Israel is achieving its goals in Iran — so far

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The author is former chief of MI6 and UK ambassador to the UN

As the US leans out of the Middle East, the countries of the region are addressing their security concerns on their own. Israel’s assault on Iran is the latest example.

It was a bold statement of Israeli power. The intelligence coverage was extraordinary. Israel pinpointed Iranian commanders in their homes and killed them, some with drone strikes launched from inside Iran — an echo of what Ukraine recently achieved inside Russia.

How far the nuclear programme has been set back won’t be clear for a while. Having struck once, the Israelis may have to go back regularly to “mow the grass” if the Iranians make a dash for nuclear weapons. The strikes have not ended and escalating them to knock out oil infrastructure carries wider risks of Iranian retaliation in the Gulf. But so far it looks like Israel is achieving its goals.

Iranian leaders have only themselves to blame for their predicament. They have persisted with a nuclear programme that could only have a military purpose. They have armed and funded militias to cause problems for their enemies, and their lack of control over these groups led to the October 7 2023 Hamas assault which has rebounded against Iran’s interests.

All this at the cost of Iran’s own development. Its proud, well-educated and entrepreneurial people are frustrated at how far they have fallen behind their Arab neighbours. For Iranians, the Islamic Revolution has been a catastrophic failure.

Where does this go now? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like the Iranian regime to be toppled. It is certainly brittle and deeply unpopular, so the possibility cannot be ruled out. But when a country is attacked from outside, the population often rallies around the flag and opposition groups are unable to exploit a moment of regime weakness. The real threat to the regime is internal, on the streets of Iran’s cities. Calls by an Israeli leader for the Iranian people to rise up have little appeal when those same people are being bombed.

Iran’s authoritarian friends, Russia and China, are unlikely to prop up the regime if it does start to wobble. Russia did so in Syria in 2015 and that delayed the collapse of Assad rule by a decade. But even if it wanted to, Moscow probably lacks the capacity to intervene now, given how stretched it is in Ukraine. And China is a fair-weather friend, buying Iran’s oil and promising investment but with no interest in being drawn into a security role in a far-off country, beyond providing surveillance technology.

If the Islamic regime does fall at some point, then we shouldn’t expect a liberal pro-western government to emerge. Without a well-armed opposition inside the country, elements of the armed forces are best-placed to emerge on top in any fight for power. They would learn the lessons of past failures and perhaps pose less of a threat abroad, but what limited freedoms exist in Iran might be closed further.

The alternative is fragmentation, as happened in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia. In Iran, such a process would be on a much bigger scale as Kurds, Arabs, Baluch, even the well-integrated Azeris fall back on ethnic nationalism in a country where Persians form barely a majority of the population. One lesson from recent decades is that the fall of repressive regimes doesn’t always lead to a better outcome as there is no one to hold to account and terrorist groups will thrive in ungoverned space. Iraq has finally emerged as a better place, but it has taken 20 years since Saddam Hussein was ousted, even with the country’s huge oil wealth.

What does the Israeli strike say about American power? Personal relations between Netanyahu and President Donald Trump are clearly not good. Trump wants to be a peacemaker and to cut deals. Netanyahu is no help on either front. But the strength of American support for Israel came through again as Trump’s appeal to allow time for a negotiated agreement with Tehran was brushed aside by Netanyahu. The Israelis feared a half-baked US-Iran deal, and their military response may have helped Trump avoid that dilemma.

The Saudis and other Gulf countries will register this. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his fellow rulers will continue to court Trump without relying on him heavily. It’s not just that Trump is unreliable, it’s also that America has bigger fish to fry with China. The leaning out of Middle East security that began under Obama will continue under Trump and his successors too. The region will fill the gap on its own.