Updates on the Iran-Israel War, Final Part 5

Richard Falk, Lawrence Davidson, and Stephen Zunes in conversation

By Daniel Falcone

Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.
Parts 3 & 4 are here.

First published in Counterpunch. Please support this great newsletter—no one lands them like Counterpunch.

Part 5: Managing Conflict Without Solutions

Daniel Falcone: Looking at the recent strikes, the stated goals were to delay enrichment, restore deterrence, buy time for diplomacy, and dismantle Iranian programs. It looks like Tehran won’t stop producing energy. How do you assess the long-term strategic value of this operation, and does this pattern suggest a placing of managing escalation above resolving them?

Stephen Zunes: Regarding the goals:

There was nothing to deter, because Iran was not threatening anybody and they were on the receiving end of an unprovoked attack. There was no need to buy time for diplomacy, because Iran was still years away from the capacity to build a nuclear weapon and diplomatic talks were ongoing. And it was never possible to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program through military force. The scientific knowhow and the resources to rebuild will always be there.

The one partial success from the twelve days of intense warfare was that it may have delayed enrichment for a few months.

The Trump administration and its bipartisan supporters in Congress, then, want to convince people that the killing of nearly 1,000 Iranians (primarily civilians), the substantial damage done to even non-nuclear and non-military targets in Iran, the resulting (lesser but still substantial) damage done on the Israeli side by Iranian missiles, the illegal assassinations of scientists and military leaders, and the further weakening of the international legal order through the launching of an unprovoked war was worth postponing the resumption of Iran’s uranium enrichment program until sometime this fall.

There was therefore no real strategic value. Indeed, as we have noted above, this wasn’t really about Iran’s nuclear program, since returning to the JCPOA would have created a rigorous inspection regime that would have prevented Iran from militarizing its nuclear program. It was about weakening Iran.

Physical damage is not a measure of a regime’s strength, however, and the Islamic Republic is probably stronger because of defending the nation against what even regime opponents recognize as a war of aggression. People tend to rally around the flag, particularly if the country is subjected to foreign attack and governments are more likely to get away with greater repression. This is why virtually all prominent pro-democracy activists opposed the war. Advances by both reformers within the system and those challenging it from the outside may now be reversed because of the perceived emergency. If regime change was also a goal, that has been set back as well.

I don’t expect a return to level of warfare we’ve seen over the past two weeks, but we might see Israel engaging in occasional air strikes if the Iranians try to rebuild their damaged facilities, followed by some Iranian missiles being fired into Israel. Such intermittent warfare will keep the region on edge and encourage further militarization. Unlike the JCPOA, which contributed greatly to regionally stability prior Trump destroying it, the U.S./Israeli war on Iran has made the region more unstable and dangerous.

Lawrence Davidson: A couple of things stand out about the U.S. attack: 1) It was too limited to destroy the sites targeted. The damage was superficial. It is unclear if this was Trump’s intent or if the U.S. Air Force, enamored with its “bunker busting bombs,” felt one bombing pass would do it. 2) The Iranians were taking no chances and moved most of the material out of Fordow in the days before the attack. What this adds up to is some delay as production and enrichment are given new factory structures. But no apparent damage to the project as such.

There are those who believe this attack was all “theater”, but I am not sure. Trump gave in to immense Israeli/Zionist pressure to attack Iran. He was then probably told by the Air Force that one bombing pass would destroy the targets. That info. was wrong, but as it happened the operation did halt the cycle of escalation. Iran shot a final missile at the U.S. base in Qatar after telling both countries the thing was coming and that was that. Whether breaking the cycle was Trump’s intention or not, he decided to go with it. That was the final act (so far).

The U.S. operation did not have sufficient force to serve as any long-term strategic value. The Israelis, reassured that they can apply enough pressure to force Trump to act, are telling everyone that “the war is not over.” And we know that they are the wild cards in this whole affair. So, Israel might start the entire thing anew once it replenishes its stock of defensive missiles.

Richard Falk: There are two modes of perception relevant to U.S./Israeli strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites: (1) the prevailing Western mode of assessment that limits evaluation to the tactical and strategic success, or lack thereof, attributed to the joint Israel/ U.S. military operation; (2) a more critical mode of assessment that rejects the precedent of such a unilateral recourse to preemptive war justifications to address a foreign policy objective of questionable legality, political responsibility, and moral sensitivity.

