The US-Israel war on Iran is aimed at the destruction of Iran as a regional military power. Thus, it was timed to exploit the Iranian military’s supposed vulnerabilities and waning popular support for the ruling dispensation in the Islamic Republic. Now, the US-Israeli campaign is struggling as Iran has unleashed horizontal escalation.
Tehran’s objective has been to correct past misperceptions in which restraint was interpreted as weakness and to establish the credibility of its threats. The stakes for Iran involve not just the regime’s survival or territorial integrity, but also setting a new strategic equation, under which the costs for attacking Iran are raised not just for the US and its regional partners but also for the global economy. It wants to deny Israel the ability to engage in periodic military campaigns against it. Both sides, however, remain undeterred and are entering an open-ended escalation trap. Targeting Iran’s broader industrial and civilian infrastructure, as well as potential ground operations, will mean a protracted war where the costs rise and strategic gains for US-Israel remain uncertain.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that he is on a “historic and spiritual mission” rooted in the idea of Greater Israel shows that for Israel, the war is not just about addressing nuclear or missile threats from Iran. It believes that dismantling Iran’s military capabilities will not only end Tehran’s ability to project power across the region but also lead to a fragmentation of that country along ethnic lines, leaving Israel as the predominant military actor in the region.
This broadly aligns with the US’s vision of a new regional architecture in West Asia, for which it has pushed the Arab States, especially Saudi Arabia, to normalise ties with Israel.
The US has made significant operational achievements in terms of degrading Iran’s military capabilities, especially the Iranian navy. Yet, Iran’s missile stockpiles and production infrastructure, dispersed and buried under the mountainous terrain of the country, have withstood the US-Israeli bombing campaign. Iran’s capacity to endure and absorb losses and expand the battlefield by targeting the region-wide enabling infrastructure behind US and Israeli military operations has demonstrated the credibility of Iran’s deterrence-through-punishment doctrine. Iran has turned the conflict from a contained theatre — something that the US and Israel had in mind — to one with global consequences. In other words, despite its overwhelming military superiority, the US lacks escalation dominance to deter Iranian retaliation or force it to abandon Tehran’s strategic leverage in the Strait of Hormuz.
By establishing a differentiated regime with bilateral agreements with several Asian countries that rely on Gulf energy flows, Tehran has made it harder for Washington to mobilise a broader coalition in the name of defending freedom of navigation. With the entry of Yemen’s Houthis into the conflict by targeting Israel and potentially disrupting Red Sea shipping and Saudi energy exports if the Kingdom actively joins the US-Israeli war efforts, Tehran has sent signals that prolonging the war would lead to further expansion of its geographical scope and increased costs, which will be borne globally.
The US-Israel war on Iran will likely lead to a fundamental revision of the latter’s nuclear doctrine and the utility of continued adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Iranian regime that survives this war will be weaker but will have more incentive to seek nuclear weapons as the ultimate instrument of State survival.
Deepika Saraswat is an associate fellow at Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The views expressed are personal
