‘Regime change is overdue in Israel’: K.C. Singh

The 12-day Iran-Israel war seemed to escalate when Iran launched missiles at America’s Al Udeid base in Qatar, in retaliation for the US attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Israel had already damaged the last two, but Fordow, embedded in a mountain, remained outside its capabilities to destroy. Panic spread across the Gulf nations as many shut their airspace.

The denouement came quicker than anticipated. US President Donald Trump’s social media post declared that both combatant nations accepted a ceasefire. Apparently, Iran had forewarned the US and Qatar before launching missiles, enabling interception. Iran also reassured Qatar that only the US base was targeted, with safety of Qatari residents ensured, in view of their traditionally close relations. This confirmed that the Iranian attack was symbolic, to satisfy domestic opinion and safeguard global standing as a nation that defied US pressure. Fortuitously, the US also treated the attack as a necessary face-saver for Iran.

Wars or conflicts end in multiple ways. One, if either side capitulates, like the Pakistani military in erstwhile East Bengal in 1971, with India victorious. Two, if one combatant quits after a prolonged engagement without a clear outcome. The US did that in 1973 in Vietnam, and again in Afghanistan in 2016. In both cases, it was preceded by talks. Finally, if the combatants are stalemated due to closely matched offensive capabilities and their primary objectives mostly achieved. A ceasefire becomes more desirable than an endless war of attrition with limited likely additional gains. Israel and Iran reached that point when the US mediated.

President Trump claims both Israel and Iran approached him to end the conflict. Others write that the US president spoke to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the ruler of Qatar, to convey to Iran Israel’s willingness for a ceasefire. At 7:30am on June 24, calm descended on Israel after a week and a half of air raid alerts. Caught off-guard by Israel’s massive attack on June 13, as Iran awaited the fifth round of talks with the US two days later, Iran surprised Israel by its resilient retaliation. Israel claimed it accepted a mutual ceasefire “in full coordination with President Trump”. However, two hours later, sirens again sounded in Israel, but the ceasefire persisted.

Both Iran and Israel claimed a win post ceasefire. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian emphasised Israel’s failure to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, obliterate Iran’s nuclear expertise or incite social unrest. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an address to the nation, claimed “a historic victory”, having neutralised Iranian ability to develop nuclear weapons. Claims of success by both were understandable as they needed to justify extensive damage to properties and loss of civilian lives, as indeed the ceasefire.

The ceasefire was initially brittle, because of some violations. Through Tasnim news agency Iran denied launching any fresh missiles. President Trump voiced frustration as he headed to the NATO summit in the Netherlands. He first dictated: “Please do not violate it.” Then he conceded he was “not happy with Israel”. Thereafter he angrily blurted out that neither country “knows what the f*** they are doing”.

Although both sides claimed a win, they have a mix of achievements and failings. Netanyahu always sought to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme as well as engineer a regime change. He had already succeeded in demolishing Hamas’s control over Gaza and then decapitating the top Hezbollah cadres, thereby degrading Iranian assets on the northern and southern borders of Israel. Israel also probably facilitated the Assad regime’s ouster in Syria. Thus, with Iran’s allies and surrogates neutralised, the moment appeared ideal for targeting Iran. But Israel knew it needed not just American assistance, but ideally even participation in the military operations. President Trump, however, boasting his negotiating skills, first wanted talks with Iran about its nuclear programme. These began in Oman while Israel maintained its sabre-rattling. Sometime in May, it emerged that while the US wanted the nuclear programme’s dismantlement, Iran sought, at worst, some scaled down version of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA), which President Trump discarded during his first term. That enabled Israel to have President Trump tacitly approve use of military force, resulting in the June 13 attacks.

Despite Israel quickly neutralising Iranian air defences and killing many top military commanders and scientists, the Iranian response was robust. Iran persistently launched missiles and selectively breached Israel’s vaunted “Iron Dome” air defences. Israel finally targeted the Evin prison, notorious for interning political prisoners, and the headquarters of Basij, a paramilitary adjunct of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Basij are used to suppress domestic protests or mass dissent. This was Israel’s final attempt to clear the path for a civil uprising, which it calculated was imminent. Although a senior Basij commander was killed, Israeli assessment was wrong that sustained attacks on the Iranian nuclear programme, military commanders, nuclear scientists and symbols or agents of political repression would cause a popular uprising. As a nation with a deep sense of history and Shia faith, it tends to unite in the face of foreign aggression.

A preliminary classified Pentagon report, leaked to the media, concludes that the US attacks on three Iranian targets have set back the Iranian nuclear programme by only a few months. Iran in turn has reportedly asked Emirati President Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan to tell the US that they are ready to resume talks. The American hope that the 12-day war and US pummelling would get Iran to abandon their nuclear enrichment ambitions may prove futile. Iran will return to the negotiating table with renewed composure, having not only survived the military onslaught, albeit after sustaining heavy damage and casualties, but retaliated forcefully against Israel. But Iran needs great effort to restore the confidence of the international community.

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who in 2015 successfully negotiated the JCPOA alongside the four other UN Security Council members plus Germany defended that deal, arguing that it successfully kept the Iranian nuclear programme within the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s ambit and International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines. President Trump withdrew the US from it in 2018, perhaps under Israeli pressure. The Iranian nuclear adventurism, including enriching uranium up to 60 per cent and embedding new enrichment facilities in mountains, commenced after that.

The way forward is uncertain. President Trump has slammed media reports about the US attack’s limited success. Israel has warned that if Iran resumes uranium enrichment, it will provoke a fresh attack. The Iranian regime may buy time to rearm and strengthen its air defences. President Trump knows his domestic base, already split, will oppose further military involvement. Iran would calculate that talks with the US would allow the global focus to return to Israel’s ongoing massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. Iran’s missing 400-plus kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 per cent may end up in another secret Iranian enrichment facility and could transmute into nuclear weapons.

The US ignores past lessons from its interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Use of force in lieu of diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions can produce unwelcome outcomes. If regime change is overdue anywhere, it is in Israel. The Iranian Islamic regime, too, needs to adapt, both internally and diplomatically. Meanwhile, Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize remains adrift.

The author is former Indian ambassador to Iran.