In the early hours of this morning, Israel launched a sweeping military offensive targeting Iran’s nuclear sites, military bases, and senior military leadership. It marks Israel’s most significant operation against a regional nuclear program since its 2007 bombing of Syria’s suspected reactor at Al-Kibar.
The Israeli airstrikes come on the heels of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s 35-member Board of Governors finding Iran in non-compliance with its safeguards obligations for the first time in two decades preceded by an IAEA report on Iranian secret nuclear activities with materials not declared to the United Nations. They also follow an Iranian announcement that it is preparing to construct a new enrichment facility and upgrade centrifuges at its underground Fordow nuclear site. Iran is believed to have stockpiled sufficient weapons-grade uranium to build at least 10 nuclear weapons, although the U.S. Intelligence Community’s unclassified Annual Threat Assessment in March continues to assess that Iran is “not building a nuclear weapon.”
While Israel has framed its attack on Iran as “preemptive” self-defense, its timing, magnitude, and target set suggest a deeper strategic objective: to provoke an Iranian response that might derail ongoing diplomacy and potentially draw the United States into a broader conflict with Tehran.
Why—and What—Did Israel Attack at This Point?
In a televised address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the launch of “Operation Rising Lion,” aimed at neutralizing what he called an “existential threat” posed by Iran’s nuclear program. The operation would continue over a number of days, he warned, for as long as it takes to eliminate the threat. “Never again is now,” he declared. “We have risen like lions to defend ourselves.”
According to the Israel Defense Forces, the first stage of the operation included strikes on “dozens of key military targets, including nuclear targets in different areas of Iran.” These reportedly included a “multi-story enrichment hall” at Natanz—the largest enrichment site in Iran—among other nuclear facilities, and multiple locations linked to ballistic missile production. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, who immediately condemned the strikes, noted that Iranian officials initially stated the Isfahan and Fordow nuclear sites were not impacted.
The strikes have reportedly killed top leadership in Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—including Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the armed forces; Gen. Hossein Salami, IRGC commander-in-chief; Gen. Gholamali Rashid, deputy commander-in-chief of the armed forces; and Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Forces. Also killed were key nuclear scientists Fereydoun Abbasi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranji, a theoretical physicist and president of the Islamic Azad University in Tehran. Ali Shamkhani, former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council who was overseeing nuclear talks with the United States, is also presumed dead (earlier reports suggested he was critically injured).
Regional Fallout and Retaliation
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, called the Israeli operation an “act of unlawful aggression,” warning that Iran will take all the necessary measures to defend itself in accordance with international law. Iran has already launched at least 100 drones toward Israel in an initial retaliatory wave. The full scope of Iran’s response remains to be seen, but Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has promised Israel “a bitter, painful fate.”
Ahead of the opening Israeli strikes, White House envoy Steve Witkoff privately warned Senate Republicans that an Israeli attack could prompt Iran to unleash a “mass casualty” response, possibly overwhelming Israeli air defenses. According to a U.S. official, Iran now possesses over 2,000 ballistic missiles, many capable of carrying 2,000 to 4,000- pound warheads, placing Israel’s population centers within range. Since the Israeli-Iranian missile exchange in Oct. 2024, Tehran has reportedly increased production to 50 missiles per month—a pace designed to outstrip Israel’s missile defense capacity.
Even before the Israeli strikes, Iranian leaders made their retaliatory intentions clear. IRGC commander Gen. Salami—now confirmed killed—warned on June 12 that Iran’s “next confrontation with Israel will be far more crushing, devastating, and destructive” than any prior exchange. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian emphasized Iran’s resilience in the face of Israeli attacks, declaring earlier this year, “If [Israel] strikes a hundred nuclear facilities, we will build a thousand more.”
Still, Iran may yet exercise restraint. The lesson from Oct. 2024 is that Tehran’s calculus is not only technical but strategic. During that previous exchange with Israel, Iran refrained from responding to direct Israeli strikes on its territory, based on the calculation that a major escalation risked overwhelming its defenses.
The United States, while publicly emphasizing diplomacy, has been preparing for the worst. Prior to the Israeli operation, U.S. diplomatic personnel were partially evacuated from Baghdad, and military families were withdrawn from several bases across the Persian Gulf. President Donald Trump, who acknowledged he was aware of Israel’s plans before the attack, has wavered between distancing the United States from the operation and warning Iran that this is its last chance to strike a deal. “There is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end,” Trump said. “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.”
What Lies Ahead
Israel’s unprecedented strikes on Iranian soil mark a dangerous inflection point in the long-simmering nuclear standoff between the two regional powers. Whether this becomes the opening salvo of a wider war or a high-risk gamble to reassert deterrence depends largely on the next moves by Iran, Israel, and the United States. The coming days will test not only military preparedness but the coherence of strategic objectives and the resilience of diplomatic channels.
For Iran, the choice is between calibrated retaliation—aimed at restoring deterrence without inviting full-scale war—and a broader campaign of escalation that could draw in U.S. forces, fracture fragile regional alignments, and undermine its own long-term nuclear ambitions. For Israel, the operation may offer a short-term reprieve from perceived existential threats, but it risks deeper international isolation, fraying ties with Washington, and unpredictable blowback across multiple fronts—from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen.
The United States now faces a strategic dilemma: how to support a key regional ally without being pulled into a spiraling conflict that could engulf the Middle East, disrupt global energy markets, and permanently derail nuclear diplomacy.
To assess the path forward, policymakers and lawmakers should urgently ask the following questions:
- What is the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure? Have Israel’s strikes meaningfully degraded Iran’s breakout capability, or merely delayed it? If operations continue, what capacity does Israel have to further degrade the nuclear program without direct U.S. support?
- How intact is Iran’s retaliatory capacity? Can Iran absorb the loss of senior IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists without triggering an internal power struggle or resorting to an ill-considered response?
- How might this leadership decapitation affect Iran’s command and control? What are the implications for the management of regional proxies and strategic weapons programs? Under what circumstances, if any, might Tehran contemplate the use or threat of chemical and biological weapons, despite the risks of international condemnation and escalation?
- What are Iran’s current redlines and escalation thresholds? Is Tehran still seeking to avoid direct war, as it did after the Oct. 2024 exchange, or is it recalibrating its deterrent posture in light of shifting geopolitical conditions?
- How will regional actors respond? Will Iran-aligned groups—notably Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iraqi Shia militias—escalate or retaliate against Israel or U.S. interests, even absent direct coordination or instruction from Tehran? Can Iran restrain its proxies if it wishes to avoid further escalation?
- What is the durability of U.S.-Israeli coordination on Iran? Did Israel act unilaterally or with tacit U.S. support? How will this shape future military planning and U.S. credibility in the region?
- Can diplomatic channels be preserved or reopened? Is there still scope for mediated de-escalation through third-party actors, such as Oman, Qatar, or the European Union?
- What are the implications for nuclear diplomacy with Iran and the global non-proliferation regime? Will Israel’s attack harden Iran’s resolve to move closer to, or even cross, the nuclear threshold? How capable are the IAEA and others of detecting breaches if Iran chooses to break out?
- What message does the attack send to other threshold or latent nuclear powers? Does it reinforce the risks of restraint and cooperation with international monitoring, potentially incentivizing nuclear hedging elsewhere?
The answers to these questions will determine whether the region steps back from the brink or will spiral deeper into conflict.
