The Middle East is back to the days before the 1973 War between Egypt and Israel, the former backed by the former Soviet Union and the latter by the United States. While the Soviet Union is now long gone, the Russia of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been fighting a war on its borders with Ukraine for the last three years without an end in sight.
The state of “no war, no peace” of yore lasted for six years between 1967 and 1973. The outbreak of the 1973 War with its diplomatic, political, and military consequences led to deep changes in the Middle East, but the lack of any serious and credible process to solve the Palestinian question has remained a major cause of instability in the region. It paved the way for the Iranian government to present itself as the guarantor of the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to resist the Israeli occupation and have a state of their own.
The 12-Day war of Israel against Iran launched on 13 June and the US military strikes on Iran on 21 June aiming to destroy the three major Iranian nuclear sites of Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan changed, probably only temporarily, the regional strategic situation. It also raised questions as far as the future is concerned. The main one is how durable and resilient the ceasefire agreement that US President Donald Trump successfully brokered between Israel and Iran will turn out to be.
According to a statement by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on 27 June, Israel is committed to targeting any Iranian facility involved in reconstructing the Iranian nuclear programme. The Israelis have come up with an “enforcement plan” against Iran that includes “maintaining Israel’s air superiority, preventing nuclear advancement and missile production, and responses to supporting terrorist activities against Israel.”
The Supreme Guide of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his first appearance since the US strikes against his country, claimed that Iran had been victorious in the war and vowed to resist any attempts to violate Iranian sovereignty. Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi said that Iran will likely begin to produce enriched uranium again in a matter of months despite the damages to its main nuclear facilities.
Trump promised not to “allow” Iran to go back to enriching uranium. He stressed that Iran is not “currently considering returning to its nuclear project.”
It is not certain at this stage whether Khamenei will give the green light to reconstructing Iran’s nuclear programme, but it is certain that the Iranian government badly needs to see the alleviation of the sanctions’ regime against the country. This is probably the reason why senior officials at the White House have spoken of the idea of releasing $6 billion to Iranian coffers and supporting the construction of a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes to the tune of $30 billion.
The condition, of course, is an official Iranian commitment not to enrich uranium and to cooperate with the IAEA in disposing of the 408 kg of enriched uranium that Iran possessed before the outbreak of the war. No one is sure of the present whereabouts of this. The Iranian government has declared that this important quantity of enriched uranium was removed from the targeted facilities before the war, while Trump has categorically rejected this possibility.
What is interesting in this regard is that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has left open the possibility that his country could accept the transfer of its enriched uranium to a third party outside Iran. Russia could be one of the countries that would accept such a transfer to its soil.
The 12-Day war between Israel and Iran with direct US military involvement has opened a Pandora’s Box in the Middle East. Will it provide a path towards resolving the intractable Palestinian question? Or will it open the door wide to a period of “no war, no peace,” such as the one that prevailed in the Middle East before the next major regional military confrontation?
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 3 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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