“Things are not clear” — this was the only political forecast that diplomatic and political sources would give when asked about their expectations for the progression, duration, and possible end of the current Israeli-Iranian conflict.
According to multiple sources who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly, it is hard to imagine an exit from the current crisis that does not come at a heavy price for regional stability.
On Tuesday, Israeli TV’s Channel 14 quoted an Israeli source as saying that the following 48 hours would be highly consequential for the conflict between Israel and Iran.
The statement came as the US media reported that US President Donald Trump was heading a national security meeting in Washington. Hours before the meeting Trump had said that he wanted “full surrender from Iran” on its nuclear programme.
The statements came against the backdrop of speculation in the Israeli and US press on whether Trump would involve the US in the strikes against Iran, especially as only Washington has the capacity to attack the Fordow nuclear fuel enrichment plant that is built inside a mountain and hardened against bunker-busting bombs.
Sources say that Israel is lobbying to get the US to attack Fordow, to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and to launch heavy attacks against possible Iranian allies in the Arab countries. In press statements following his national security meeting, Trump said that his patience was running out and that the US knows Khamenei’s hiding place but would not eliminate him now.
According to one regional diplomat who spoke on Tuesday on condition of anonymity, the situation is fluid, and the endgame of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer confined to disabling Iran’s nuclear programme. Netanyahu wants to see regime change in Iran, the source said.
One of the sources who had said on the second day of the conflict on 14 June that he was excluding regime change in Iran in the short term said on Tuesday that “things are changing very fast.”
Speaking hours after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that Khamenei would “end up like [former Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein” if he continued to attack Israel, the source argued that it would be naïve to think that a new regime could be introduced in Tehran to take over from the Islamic Republic that has been in power for 45 years.
It would be equally naïve, he added, to think that a significant political hiccup in Iran would pass without serious consequences for the Gulf countries, all US allies, and some other nations also engaged in close cooperation with Israel.
However, the same source said that the future of the confrontation, just like its start, would depend not on the military might of the two parties but rather on the level of intelligence access they have.
If Israel has solid intelligence access about Khamenei’s hiding place, then it might get the nod to use it from Washington, provided there is some plan for the future not just of Iran but of the Gulf as a whole.
The debate over the fate of Khamenei came up as Israel was suppressing information about the level of damage that the Iranian strikes had caused in Israeli cities, and to government buildings, infrastructure, and other targets.
It also came as Israel significantly marginalised Iranian air defences in Tehran, with Katz calling on the residents of the Iranian capital to evacuate areas that would be announced by the Israeli army spokesman in Persian on Tuesday. Trump himself called on residents of the Iranian capital to evacuate the city on Monday.
Informed sources suggested on Tuesday evening that Iran was facing a hard challenge if it wants to emerge from the conflict with a semblance of its nuclear programme, a semblance of a stable political regime in Tehran, and a face-saving formula to go back to the nuclear negotiations table.
However, at the same time Iranian news outlets have been suggesting that the toughest part of the Iranian retaliation to the Israeli strikes is about to start. The Israeli media has meanwhile been quoting Israeli officials as saying that the next few days of the conflict are going to be crucial.
Speculation about the next phase of the strikes prompted sources that had suggested that the confrontation would not last beyond two weeks to reconsider their assessment of future scenarios.
With the general consensus being that everything is up in the air, most of these sources, who include two of past military background, argued that despite the Israeli military superiority it was safe to say that Iran had enough missiles and drones to keep firing them against Israel for a few weeks more.
This could induce a higher level of casualties in Israel that would put enough pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to claim that his aims had been secured and to end the attacks on Iran.
A third source well informed on the dynamics in Israel argued that Netanyahu had hit the point of no return in his plans to eliminate every single security threat in the region.
He added that when Netanyahu had eliminated the leaders of Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, and when he did not intervene to save the regime of former president Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, he was cutting off the tail of Iran in the lead up to an attack “that hardly anyone expected would happen so soon and so hard”.
The three sources, adopting alarming scenarios, said that it would be hard in the meantime to exclude the possibility that some of Iran’s allies, including Pakistan which has openly announced its support for Tehran, will not start attacks against US and Israeli targets in the region in order to take the pressure off Iran.
Other sources spoke of the parallel lines of mediation that have already opened up to stop the conflict and resume the talks with Iran on its nuclear programme. They argued that Russia, France, and Qatar have been offering ideas on how to stop the situation from further escalation.
In a press statement made on Tuesday evening, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohamed bin Abdel-Rahman appealed for a collective diplomatic move to contain the conflict. His predecessor Hamad bin Jassim warned that if the conflict continued, the Gulf countries would suffer the consequences.
However, there is no telling if anyone will be able to come up with an initiative that can contain the conflict and prohibit some of the apocalyptic scenarios — including a possible decision by Iran to continue its nuclear programme or for a possible clash of the major powers.
It is not likely that Russia and China will just sit and watch while the US allows Israel to eliminate their ally in Tehran.
Both China and Russia decided recently to carry out their largest joint naval exercise ever in Pacific waters. Russian news outlets said that the exercise had included artillery fire.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 19 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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