Iran:
Is this war, Epic Rage/Lion’s Roar, part of the Hamas Terror Offensive or a separate event?
The answer is BOTH.
Hamas and Iran are separate entities, each of which is hostile to Israel on its own account. Furthermore, they are ideologically opposed on some key issues. Hamas is part of the Sunni Jihadi movement (a chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood), which is ideologically hostile to the Shiite Jihadi movement led by Iran. (Sunni-Shiite hostility began approximately 1,300 years ago over the question of who is the true heir of the prophet Muhammad.)
Over the past 25 years, Iran and Hamas put aside their differences to ally against their common enemy, Israel. Iran provided funding, weapons, training and operational advice to Hamas. In 2012 there was a temporary break in this alliance when Hamas supported the Syrian rebels (led by the Sunni Jihadists who now rule Syria) against the Assad regime, while Iran supported the Assad regime. Iran suspended support for Hamas for a few years (2012-2014) and then gradually renewed support and aid after Hamas, which was in desperate straits after its defeat by Israel in summer 2014 (Operation Protective Edge), apologized.
Hamas’s plan to attack Israel from Gaza on 7 October 2023 was a version of a plan to attack Israel from Lebanon that had been developed by Hezbollah and the Iranian military starting in 2010. Hamas was taught the methods and concepts behind this plan and was aided in adapting it to the circumstances of Gaza.
Hamas differs from Hezbollah in one important aspect.
Hamas is an ALLY of Iran. It was established, grew, and operated independently. In order for it to jump from the status of a terrorist organization capable of conducting only low-intensity warfare to a larger, stronger organization capable of conducting medium- to high-intensity warfare, it needed Iran’s assistance. Yet throughout this transition, its leaders maintained, and continue to maintain, independent decision-making.
Conversely, Hezbollah is a PROXY of Iran. It was established by Iran in the early 1980s and was funded for many years exclusively by that country. Over the course of its existence, while it was being trained, organized, armed and operated by Iran, Hezbollah gradually created some limited independent capabilities (for example, it entered the drug trade between central America and the United States as a source of extra funding). Its leaders more or less obey Iran’s orders.
Iran’s interest in supporting ideological enemies like Hamas and other Palestinian organizations, as well as the Jordanian Sunni Jihadi Muslim Brotherhood movement, was their possession of a common enemy: Israel.
Iran developed a long-term plan to annihilate Israel. It stated this ambition explicitly, openly and often, and even provided a date by which it would occur (summer 2040). All the necessary components of the plan were supposed to be ready by the mid- to late 2030s. Iran’s object was to create what it termed “a ring of fire” around Israel: proxies, allies and Iranian forces in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan (the latter two with the addition of expeditionary forces of proxies from Iraq and probably also Yemen), as well as in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Iran was to have an arsenal of tens of thousands of long-range surface-to-surface missiles able to hit Israel from Iran itself, as well as a nuclear weapons arsenal with which to deter Israel from employing its own nuclear arsenal (whether or not Israel in fact has one, Iran believes it does and acts accordingly). The offensive plan was to do to Israel what Hamas did on 7 October but on all Israel’s borders at once.
According to documents captured by the Israeli military during the war in Gaza, Hamas leader Yihya Sinwar had tried in June 2023 to convince the Iranians that because of the internal political rift in Israel, the offensive could occur immediately. Iran’s and Hezbollah’s leaders did not agree. They thought that even with a shortened timetable, the offensive still had to wait several more years. Sinwar decided to act alone, probably in the hope that Iran would feel compelled to order a general offensive in support. Iran decided not to. The Israeli mobilization on the Lebanese and Syrian fronts was too rapid to achieve the required ratio of forces at the front, and the readiness of Iran’s missile arsenals and of the other proxy forces was too low. Hezbollah, the most ready, had missed its opportunity to attack an almost defenseless border (roughly similar to the situation on Israel’s Gaza border on October 7) because of the rapid Israeli mobilization (three divisions in two days).
