What Have the U.S. and Israel Accomplished in Iran?

On Monday night, forty -eight hours after the president Donald Trump He ordered a series of strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Earlier that day, Iran fired missiles at an American air base in Qatar, an attack with a prior warning and did not lead to no losses. The Trump administration had initially indicated reluctance to participate officially in the Israeli campaign to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, but since then The strikes on SaturdayTrump had publicly thought about the possibility of changing the system. Even after announcing on Monday that he helped mediate a stopping in the fighting, Iran and Israel continued to exchange missile attacks, each side accuses the other of violating the conditions of the ceasefire. On Tuesday morning, Trump told the White House correspondents, “We have two countries fighting for a long time and so hard that they do not know what they are doing.”
Nicole Gragifsky is a fellow of the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Program for International Peace, and the author of “The Book”Russia and Iran(On Monday, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Vladimir Putin, who criticized the American strike) met. Relations between Russia with both Iran and Israel in the region may be stipulated, and why the war that aims to end the Iranian nuclear program may instead has instead provided a long uncertainty.
What are your concerns about the short, medium and long -term shooting?
In the short term, I think my primary anxiety is an accidental escalation. Whether these Iranian agent groups in Iraq are launching something against Israel and Israel, or because of the response to statements from Israel or Iran. In the medium to long term, my anxiety relates to the sharp relationship between Iran and Israel that is likely to continue. This is the ceasefire that will not rent years of the shadow war that was imprisoned by Iran and Israel. The nuclear issue continues on the horizon.
How is that?
On Monday, the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian Parliament approved the outline of the draft law that would suspend Iran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. This would reduce efforts to determine, or at least an account, Iran’s highly enriched uranium stocks and reach these nuclear sites. Therefore, there may be momentum inside Iran and seems to defend international censorship on its nuclear program.
Netanyahu was very aggressive recently-could you see him giving Trump a victory over the short-term ceasefire, as he did with Gaza, then wanted to re-start the war?
It is very expected that Israel will leave the opportunity again to enter and eliminate certain facilities or leadership. I think a lot of escalating dynamics may depend on the remainder of the Iranian nuclear program and their proximity to its reshaping. Some uranium metal facilities have been destroyed, and this is in fact a very good stop for some weapons. But we do not know where the very enriched uranium was Iran. Then Iran has a lot of centrifugal components, and this was not under the inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency since 2021. Therefore, on the long side of that, you can see Iran developing a secret program. Moreover, since you saw Israel would have Iranian scientists in the past, Iran has invented a strong society of nuclear scientists, nuclear engineers and nuclear physicists, so that the continuity of knowledge is preserved. So it is not like knowledge eliminated as well. I think something will happen as a result of the penetration of mass intelligence, which really reduced Iran’s military response and destroyed this Islamic revolutionary leadership (IRGC), which is that there is a country much higher.
What are the internal and external dynamics that you see inside Iran now?
There is a home audience that wants Iranian leadership to transfer what is similar to stability and similar strength. But this is also related to referring to the United States that Iran is not weak and that, despite these tremendous visits when it comes to its military facilities, when it comes to their traditional strength, they still retain the right to respond. But it seems that there is some warning or reference to America and/or Qatar before this military attack. Iran may not want to participate in the war of attrition with the United States, even if it is preparing for one.
So the sign is just an explanation that the long war is not what Iran wants?
Yes, and it is clear that there is now this concern about changing order and internal stability. This will be something, as I think, that the Iranian strategies are also thinking about it, because the continuation of this war for them also increases their weakness when it comes to the type of control they have at home. On Monday, Israel targeted some members of repression inside Iran, such as the so -called BASIG power, for example, and other parts of internal security services.
Can you talk a little about how to organize the system and operate?
The regime works to somewhat repress and terrorism. This is how it was formed in this revolutionary context and after the Iraqi war. But it is largely bureaucratic and institutions as well. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is one of the aspects of this. And one part of that is BASIG, which is the internal clamp on the salad. But they also have major blocs of economic interests that really depend on corruption. It is a matrix. There are some factions where you have clerics and confirmation in certain parts of the country only. So in Qom, for example, this is a very large focus of strength when it comes to men. Thus, you see that in the discussions of the Guardian Council, which supervises the elections and agreed to the legislation, or even with the talk of the caliphate. But then, there are also those who are very eager who are largely incarnated in this ideology of confrontation with the United States and Israel. This also includes a very strong focus on maintaining this type of nuclear threshold and also dropping its power throughout the region.
So Iran is somewhat active, but it is also a severe ideology. Of course, all this is driven by a sharp sense of weakness of any kind of internal or external disorders that may threaten the existence of the system. Of course, there is a higher leader, the final arbitrator inside Iran, but there are cadres of the two mechanisms around him.
I saw you warning against the consequences of changing the system. What about the structure of this system that you have identified on a large scale that causes you to be interested in particular?
One of the problems in discussing the change of the Iranian regime in the United States is that it is a goal within itself, but nothing happens yet. The experience of Iraq is a good example of this. But with Iran, I think what anxiety is that there are strong and misleading factions that can somewhat escalate from a counter -group. The Iranian people mostly do not support the current regime, and many Iranian people do not support revolutionary theocraticism. But there are also people who are actually responsible for this massive repression. Thus, one of my concerns is that we are following the policy of changing the system, and what is already happening locally in Iran is much larger and more insecurity to the extent that civilians are more than others. The change of the system is ultimately to the Iranian people. One hopes this system will decrease at some point and some democratic government rises. However, as you know, this is not always how international relations play.