20 July 2025

Iran and the Logic of Limited Wars

Raphael S. Cohen

Israel's air war against Iran—“Operation Rising Lion”—may be over, but the controversy surrounding the attacks lives on. One key question is whether the U.S. strikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, 

and Esfahan, dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” succeeded in obliterating the deeply buried Fordow site or merely incapacitated it for a few months. The extent of the damage to Iran's nuclear program is, of course, important from an operational perspective. 

But the broader critique—that the 12-day air campaign was somehow foolhardy because it may not have permanently destroyed the Iranian nuclear program—misses the point.

Operation Rising Lion was a limited war fought with limited means for an even more limited period—all of which, in turn, means that the campaign's objectives were also limited. The campaign, therefore, 

needs to be judged against the alternative strategies—engaging in a longer, more protracted campaign or doing nothing militarily and sticking with diplomatic options. And by that measure, the operation was a success.

To begin with the option of a longer war: There were certainly more targets left in Iran when U.S. President Donald Trump called an end to the war. Although a full public accounting of the attacks' effects will take time, 

the Israeli military claims it eliminated roughly 1,000, or 40 percent to 50 percent, of Iran's ballistic missiles; destroyed 250 (or roughly two-thirds) of Iran's missile launchers; killed several dozen senior Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists; 

and set the nuclear program back by “years.” In other words, even by the Israeli military's own estimates, Iran's nuclear program is not demolished, it retains most of its missiles, and most of its military leaders remain untouched.

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