Sinwar’s impetuous hastiness and insufficient awareness of the actual situation fractured the Iranian plan. The October 7 attack allowed Israel to drastically reduce – albeit with difficulty – the threat from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, after which it was able to do the same (to a lesser extent) to Hezbollah in September-November 2024. The Israeli defeat of Hezbollah encouraged the rebels in Syria to exploit the Assad regime’s loss of allies to attack and destroy it, thus cutting Iran’s direct overland link to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Without that link, it was far more difficult for Iran to help Hezbollah recover, and the direct threat to Israel’s Syrian border was removed.
Because Israel no longer had to contend with Hezbollah or the Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq, it attacked Iran in June 2025, striking its nuclear arsenal and surface-to-surface missile industries and arsenals. About a third of the nuclear arsenal was destroyed and the missile production rate was reduced by two-thirds. King Abdullah of Jordan, meanwhile, took the opportunity to pounce on the Muslim Brotherhood movement in his country and reduce the threat it was posing to the Kingdom.
In spring 2025, Iran frantically increased its efforts to manufacture nuclear weapons and long-range surface-to-surface missiles. Having lost its proxies, Iran’s leaders felt that the original timetable, developed according to the program to destroy Israel without creating a direct threat to Iran, was no longer viable. It needed these capabilities immediately to prevent a retaliatory attack on Iran.
This speeding up of weapons development, and the need to swiftly halt it, is what brought Israel to hurriedly implement the Rising Lion offensive. There was no mistaken belief that this would do any more than delay Iran’s programs. America’s contribution was essential because Israel does not have the technical capability to drop bombs big enough to reach Iran’s underground enrichment halls.
Ever since June 2025, Iran has been vigorously working to recover the capabilities it lost in those 12 days. The missile industry received new equipment from China, North Korea and perhaps also Russia with which to renew production. The nuclear industry was drastically curtailed and is harder to rebuild, but given time, Iran would have been able to do so. Iran had a store of 60% enriched uranium that could not be used to make exploding nuclear bombs (90% enrichment is required for that purpose), but which could either be used to make radiation contamination bombs (an ordinary explosion that would scatter deadly radioactive material over a wide area) or would wait until Iran rebuilt its enrichment machines, at which time the process would be completed to create exploding nuclear bombs. American negotiator Steve Witkoff has stated that the Iranians told him they had enough material for 11 bombs but did not state to which type of bombs they were referring.
The only way to completely halt the current Iranian regime’s pursuit of both these capabilities is to replace it with a regime that does not pursue the Shiite jihad ideology. Any lesser result merely delays their program, with the duration of the delay dependent on the level of damage inflicted. A nuclear Iran would undoubtedly precipitate a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, as Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have all indicated they will not be left behind.
Therefore, for Israel, this war is a continuation of the Iron Swords/Al Aqsa Flood War because the events leading up to it are an inseparable part of the events that led up to the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist offensive. While Israel was fighting Hamas, Iran and its proxies may not have jumped in as Sinwar wanted, but they did conduct combat operations against Israel at a lower level, requiring Israel to fight on seven fronts: Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran. These fronts were technically separate but politically and, in some cases, militarily linked, with the main connection being Iran. Decisively defeating Iran, and if possible bringing about the collapse of the current regime, is therefore an important part of that war.
Israel cannot determine who will replace the current regime. It can only drastically weaken it so internal Iranian forces can attempt to take over governing the country. Hopefully, those forces will have a different agenda vis-à-vis Israel.
However, it is also a separate war focused on a common enemy: Iran. This war has metamorphosed to include other actors with their own conflicts with Iran and their own separate though coinciding agendas that require Iran’s decisive defeat. It is not only Israel that is pushing for regime change in Iran; so are most of the states of the Arabian Peninsula. They fear Iran’s plans for them too, as part of Iran’s Shiite jihadi ideology is to “export the Shiite revolution” to those states. This is one of the main reasons behind the sudden change in their policies vis-à-vis Israel. They have gone from hostility to both overt relations, as in the Abraham Accords (with the United Arab Emirates in the lead), and covert relations, as in Saudi Arabia’s tacit alliance with Israel. The Abraham Accords are no less an anti-Iranian alliance than they are a peace treaty with Israel. Some of the Arab states support Israel’s goal overtly and some covertly, each according to the outlook and political situation of their leadership. Much of their populations remain hostile to Israel (limiting, for example, Saudi Arabia’s willingness to publicly join the Accords).
