US President Donald Trump’s decision to join Israel’s war against Iran on Sunday morning — with the bombing of three major nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz — could either force the Iranian regime to surrender or move decisively towards a wider war in the region. Although President Trump has claimed that the attacks have been successful, it will be a while before the full impact of the bombing of the nuclear sites in Iran will be known. Ground-level information will provide key inputs into understanding the extent of damage done to Iran’s nuclear programme. Even more important is the nature of the political impact of the American bombing. Israel’s war against Iran that began on June 13 had already done considerable damage to the regime and its structures, including the armed forces, intelligence establishment, and the nuclear scientific community. But the Iranian regime has managed to survive and has succeeded in hitting back against Israel. It remains to be seen if the American attacks mark a death blow to the regime or rally Iranian nationalism in favour of the Islamic Republic.
Trump’s attacks have come well before the end of the two-week pause he had announced to explore, ostensibly, a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Iran and Israel. Cynics say the talk of a two-week time-out was a political feint. Since the announcement, the US has steadily mobilised a massive military force in the Gulf — including two aircraft carriers and several B-2 bombers that can deliver the bunker-buster munition to destroy the Fordow nuclear facility built deep inside a mountain. In a short statement on the bombing decision, Trump said the strikes are limited to destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons capability and that the ball is now in Iran’s court. If Iran sues for peace, there can be serious diplomacy for peace, he said. But if Iran seeks to widen the war by attacking the US or allied targets, Trump warned that more attacks will follow. All eyes will now be on Tehran’s response.
It is no secret that Israel’s goal has not been limited to a rollback of the Iranian nuclear programme, that it seeks a regime change in Tehran. Tel Aviv has long sought to bring the US into the war and leverage Washington’s full weight to induce political change in Iran. Although Trump did not explicitly support the regime change objective, he made it clear that he seeks a change in the behaviour of the Islamic Republic. He seems to have left the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with no option but to surrender and survive on Trump’s terms. Within the US, the right-wing opponents of the war in Trump’s political base are bound to be disappointed with the President’s decision. They had mounted a serious campaign against the traditional temptation in Washington to intervene on Israel’s side. They questioned the claim that Iran has built or is about to build nuclear weapons. They wanted the White House not to forget that previous efforts at regime change in Iraq and Libya had ended in disaster and cost the US much blood and treasure. Trump, however, appears to have calculated that total victory over Tehran is possible with a short and swift bombing campaign and that there would be no need for sending ground troops into Iran. It will not be long before the world sees either a familiar tragedy unfold in the Middle East or internal change in Iran that moves the region in a new direction.
