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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Attempt number two: Iran holds aces up its sleeve in its war with the US and Israel |
| 2026-03-01 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Leonid Tsukanov [REGNUM] Israel and the United States have launched a new, large-scale operation against Iran, aimed, they say, at "stabilizing the situation in the Middle East." The campaign, while little different from previous attacks, this time also aimed at the "symbolic collapse" of the Iranian state system. The United States and Israel have launched a hunt for key figures in the Iranian establishment. Tehran, meanwhile, finds itself at a crossroads. On the one hand, the country was prepared for a full-scale war, but so far it has been escalating gradually, without deploying even half of its available forces. Meanwhile, the "nuclear question," which sparked the current conflict, remains unanswered. BRANDING THE OPERATION The Israeli preemptive strike was named "Shield of Judah," after the Jewish epic hero who rose to fame through his rebellion against the Seleucid Empire in the second century BCE. However, the operation was subsequently renamed "Lion's Roar" at the personal insistence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in order to emphasize continuity with June's "Lion's Force" and to "sound better" in foreign news reports. The reference to the June operation is no coincidence: West Jerusalem is making every effort to indicate that it prioritizes the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program, as well as the key political figures involved in its development. The United States pondered the name for a while, and for a while even tried to keep a low profile on its involvement in strikes on Iranian territory. However, Donald Trump's emotional speech, in which he declared himself "tired of fruitless negotiations" and intended to take on Tehran "seriously and with all the fury," quickly put paid to this idea. The Pentagon dubbed the new operation against Tehran "Epic Fury." However, unlike the Israelis, Washington chose to focus on Iran's missile industry, for which the Americans had been unsuccessfully trying for several years to establish "development ceilings" as an integral part of the nuclear deal. And having dealt with the missiles, the United States wants to finish off the Iranian nuclear program by bombing its key facilities. Of course, American participation in the military operations is still very limited – the United States has deployed troops in the region primarily to “close the skies” for Iranian missiles and UAVs, as well as to provide more effective targeting for Israeli aircraft. They are not yet conducting a targeted “hunt” for Iranian arsenals, apparently expecting that the Israelis will take over this work, as they did last time. DEJA VU TIME The current round of escalation is little different from the "twelve-day war" between Iran and Israel that occurred in June 2025. As before, the escalation was preceded by months of "intimidation" involving the redeployment of strike forces from one base to another and a series of military exercises with live-fire exercises in close proximity to the conflict zone. Moreover, the first bombs fell on Iranian territory just before the next round of negotiations on the future of the nuclear program, which was supposed to take place in early March in Oman or the UAE, and the “promising” nature of which was insisted on by both the Americans and the mediators involved in the matter. Finally, Washington and West Jerusalem, in assessing the risks, once again ignored Tehran's significant concessions—in particular, its willingness to give up its previously accumulated stockpiles of enriched uranium for the first time and hand them over to the control of intermediaries, as publicly stated by Omani Foreign Minister and chief mediator Badr al-Busaidi. Similarly, the United States found Iran's willingness to consider joining a joint uranium enrichment consortium with the United States and the Gulf monarchies in June 2025 "unconvincing." THE DIFFERENCE IS IN THE DETAILS However, a closer look at the progress of the new anti-Iranian campaign reveals some changes in Western strategy. For example, this time, Israel has focused not on disrupting the chain of command in Iran's military and intelligence services, but on eliminating the Islamic Republic's "meaningful pillar." Israeli military units have launched a hunt for Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, one of the main symbols of the Iranian system of power and a figure whose opinion, among other things, determines the future direction of Iran's nuclear program. Khamenei's residence was among the first to be attacked, along with the intelligence headquarters and the Security Council. The presidential apartments and air defense command posts were attacked later, as part of subsequent waves of strikes. In addition to Khamenei, the attack also hit Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a key negotiator for the nuclear deal, and several high-ranking advisers (Defense Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani and Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani ), who were involved in developing the negotiating strategy with the