Beirut – After a stop the fire of a cowardly fire between Israel and Iran became fortunate on June 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared jubilantly that the “existential threats” of Iran's nuclear program and the Balistic missile arsenal had been destroyed. The “historical victory,” he said, “would remain for generations.”
But almost two weeks after President Trump deployed 30,000 -pound bombs and Tomahawk missiles against Iran's nuclear facilities, the questions persist on how permanent victory will be. Even when American and Israeli intelligence services continue to evaluate strikes, and the White House insists that Tehran can acquire a great treatment for peace in the region, analysts say that hostilities were less an end than a prelude to the next law.
“There will be a sequel. The war remains an unfinished project, for both parties,” said Bader Al-Saif, history professor at Kuwait University. Israel, he added, “he wants to see the end of the Iranian regime or a more serious decapitation of his abilities.”
For the leaders of the Islamic Republic, who have challenged and antagonized Israel, and the United States, for decades, who emerged bruised but not beaten serve as proof that they should continue.
“Regardless of the superiority of Israeli and American fire, they are still there,” said Al-Saif. “And they are there in the long term.”
Israel's 12 -day campaign is the first time that the long -standing shadow conflict between the Middle East military superpowers exploded in the open war, decapitating the upper levels of Iran's military and nuclear leadership. The Israel spy service carried out sabotage operations made on Iranian soil. The wave after wave of air attacks killed hundreds of people and converted vital facilities, infrastructure and neighborhoods of the city into lots of rubble.
The smoke rises from a command center of the body of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard to northern Tehran on June 23, after being attacked by Israel.
(Images of Elyas / Middle East)
From the moment Trump announced that the B-2 Spirit Bomber attacks, he and other members of his administration have repeated the word “erased” when describing their impact.
Although an initial damage analysis expressed skepticism, a consensus arose that Iran's enrichment and weapons infrastructure, including centrifuging and uranium metallurgy equipment, was destroyed or inoperative inoperable. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview on Tuesday with News News News that Iran's atomic energy organization was still evaluating the impact on the fordo site: “But what we know so far is that the facilities have been seriously damaged.”
The lasting thing will be the reverse to Iran's nuclear ambitions is another matter.
Araghchi added that the “Iran Pacific Nuclear Program has become a matter of national pride and glory and that” people will not easily retreat from enrichment. “
“One cannot erase technology and science for enrichment through bombings,” Araghchi said. “If this exists on our part, and the will exists to progress once again in this industry, we can quickly repair damage and recover lost time.”
Iranian officials put 935 people's dead of the war, including 38 children and 132 women; They did not specify how many of the men were civilians.
The US, European and Iran powers signed an agreement in the relief of conditioning sanctions of 2015 in Iran that restricts the enrichment of uranium to 3.67% (sufficient for civil use), renouncing significant amounts of their uranium reserve and allowing inspectors of the International Atometics Agency to monitor the facilities.
Trump retired from the agreement in 2018, saying that it was not far enough, and imposed what he described with the sanctions of “maximum pressure” to Iran. He began his second term with efforts to negotiate a new agreement; Israel began its attack against Iran when the conversations were underway.
Experts believe that Iran still has centrifugators that it manufactured before the war, but had never been installed, as well as an enriched uranium reserve at 20% and 60%, sufficient for 10 eyes.
“The conclusion is that Iran has the fundamental elements that I could use to reconstitute an enrichment effort,” said Eric Brewer, deputy vice president of the nuclear material security program for the nuclear threat initiative, a group of Washington experts.
Armando that uranium is a darker perspective, he added. Israel killed 14 veteran Iranian nuclear scientists, but it is likely that knowledge has stayed, Brewer said.
“Iran are clearly not willing to abandon its nuclear program,” he said. “It's about how that reconstituted program will take and how long they will go to meet it.”
People bend the tents in an underground shelter in Tel Aviv on June 24, 2025, after the high fire was announced with Iran.
(Ohad Zwigenberg / Associated Press)
Meanwhile, Tehran has already taken measures that limit the access of inspectors to their nuclear program. On Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Peeshkian signed a law a bill that suspended cooperation with the OIEA, the United Nations Nuclear Control Agency, until guarantees for the safety of nuclear facilities and scientists are granted.
The Guardian Council of 12 members, half of which are appointed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, approved it the next day.
It is likely that any enrichment will continue to be a non -steel for Trump, who says that “no doubt” would bombard any Iranian reconstruction effort. The Israelis have also threatened to attack again if they perceive a threat.
But that calculation pushes all sides to a perpetual game of cat and mouse, with Iran and more and more to hide their activities while the United States and Israel continue to observe Tehran maneuvers.
Israel has used a similar play book in Lebanon. Although he accepted the fire with the Hezbollah militant group in November, he maintains an almost omniscient presence on his neighbor, with a series of drones, spies, signs of intelligence and artificial intelligence that demonstrates that Hezbollah's activity is effective. The Israel Army has launched thousands of attacks aimed at any movement of the Lebanese militant group to restore its capabilities.
“The Israelis refer to him how to cut the grass, and the idea is that they can do this incessantly,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a weapons control specialist and professor at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey. “But I am skeptical about the long -term success of this effort [with Iran] Because you can't count on that level of penetration and access that is good forever. “
In fact, Iran is a more challenging objective, approximately 158 times larger than Lebanon and more than 1,000 miles farther from Israel.
Brewer, the nuclear proliferation expert, added that Iran would probably choose to hide new even deeper facilities underground to defend against the attacks of “Buster Bunker” of the United States.
“To use the analogy, to effectively cut the grass, you should know where that grass is growing,” he said.
Iran says he will respond if the United States and Israel hit again. And he has shown that he can demand a price.
During the war, he threw successive fuses of ballistic missiles, and although most were carved on the road or were destroyed by the Israel defense network, those who went through the destruction of the invisible left in Israel for decades.
Health authorities say that 29 Israeli civilians were killed and several buildings were destroyed or more damaged, they need to be demolished. Israel's tax authority says that more than 40,000 compensation claims have been presented.
Firefighters, rescue workers and the military work on the site of an Iranian missile strike in Tel Aviv on June 22, 2025.
(ODED BALILTTY / ASSOCIATED Press)
In addition, keeping Israel's defensive network online is not an easy task because it is based on “fiercely expensive” interceptors, Lewis added. When Israel exhausted its supplies, the United States had to intervene, shooting a one -year production of the high -terminal high altitude area, or missiles to intercept Iran's projectiles.
“It is almost a war of wear, because if the Israelis wait to intercept, then they are on the wrong side of the cost curve,” Lewis said.
It is unlikely that negotiations with Iran are easy in an atmosphere of post -war distrust. In his interview, Araghchi said that the door to diplomacy “will never be closed”, but he doubted the statements of Trump's administration officials that negotiations between the United States and Iran on their nuclear program would restart as soon as the next week.
“So that we can decide to participate again, we will first have to make sure that the United States does not attack again in a military attack during the negotiations,” said Araghchi.
At the same time, there is little appetite in Iran by a great agreement that, as provided by Trump, aims to resolve all conflicts with Israel in the region, said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program in the Tank of Thought Chatham House House with headquarters in London.
“That is an illusion after a consistent war that has damaged Iran's defense doctrine and one where Israel has not seen its strategic objectives met,” said Vakil.
“We are in a waiting time, and without a really determined approach and a deliberate diplomacy, this will be a very long intermediate, while both parties regroup and think about the next round.”
