The Iran-Israel War Was Short. The Next One Will Not Be
Long-lasting peace will require political and ideological reform in Iran.
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The war between Iran and Israel has paused but not ended. In just twelve days, the long-simmering shadow conflict between these bitter rivals exploded into a direct military confrontation. Precision Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure on June 13, followed by U.S. involvement a week later, shattered the illusion that this confrontation could be indefinitely contained. A fragile ceasefire was reached on June 24 under heavy pressure from the Trump administration.
Do not mistake quiet for resolution. The roots of the Iran-Israel June War are not related to geopolitics; Iran and Israel don’t have any territorial dispute. The roots are ideological (supporting the Palestinians and the destruction of Israel), which guarantees that more conflict lies ahead.
The Israel-Iran war was a rupture. In less than two weeks, Israel’s operation targeted most of Iran’s nuclear and military sites and killed many Iranian nuclear scientists and senior commanders, which undermined the Islamic Republic’s military credibility. In retaliation, Tehran launched around 550 missiles and 1,000 armed drones. Most of them were intercepted by Israeli air defense systems. Some were not. Dozens struck civilian areas, including hospitals and residential neighborhoods, revealing either targeting failures or a chilling disregard for civilian life.
Israel’s advanced missile defense systems held, resulting in 28 deaths and around 3,000 injuries. Iran, by contrast, suffered at least 600 deaths and 5,000 wounded, among them many from the IRGC, its regular army (Artesh), the paramilitary Basij, and members of their families.
The scale of destruction shocked many observers. But the origins of the war date back decades. Since its founding in 1979, the Islamic Republic has mainly defined itself by opposition to Israel, both ideologically by labeling it as “the usurper Zionist regime” and strategically by supporting proxy groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, which aim to destroy Israel.
For both Ayatollah Khomeini and, later, Khamenei, Israel is a cancerous state that should be destroyed. In the shade of the deboning of Palestine, the destruction of Israel became a pillar of the Islamic Republic’s ideology, followed by a concerted policy of establishing and supporting Islamic militias, which surrounded and attacked Israel. Anti-Zionism, blended with traditional antisemitic motifs, was enshrined as a pillar of the regime’s ideology.
Israel, for its part, pursued a doctrine of aggressive containment: assassinating nuclear scientists, sabotaging facilities, and targeting Iranian assets across the region. Over the past two decades, it has executed an elaborate shadow war, trying to undermine the Islamic Republic and its foreign policy. After Iran’s nuclear program was exposed by Iranian opposition groups in the early 2000s, Israel undertook a mission to undermine this program by allegedly assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, sabotaging enrichment facilities through, for example, the Stuxnet virus, hacking infrastructure, and stealing its documents. These operations were designed to obstruct Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons effectively, yet they also escalated hostilities and significantly heightened Tehran’s sense of vulnerability.
That doctrine was pushed to its limit when the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in May that Iran had stockpiled over 409 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%—dangerously close to weapons-grade. When negotiations with the United States collapsed on June 12, Israel took matters into its own hands.
Nevertheless, there is another reason Israel acted now: the Islamic Republic is internally weaker than it has been in decades. The economy is reeling from sanctions, inflation, and mismanagement. Protest movements, suppressed but persistent, have eroded the regime’s authority. Moreover, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei aging and succession uncertain, Israel likely saw a rare and narrowing window to strike decisively.
Iran’s response has not just been military but also domestic. The regime has gone into siege mode. Internet access is cut. Checkpoints were established throughout the streets to inspect vehicles, and young people’s mobile phones were confiscated to determine if they had posted anything against the regime. Additionally, mass arrests targeted individuals accused of sympathizing with Israel or criticizing the government. More than at any time in the past, the Islamic Republic is trying to intimidate the Iranian people; in fact, it is trying to compensate for its loss on the battlefield and ongoing repression at home.
