Friends,
The Mideast has been turned upside down within a few minutes.
Today saw the outcome almost no-one wanted but seemingly no-one could avoid: Israeli military strikes on Iran. The region, which only hours ago was moving towards cooperation and stability, is rapidly sliding into war.
In the early morning local time on Friday, Israel launched a wave of punishing strikes hitting nuclear facilities, Iranian military leaders, and nuclear scientists.
As of writing, the military strikes killed 20 senior Iranian military and ICRG commanders, several top scientists, and gravely injured one of Iran’s top nuclear negotiators, who was due to meet with the Americans in Oman on Sunday.
The attacks initially stunned observers. Why would Israel strike Iran two days before Iran and the US were to meet in Oman to advance nuclear talks?
The only answer: American involvement and a green light from a Trump Administration souring on the talks.
To clear up any speculation that Israel may have acted on its own, President Trump warned of further strikes, writing on Truth Social “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest words, ‘to just do it’….but they just couldn’t get it done”
Supporting New York Times reporting that the Israeli strikes targeted hardliners in Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, President Trump mused that Iranian holdouts and hawks were no more.
“Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” he wrote.
Pressuring Tehran to capitulate, Trump warned of further US-backed, Israeli military strikes.
“There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.”
This morning tens of Iranian rockets and drones heading to Israel were knocked down by the Jordanian army over Jordanian airspace. Some rockets landed in Daraa, southern Syria. US military bases, so far, have been spared.
Where we are heading
So where does this leave us?
Iran’s military retaliation has only just begun. Although it is degraded and weakened, Iran is likely to activate its surviving proxies in Iraq and Yemen to strike US interests and military bases in the Arab Gulf, Iraq, and possibly even Jordan. Iranian targeting of US military bases, or possibly civilian targets, may lead to US strikes on Iran.
Even if Iran reins in its response, should Tehran refuse to capitulate and accept the current nuclear deal on the table, Israel is set to expand its military campaign with US backing. Yet a military conflict that goes beyond targeting hardliners and that focuses on regime change threatens the region and the US with another forever war.
Arab states, meanwhile, are in the middle of the firing range of an Israel-Iran war. After finally moving away from two decades of conflict and failed states, the Arab world is being dragged into a war that is not their own.
After campaigning and presenting himself as an anti-war president, President Trump may now preside over the biggest US military involvement in the Middle East since Afghanistan.
What happens in the next 24 hours will be critical in determining whether President Trump’s “military strikes as bargaining tactic” was a strategic win or a historical failure that haunts the Middle East, and America, for years to come.
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