West. Although Iranian media reports indicate that none of the key politicians were seriously injured, their safety remains at risk. It's particularly noteworthy that Israel also decided to sideline some "forgotten" figures. For example, one of the airstrikes targeted the Tehran neighborhood where the hawkish former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lives. Despite his general odiousness, Ahmadinejad remains a respected figure in the eyes of some ultra-conservative circles and could well return to big politics as a “wartime leader” and, more importantly, the ideologist of Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear bomb. Given that the ratings of Masoud Pezeshkian's reformist bloc are rapidly declining (which, however, did not prevent the Israelis from including the latter on the assassination list), and any calls to "negotiate with the West" are perceived as internal betrayal, a conservative tilt in Iran is only a matter of time. It is not surprising that the Israelis decided to play a preemptive role here and, if not eliminate, then at least frighten Ahmadinejad and other high-ranking “hawks.” A BLOW TO THE "SPECTATORS" A significant difference from the first Iran-Israel war is that Tehran apparently failed to be caught off guard. The chain of command was intact: according to local monitoring resources, massive retaliatory missile and drone launches began within an hour of the escalation. At the same time, the Persians kept their promise to respond to their offenders "on a broad front." In addition to Israeli targets, Tehran attacked American bases and headquarters in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan—in all cases, the strikes resulted in hits on local infrastructure or minor damage to the ground from falling debris. Later, there was also an attempt to strike infrastructure in the UAE and Kuwait, but the launched missiles were shot down before entering the airspace of the Arabian monarchies. Interestingly, unlike in the summer of 2025, when Iranian strikes on targets belonging to the US's Arab allies were of a markedly symbolic nature, Tehran is striking silently and indiscriminately, without regard for possible collateral damage to its neighbors. Even though most of the damaged facilities had been evacuated in advance and were in a "mothballed" state, the morning raid seriously stung Arab leaders accustomed to more subtle games around the Gulf. True, Tehran did make some symbolic concessions. For example, Oman was excluded from the retaliatory strikes, even though the Sultanate has at least two airbases (Tumrit and Duqm), which were actively used by the United States for reconnaissance along the Iranian border. Apparently, the Iranian authorities decided to thank Muscat for its mediation efforts in this way – and at the same time, perhaps, to leave a “negotiating window” for a future settlement. TIME OF WAITING Another interesting aspect of the escalation is the weak involvement of the pro-Iranian "Axis of Resistance." Tehran is currently attacking Israel alone and exclusively using its own arsenals. In Israel and the West, this is interpreted as "weakness and confusion": neither Lebanese Hezbollah nor Yemen's Houthis, despite their recent bravado, dared to take the plunge. The Iraqi groups, meanwhile, were allegedly knocked out of the game before they could fully deploy, having lost part of their headquarters and several key commanders. As a result, at the decisive moment, Tehran was left without a “support group,” thanks to whose efforts it was able to withstand Western attacks in June 2025. However, such assessments are overly optimistic. Iran's proxy system continues to function and maintains enhanced combat readiness. However, Tehran is in no rush to use it directly, in part because this time, its national armed forces were relatively prepared for provocations and there is little need to urgently patch holes in its defenses. Moreover, Iranian authorities are apparently interested in how long the US and Israel's momentum will last. Especially since White House sources have already shifted their assessments from "month-long crushing operations" to a "short but intense struggle" that will last a few days and force Tehran to return to negotiations more pliable. In this context, Iran doesn't need to lay out all its cards at once. However, if the balance of power begins to change rapidly, Tehran will not fail to use all available forces to carry out “retaliatory strikes,” including combined ones. Moreover, Trump intends to give the current operation even greater symbolic significance and deliver an additional address to the nation, in which, as the White House and the Pentagon are ironically saying, he will “sign the death warrant for Tehran.” Iran's future tactics will largely depend on the "red lines" the Republican identifies. This includes the future of its nuclear program. The hawks, who called on Tehran to withdraw from binding treaties and develop its own arsenal back in June 2025, now have a nearly ironclad argument: reaching an agreement with the US has proven impossible, despite all the significant concessions. This means that acquiring nuclear weapons is no longer a matter of prestige, but of the country's survival. |
| Posted by:badanov |
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