Initially, the United States provided mixed signals as to whether it is pursuing regime change, and even made statements to the effect that if the regime eschews its nuclear and long-range missile programs then Washington is willing to accommodate it. However, it seems that the administration is gradually adopting this objective. President Trump said Iran wished to open negotiations but he had responded that it was too late. It is difficult to determine whether the Americans’ initial statements were merely for public consumption, with the US operating from the start to create the conditions for regime collapse, or whether it changed course on this issue.
The targets the American forces are focusing on (at least according to press releases) seem less about regime change than about military capability reduction, but with that said, the US did not press Israel to cease attacks on targets that are definitely designed to weaken the regime’s internal security. Israel opened the war for both allies by killing a large number of senior leaders of the regime, while the American follow-up operations were aimed at non-regime targets. However, the intelligence for the Israeli strike was acquired, according to media reports, through a combined Israeli-American effort, and the US congratulated Israel’s success. This suggests an agreed-upon division of labor, though we may see more American strikes on regime stability targets as well. A report in the Wall Street Journal claims that Trump has agreed to supply weapons to rebels against the Iranian regime.
The Arabian Peninsula states were content with Israel and the US conducting the offensive against Iran, and understood that Iran would retaliate against American bases on their territory and that they would assist in their defense. However, the Iranian response has gone beyond that. Iran is attacking the Arab states themselves, firing at oil and gas production facilities (the leading source of these states’ economic welfare) and at tourist centers (another major income source) and occasionally at random into residential areas. The regime is attacking not only states openly hostile to Iran, such as the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, but at Qatar and Oman – the two Arab states considered the most accommodating of Iran’s agendas, and which had attempted to prevent the American offensive by mediating between the US and Iran (Oman still says the war must end and negotiations resumed).
Iran has also attacked European (French, British and Italian) forces located in these Arab states, despite the fact that these nations had openly resisted the Americans’ aggressive policy against Iran. Another Iranian target was a British air base in Cyprus.
The Iranians’ strategic rationale with these strikes seems to be to create economic pressure on the Arab states so they pressure the United States to halt the war. They may also wish to stoke European fears that the war will drag them in and compel them to put diplomatic pressure on the US to stop. If that was their thinking, it hasn’t worked yet. The Arabian Peninsula states (not including Oman) are saying they will join offensive operations against Iran and the European states are making do with increased defensive operations, mostly around Cyprus. Britain and France have agreed to allow the Americans to use their bases, something they refused to do prior to the war. Especially important are the British base in Diego Garcia (Indian Ocean) and Cyprus (Mediterranean), as these will allow the shortening of flight times of the heavier American bombers to Iran and thus enable an increase in the frequency of their strikes.
On 4 March an Iranian missile was shot down over Turkey, but the Iranians claimed the target was not in Turkey and apologized for violating Turkish airspace. But the next day, 5 March, Iranian exploding drones attacked targets in the Nakhchevan province of Azerbaijan, wounding two. Iran denied that it had launched the drones, but the Azeri government has declared its intention to respond.
Azeris are a Shiite Turkic nation. The majority (approximately 20 million) live in northwest Iran. Azerbaijan (pop.: approximately 10 million) is a moderately religious state with close ties with Turkey that is also very close to Israel (it supplies about 40% of Israel’s oil requirements and purchases much advanced Israeli weaponry, and the diplomatic relationship is very warm). Iran believes Azerbaijan has provided Israeli intelligence and military access to Iran’s border. Iran supported Armenia during its conflict with Azerbaijan and even briefly sent troops into southern Nagorno Karabakh during the war in autumn 2020, blocking the advance of Azeri forces. The troops were withdrawn without combat after a warning by the Azeris that they would be treated as active participants in the war. A constant anxiety of the Iranians is that the Iranian Azeris would adopt an irredentist agenda, assisted by Azerbaijan.
Summing up the physical data is more difficult. The numbers provided by the participants are fragmentary, deliberately obscure or late, and much Iranian reporting is false.
