All parties are claiming victory in the ‘12-day war’, which ended on 25 June. United States President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Iranian leadership have all made claims, in their widely different idioms, that they won. But those claims, and Trump’s additional assertion that he will bring peace to the Middle East, require qualification. The strategic outcome of the war is likely to prove inconclusive, bringing neither peace nor an end to military action. It may instead, as previous conflicts have done, simply mark a new phase in the institutional hostility between Iran and Israel.
The Revolution survivesThe most important post-conflict continuity is the survival of the Iranian Revolution in Tehran. The 30 commanders and 19 nuclear scientists killed by Israeli strikes did not include leading religious figures who, more than officials and commanders, embody the Iranian Revolution. Their survival represents the survival of the regime’s character, if not its executive capability. Neither did the attacks expose critical cracks in the regime’s cohesion, spark the emergence of a credible, alternative leader and programme, or mobilise widespread opposition.
The Iranian leadership may indeed have unexpectedly benefited from the war: the historic irony of aerial bombardments is that while they weaken an adversary’s capabilities, they can strengthen its resolve. The Iranian people, under fire, found a new, nationalist voice, which the leadership was quick to exploit as an indication of national unity.
The regime has also retained control of its key instruments of power, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – despite the death of its commander-in-chief, Hossein Salami, in the attacks – and the Basij militia. These will enable Tehran to secure itself against internal threats and to launch a counter-espionage campaign against Israel.
Speculation on the regime’s vulnerability will continue and invite comparisons with other fallen regimes in the region. But Iran’s circumstances are unlike those of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or Muammar Gadhafi’s Libya. In Syria and Libya, the incumbent regimes were opposed by armed internal opposition groups backed by external powers. In the case of Iraq, opposition was diffuse and less well-organised,
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