However, even after such a humiliating blow, Iran’s leadership remains defiant. On Wednesday, the Iranian parliament passed a bill suspending cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared that Iran will not abandon its nuclear program and will instead re-evaluate how to protect its facilities. Iranian TV is pumping the message from military and political elites that Iran is not stopping its support for Shia militias in the region, nor is it limiting its missile programs or nuclear ambitions. The message is unambiguous: The Islamic Republic is not backing down. It seems that it will be more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad.
The Islamic Republic’s nuclear and missile programs are not merely pragmatic tools of deterrence. They are the outcome of an ideological project rooted in the regime’s foundational goal: exporting its revolutionary Islamist vision and resisting what it calls “global arrogance,” embodied by the United States and Israel. If the Islamic Republic doesn’t reform or change, these ambitions will endure, nuclear or not.
The Islamic Republic’s record proves this point. Despite sanctions, sabotage, and even limited military strikes, Tehran has accelerated uranium enrichment, expanded missile testing, and deepened its strategic alliances with other authoritarian states like Russia and China. At home, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the force responsible for nuclear and missile development, has consolidated its grip on political and economic life. The Islamic Republic is not a normal state seeking security; it is a revolutionary regime that sees survival and regional domination as inseparable from its hard power arsenal.
So, containment may manage symptoms, but it cannot address the root cause. That root cause is the regime itself. Iran’s nuclear program is not a policy misstep; it is a pillar of the Islamic Republic’s strategy. Any effort to truly eliminate the threat must focus on transforming the regime’s political character.
And that’s precisely why the ceasefire is unlikely to last. If the United States and its allies want to prevent another war, one that could spiral even further, they must think beyond short-term deterrence. A durable agreement with Iran cannot just focus on nuclear limits. It must address the regime’s broader security doctrine and ideological posture.
That means the international community, and more importantly the United States, should push for the normalization of Iran’s ties with the United States, recognizing Israel’s right to exist and ending the existential narrative that justifies Iran’s hostility.
These demands are not idealistic. They are strategic. Iran’s external aggression and internal repression are two sides of the same coin. Its foreign policy is not just realpolitik; it reflects its revolutionary identity. Unless its identity evolves, its behavior will not either.
Skeptics will argue, with some justification, that Iran is unlikely to change. The regime has long used anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism to maintain power. But history suggests it is capable of pragmatic shifts when its survival is at stake. After all, it was this same leadership that once reopened dialogue with Donald Trump after Trump walked away from the nuclear deal, sanctioned the country into economic misery, and ordered the killing of General Qassem Soleimani.
Meanwhile, the acceptance of Trump’s ceasefire after Israel humiliated Iran’s military force and the United States damaged its nuclear facilities demonstrates that its leaders are willing to bargain under duress when the regime is at risk. The lesson? Even the most ideologically rigid regimes can show “heroic flexibility” under pressure.
The Islamic Republic is more isolated than ever. Its regional allies are weakened. Its military has been humiliated, and its economy is in freefall. Its people are restless. These vulnerabilities are not permanent. But they create a rare moment of leverage for the United States and the international community. In the next round of negotiations, a narrow nuclear deal will not be enough. Only a comprehensive agreement that fuses security guarantees with political and ideological reforms can break the cycle of confrontation.
That will not be easy. But the alternative is worse: another war, one that may not be so containable.
Saeid Golkar is an associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, a senior advisor at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), and a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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It seems that the solution being proposed here is pragmatic regime change by the regime itself, which is hard to get one's head around. Is it an indirect way of calling for actual regime change?
The essay's subhead is "Long-lasting peace will require political and ideological reform in Iran." But while political reform might be carried out by existing actors, ideological reform implies either the ouster of those actors or their mental rebirth as radically different people; which is unlikely.
So, we’ve seen (and filmed) this regime change movie before. About 25 years ago. And Trump was a loud and vocal critic of the Iraq nation building project. If this ideology is the very foundation of the regime, and crippling sanctions didn’t turn them into a nice neighbors before, how does it work now? Short of Nation Building Part 2 (This Time, It’s Gonna Work), how does this get done?