Mitchell Bard
While President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be celebrating a tactical victory after the devastating strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the uncomfortable truth is that Iran remains a grave and unresolved threat to Israel, the region and global stability. The joint U.S.-Israeli campaign may have significantly degraded Iran’s capabilities, but it fell short of delivering the one outcome that could ensure lasting security: regime change.
The strikes might have achieved more had Trump not prematurely ended the U.S. operation and forced Israel to do the same. Ultimately, neither Washington nor Jerusalem was willing to take the decisive steps necessary to complete the task. As a result, Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been delayed — not defeated — and Iran still poses a formidable threat because of its missile arsenal, sponsorship of global terror and its determination to rebuild its proxies.
Following the Israeli and American strikes, experts have fiercely debated the extent of the damage. Trump has claimed the nuclear threat is “obliterated,” but assessments suggest Iran’s nuclear program may have been set back only two to three years. Iran’s foreign minister confirmed nuclear sites were “seriously damaged.”
Iran surely planned for the possibility of being attacked and moved at least some of its nuclear program elsewhere. We don’t know what secret facilities the Iranians may have; however, they have not behaved as if they have hidden capabilities.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, acknowledged that his agency does not know the location of nearly 900 pounds of potentially enriched uranium. This quantity is enough to build eight to 10 nuclear bombs if further enriched to 90%, and Grossi said Tehran could restart doing so “in a matter of months.”
Known enrichment facilities were indeed destroyed, and centrifuge production centers in Tehran and Karaj were hit. The country, however, still has at least 24 nuclear-related sites where stored equipment could be reactivated. Though rebuilding a functioning enrichment cascade will be technically difficult, as well as challenging to conceal from satellite and radiation surveillance, the past has proven that Iran’s capacity for deception should not be underestimated.
Critics often assert that you cannot bomb away nuclear knowledge — and that’s true. But Israel successfully targeted Iran’s nuclear brain trust, assassinating key scientists and slowing down its capacity to coordinate a rapid restart.
Undeterred, Iran has vowed to resume uranium enrichment. This would preclude any possible agreement that the president or Europeans may hope to negotiate.
Israel estimated that about 250 — or some two-thirds of Iran’s ballistic-missile launchers — were destroyed in airstrikes, along with around 1,000 of the missiles. This leaves Iran with around 1,000 to 1,500 ballistic missiles and roughly 100 launchers. While this represents a serious degradation of Iran’s arsenal, it will not prevent it from continuing its research and development.
Israeli propaganda presented Iranian missile attacks as indiscriminate or targeting civilians. In truth, military censors prevented publication of certain missile strikes to prevent Iran from adjusting its aim. Iran still managed to strike five IDF bases with six missiles. Direct hits caused extensive damage to the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot and the Bazan oil refinery in Haifa. According to the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, Iran adapted its tactics during the war, exploiting gaps in Israel’s air-defense systems, allowing it to double the number of missiles that avoided interception from 8% in the first six days to 16% in the second.
The war took a toll: 29 Israelis killed, more than 3,000 wounded, 2,305 homes damaged or destroyed, and more than $1 billion in property losses. Had hostilities continued, the toll would have been much higher.
The Islamic Republic targeted a single U.S. base, telegraphing the attack to ensure minimum damage and reduce the likelihood of American retaliation. It retains sufficient missile capability to threaten American forces and allies across the region.
Israel’s success in striking Iran was due in part to its decapitation of the leadership of Hezbollah, which Tehran had counted on to serve as a strategic buffer against Israel. Though Hezbollah either could not or chose not to enter the war, it has not disappeared. Israel continues work to dismantle Hezbollah’s resources in Southern Lebanon, but most of the leadership and fighters have retreated north, where they have so far escaped Israel’s wrath.
Hamas, isolated in Gaza and weakened, is not yet neutralized. If it survives the current conflict, it could once again serve as Iran’s southern proxy.
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, while subdued for now by American deterrence, are intact and capable of reactivating attacks on U.S. forces at any time.
And critically, the Houthis remain untouched. Trump’s cease-fire allowed them to continue disrupting shipping and firing ballistic missiles at Israel and in international shipping lanes. With Yemen as a launchpad, Iran retains at least one operational front against Israel and the West.
A pattern of high-value weapons seizures shows that Tehran is making new efforts to arm its militia allies across the Middle East. These include the interception of a large weapons delivery from Iran meant for the Houthis; Syria’s new government stopping weapons shipments along its borders with Iraq and Lebanon meant for Hezbollah; and the Lebanese army’s capture of deliveries brought in across its border with Syria and flown into Beirut.
Iran’s goals have not changed: acquire nuclear weapons, destroy Israel, dominate the Middle East and spread Islamism worldwide. The decisions by Israel and the United States to eschew regime change ensure Iran will remain a destabilizing force. While it may not pose an existential threat in the short run, Israelis cannot let their guard down.
The failure to pursue regime change when Iran was reeling from military defeat is a profound missed opportunity. Tehran is now cracking down harder than ever at home, executing suspected spies and consolidating power. Its leadership is wounded but
not broken.
The Iranians are poised to exploit both European naivety and Trump’s eagerness to restart negotiations. History has shown that Iran exploits diplomacy to buy time, conceal its activities and rearm.
As long as Iran’s clerical leadership remains ideologically committed to its objectives, political or military containment is insufficient. The only path to lasting peace and freedom for the Iranian people is regime change.
Mitchell Bard is a foreign-policy analyst and an authority on U.S.-Israel relations who has written and edited 22 books.
