several agencies and countries, including the European Union and Grossi, have urged Iran to return to the negotiating table. But Iran's envoy to the U.N. Ali Bahreini said on Sunday that it can't return to something 'it never left.' He said the NPT has been 'manipulated into a political weapon' and 'exploited as a pretext for aggression and unlawful action.' Read More: A New Middle East Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes Iran ratified the treaty in 1970, and signed another deal with former President Barack Obama in 2015 agreeing that its nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful in exchange for the relief of economic sanctions. Trump exited the deal in 2018 during his first term, reimposing heavy sanctions on Iran, which pushed Iran to restart some nuclear operations. Foad Izadi, a professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera that Iran's collaboration with the IAEA as a member of the NPT has clearly not benefited or protected Tehran. 'Iran doesn't have to be there,' Izadi said, 'given the fact that Iranian nuclear sites that were under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that were under the monitoring of [the IAEA], were attacked.' Haghdoosti, the Win Without War activist, tells TIME that the airstrikes on Iran, which the Trump Administration has framed as part of a deliberate strategy to pursue 'peace through strength,' will erode diplomatic efforts around nuclear programs for all countries now and in the future. 'The lesson of this war for the Iranian government and any other government contemplating acquiring nuclear weapons is that even if the U.S. is negotiating with you to end that pursuit, it will still support—and even join—a war against you,' Haghdoosti says. 'That's a strong incentive for governments to skip diplomacy entirely and go straight to getting a nuclear weapon.'
Mint
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Is a ‘regime change' in Iran possible? What happens if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed?
US President Donald Trump hinted at a "regime change" in Iran just hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday, 'This mission [US attacking Iran's nuclear sites] was not and has not been about regime change.' The idea of killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also surfaced during the Iran-Israel conflict. It was said that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill the Iranian Supreme Leader, but the US President later claimed Khamenei was an "easy target" but would not be killed, "at least for now". This left the door open for a discussion of what exactly President Trump meant by "regime change." Meanwhile, Israel, which is in conflict with Iran, has not ruled out killing Khamenei. Last week, Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz said of Khamenei: 'This man absolutely should not continue to exist.' Cambridge dictionary defines a 'regime change' as a complete change of government, especially one brought about by force. Meanwhile, Britannica says a regime change refers to the overthrow of a government considered illegitimate by an external force and its replacement with a new government according to the ideas or interests promoted by that force. Simply put, a change of regime means forming a new government. In case of Iran, a regime change would require Israel or the US having a figure in mind to replace Khamenei and send troops to the country, Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute in Washington, DC, told CNN. A delay in choosing the new Supreme Leader could fuel another possibility for a regime change in Iran. Iran's government is a unique hybrid system which has elements of a theocracy and a republic. The Supreme Leader is at the top of Iran's power structure. He is "the guardian jurist who is effectively Iran's leader for life," the CRF explained. The president is the second-highest-ranking official in Iran. Particularly, Khamenei, the 86-year-old cleric, has ruled Iran for more than 35 years as its highest authority, rising to power a decade after the 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew a US-backed monarch. So, what will happen if Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dies? Will his death lead to a regime change? Khamenei can be replaced by a new leader, but changing the regime itself is likely to trigger unrest in the Islamic Republic. Choosing a leader on time may not necessarily lead to a "regime change" in Iran. After US strikes in Iran, The New York Times, citing sources, reported that Khamenei has chosen three successors as his replacement in case military commanders die in Israeli strikes. However, the US reportedly fears that Iran could get "somebody worse than Khamenei," a source told the New York Post. Experts reportedly said that if the Supreme Leader is killed and the Guardian Council delays naming a successor, the risk of instability could grow. Parsi from Quincy Institute in Washington also warned that "a possible outcome of Khamenei's potential killing is total regime collapse." One possible scenario is Iran's various ethnic groups vying for power after Khamenei's death. Experts say that any attempt at regime change in Iran risks collapsing the state altogether – "a scenario that could splinter Iran and send shockwaves across the Middle East," CNN reported. Earlier, The Telegraph reported that Khamenei's death could create a vacuum at the heart of the government that might trigger internal strife and civil unrest. This is because Khamenei's death is likely to create opportunities for Iran's ethnic minority groups to rise up. Reports suggest that separatist groups who have long opposed the Islamic Republic may seek to take advantage of what they may see as an opportunity. This could "potentially ignite local conflicts that could spiral into a broader civil war." If Iran's regime falls, 'there would be support for ethnic separatist groups by the Israelis, and perhaps the US,' Parsi said. This would lead to a situation where remnants of the state are going to be consumed with fighting separatists. Another possibility is "military intervention", which "rarely leads to democratisation," Hamed Mousavi, associate professor of International Relations at the University of Tehran, told CNN. "Military factions that could take over are 'not going to be the type of regime that the US may have had in mind,' Parsi said. "They are unlikely to seek diplomatic routes with Israel or the US, but could take a more hawkish approach that sees possession of a nuclear bomb as the only deterrent to more attacks," Parsi said.