Considering Operation Rising Lion (Israel) and Operation Midnight Hammer (U.S.) as a military operation configured to destroy Iran’s nuclear program by major attacks upon Iran’s nuclear sites. At present, the overall results including Iran’s shorter- and longer-term reactions to such violence encroaching on their territorial sovereignty and national security are not yet clear. There exists much uncertainty as to whether what is being described by the media as a ‘fragile ceasefire’ turns out to be a truce in a continuing and renewed military confrontation or is the prelude to a more stable and durable restructuring of relations between the three countries. Such a development would presumably lead to resumed negotiations by Iran with the U.S. with the objective of establishing agreed limits on Iran’s nuclear future, perhaps couple with Western sanctions relief. An Israel/Iran peaceful accommodation is more difficult to envision.

As far as an evaluation of the damage inflicted by the attacks, assessments vary. The three governments each claim success, Israel and the U.S. for their military operations, Iran for its retaliatory response, disclosing both capabilities to penetrate Israel air defenses and its display of restraint and composure reflecting prudential concerns with escalation of violence in the context of a limited war scenario. Whether the damage done to Iran’s nuclear program destroys or merely delays by a matter of months weapons grade enrichment of uranium remain a matter of controversy, disparate conjecture, and uncertainty. This inconclusiveness applies particularly to the deep underground Fordow nuclear site that was struck by a series of 30,000 pound ‘blockbuster’ bombs, which reportedly failed to explode at deep enough levels to destroy the nuclear facilities.

At issue, also, is whether Iran reacts by terminating its nuclear program, or contrariwise, rebuilds with renewed zeal and enhanced safeguards against a repetition of the 2025 coordinated attacks. It is also possible that Iran will also seize the opportunity to withdraw from the Non Proliferation Treaty accompanied by an announced willingness to revive support for a Middle Eastern Nuclear Free Zone (including Israel) that was rejected by Israel twenty years ago. If such a development is resisted by Israel, which is almost certain, then Iran could act provocatively by announcing its decision to acquire nuclear weapons, limiting its role to the deterrence of Israel.

(2) If a world order perspective is adopted, this recourse to a preemptive war validation for a use of international force that on its surface defies international law is a further defiant mode of serving strategic interests of Israel and the West that weakens the global normative order established at the end of World War II following a design that was developed by the U.S. Government. This design was deliberately weakened by conferring upon the major winning states in the war the right of veto to Security Council decisions together with limiting the authority of the more democratic General Assembly to recommendatory authority. It also assured the primacy of geopolitics by situating enforcement authority of judicial authority in the Security Council and by labeling International Court of Justice rulings in response to questions of law put to it by the UN General Assembly and other organs of the UN System as ‘Advisory Opinions.’

In this sense, the precedent set by unilateral attacks starting on June 13, 2025, the so-called ‘Twelve Day War’ were a further setback for the undertaking that reaches as far back as the Pact of Paris (1928) outlawing aggressive warmaking as well as the Nuremberg Judgment’s declaration of international aggression as a Crime Against Peace, what the tribunal called the worst of international crimes.

If this line of perception is restricted to the interaction of the three countries as to guardrails against both the spread of the weaponry and its threatened use, the results are decidedly negative. Israel, as noted, is itself a nuclear weapons state that has waged war widely against both the Palestinians living under their protective status as Occupier and the claim that Iran posed a security threat despite its capabilities to mount nuclear retaliatory options if deterrence fails. Israel’s disallowance of nuclear enrichment, even if reinforced by its reiterated of Iran’s official denial of any intention ever to acquire nuclear weapons would not be balanced to the slightest degree by an offsetting Israeli commitment to refrain from threat or use of the weaponry, or even by a tender of a no first use pledge. This kind of imbalance is expressive not only of Israel’s regional hegemonic ambitions, but of Western post-colonial imperial priorities in the strategic Middle East.

It is rarely commented upon, but the initial formulation of Operation Rising Lion, not only sought to launch a maximum attack on the physical facilities at Iran’s nuclear sites. It also explicitly aimed to undermine Iran’s capabilities to restore the program by seeking to kill top Iranian nuclear scientists, described as ‘the weaponization group.’ Such scientists were civilians, non-combatants, at prohibited targets even under conditions of legitimate warfare. This extends Israel’s practice of selected opponents of its settler colonial project in Israel, including cultural figures and leading activists, a further sign of contempt for International Humanitarian Law.

Daniel Falcone is a historian specializing in the revolutions of 1848 and the political refugees who sought asylum in New York City. His academic work focuses on Giuseppe Garibaldi’s influence on New York’s local history and the politics of memory in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Aside from his research, he is a teacher and journalist whose work has appeared in additional publications such as The Journal of Contemporary Iraq & the Arab World, The Nation, Jacobin, and Truthout. His journalistic pieces, Q&As with public intellectuals, intersect history with modern-day geopolitical issues.