Israel’s high-risk strategy has made an already unstable region more dangerous over the weekend

Israeli defence policy seems to have changed in the wake of the Gaza conflict. Unable to see a political solution to the Palestinian question, Tel Aviv appears to have decided on pre-emptive action against any entity or country it suspects of posing any kind of threat to it. Iran, with its tactical, material and financial support for Hamas, has long been on Israel's radar, more so because Tehran is further suspected of developing a nuclear weapons programme.

The series of military strikes Israel began on June 13 - initially on Iranian nuclear and military installations, followed up by targeted assassinations of top Iranian military and paramilitary functionaries - marks the next stage of Israel's highly risky new defence strategy. Iran's retaliatory missile and drone strikes over the last three days have inaugurated a new phase in the conflict-ridden history of West Asia.

Iran has been suspected of a clandestine nuclear weapons programme since 2003, a charge it denies. International sanctions regime had brought Iran to the negotiation table, resulting in Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) in 2015, which put its nuclear programme on ice. When Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal in 2018 and brought back sanctions on Iran - to force it to curtail its regional ambitions using proxy militias (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc) - Tehran accelerated its nuclear programme, and is now believed by Israel to be only a few weeks away from developing nuclear weapons.

Soon after the onset of his second term, Trump proposed fresh negotiations towards a new deal. In the five rounds of talks that followed with Qatari mediation, Iran refused to abandon its right to nuclear enrichment, and to even discuss its missile development programme, two key American demands. The sixth round of nuclear talks scheduled for June 15, meant to deliberate on these issues, was cancelled yesterday.

Benjamin Netanyahu is convinced that Iran is determined to go nuclear, so talks would be futile. He believes Iran's nuclear problem needs be contained militarily. During the October 2024 tit-for-tat strikes on Iran, Israel had severely damaged the former's air defence system. If further military strikes were to be carried out against Iran's nuclear facilities while its air defences were down, time was running out. On June 12, when IAEA pronounced that Tehran was in breach of its NPT commitments, Netanyahu gave the go ahead - against Trump's advice as late as June 8.

Israeli targeting of Iran's nuclear sites in Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan and Tehran-Karaj, and assassination of nine nuclear scientists, matches with its stated aim of preventing Iran going nuclear. Its simultaneous targeting of military installations and high military and regime functionaries - Hossein Salami, Mohammad Bagheri, Gholamali Rashid, and grand ayatollah Ali Khamenei's close associate Ali Shamkhani - could be an attempt to destabilise the unpopular political dispensation, hoping to trigger a popular upheaval against the Islamic republic. Attacks on Iranian energy installations at Fars, fuel depot in Tehran, and other civilian targets on June 14 reinforce that possibility.

However, if the aim is to destroy Iran's nuclear programme, these strikes are too little. While its conventional military sites are vulnerable to Israeli aerial attacks, Iran's nuclear sites are dispersed across more than 14 sites. Some, like the enrichment facility at Fordow, are built deep underground in mountainous regions. Israel can hit Fordow, but can't damage it irretrievably. The US has the required munitions, but hasn't passed them on to Tel Aviv, yet.

And experience shows that assassination of nuclear scientists won't even slow down Iran. The technology is homegrown, not dependent on an individual or two.

If Israel's aim is to trigger regime change or cause popular upheavals, airstrikes may prove counterproductive. By causing large civilian casualties, they are more likely to antagonise the Iranian people, even those who oppose the regime. A similar assumption of uprising by Iranian Arabs during Saddam Hussein's invasion in 1980 had failed to materialise. Israeli airstrikes might weaken Iran militarily, but not the regime politically, certainly not in the short run.

Given Israel's demonstrated military superiority among West Asian powers, Iran is unlikely to be successful in combat. But Iran does not need to win. It simply needs to inflict enough damage for Israel to find the conflict too costly, as it seems to be doing. Domestically, the Iranian regime needs to convince its people that it shall endure. Indeed, if the war is prolonged, the Islamic republic risks reviving domestic turmoil if prevalent economic hardship increases further.

But prolonging the war serves Israel badly as well. With the Gaza crisis unresolved, a considerable section of Israeli military is tied down in Occupied Territories. This is quite apart from the economic toll a prolonged conflict will inflict on Israel.

Prospects of a far worse trajectory can't be ruled out. A sizeable segment of the Iranian establishment that wants to end Iran's economic isolation argue that Tehran should develop nuclear weapons capability, but not actually make weapons. Led by President Masoud Pezeshkian, these pragmatists had brought Iran back to nuclear talks with Khamenei's blessing.

The hardline national security establishment, led by Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has been advocating the nuclear route as insurance against foreign schemes of regime change. By exposing the regime's military weakness, Israel may have strengthened the hands of votaries of the nuclear option as a means of regime-survival.

Prospect of successful nuclear talks at this moment is remote. Iran could return to the table in a while as a means of getting Trump to rein in Israel. There is almost no chance of Iran conceding either on its missile development programme or on nuclear enrichment. But Tehran may agree to intrusive inspections and a JCPoA-like deal. Alternatively, if Israel perseveres, Iran could stay away from talks altogether, pull out of NPT, and accelerate its pathway to the bomb. Israel's high-risk strategy has made an already unstable region more dangerous.