In the first five days of the war (28 February-4 March), Israel alone launched more than 5,000 munitions (for comparison, in the 12-day war in June 2025 it launched 3,700) on a long list of targets of which 220 were in Tehran. Some of the targets (for example, surface-to-surface missile launchers, of which the Israelis destroyed approximately 300) required only a single munition and some were extensive (camps, industrial sites, etc.) that required more. The United States hit more than 2,000 separate targets.
The initial focus, other than the senior leaders Israel attacked in three locations in the first strike, were air defense radars and missile batteries, surface-to-surface missile launchers and storage sites, in order to enable Israeli and American aircraft to operate more freely and reduce Iran’s ability to retaliate. The rate of missile fire from Iran has been reduced, either because of the effectiveness of the attacks reducing the number of available launchers and missiles or because the Iranians are conserving them for a war of long duration.
It appears that in order to reduce coordination problems, the United States and Israel have divided Iran into separate areas, with Israel responsible for the north and the United States for the south.
The initial stage was followed by attacks on other military targets, including the military industry (mostly missile- and nuclear weapon-associated plants). The Iranian navy was targeted by the United States (20 Iranian combat ships were sunk including one by submarine, though Iran still has a few hundred motorboats carrying light weapons or bombs for suicide attacks). Israel focused its attacks on Iran’s internal security organizations, especially in the Tehran area (police headquarters and stations, Revolutionary Guard bases, Basij stations, internal intelligence organization bases).
On the third day, Israel began attacking Revolutionary Guard units along the border between Iran and Iraq. This border separates the Iraqi Kurds from the Iranian Kurds. The Iraqi Kurds have an autonomy with an independent military capability, while in the Iranian Kurd areas there has been a low-key anti-regime guerrilla campaign. Opening the border will enable the Iraqi Kurds to provide assistance to their Iranian brethren. Iran appears to have sensed this threat and has bombarded an Iranian Kurdish militia with its base in the Kurdish Iraq area. On 5 March, the Iranians claimed to have defeated a nighttime attempt by Kurd guerrillas to infiltrate from Iraq to Iran.
There are reports that the US and Israel are in contact with Kurdish leaders and are promising them aid if they decide to attack into Iran. However, it must be made clear that the Kurds are not capable of overthrowing the regime on their own or even of making a deep and wide incursion into Iran. What they can do is increase the pressure on Iran’s security forces and perhaps provide encouragement to the majority of Iranians who wish to depose the current regime.
Other ethnic minorities in Iran also contain groups opposing the regime, including Sunni Arabs in southern Iran and Sunni Balochis in southeastern Iran (on the border with Pakistan, an area where strikes have occurred but details are not known). There are also Azeris in northwestern Iran. However, each of these ethnic minorities has supporters of the regime and it is difficult to know the ratio between them.
On the fourth through sixth days, 3-5 March, operations seem to have continued according to the same lines, with the Israelis and Americans working down the list of targets they had prepared before the war and discovering new ones. Israel also attacked a high-level political meeting in the city of Qom that had been convened to elect a replacement for Khamanei. At time of writing the result is not yet clear.
According to the Saudi national media service, Israel special forces are operating on the ground in Iran.
Iran is reporting approximately 1,230 killed and more than 6,000 wounded. Approximately 160 of the killed are claimed to be high school students at a school that was hit directly by an American bomb or missile (whether because of target misidentification or because of a technical malfunction). Israeli intelligence estimates actual fatalities to be in excess of 3,000, almost all security personnel (Revolutionary Guards, Basij, police, etc.) relevant to suppressing an internal revolt. At least 45 senior officials and senior military commanders were killed on the first day. This includes Ali Khamanei, supreme political and religious leader of Iran since the summer of 1989, and many senior generals.
By 1400 on 5 March, Iran had fired 220-225 missiles and 100 exploding drones at Israel. Thirteen Israelis have been killed (10 in a single incident in which a community was conducting a Purim celebration against safety instructions and the synagogue they were in took a direct hit) and 1,540 injured. On the first day, the salvos were frequent but in small numbers each time (one to five missiles each), totaling about 90 missiles. On the second day, the salvos were larger (approximately 10-20 missiles each) but less frequent, with long periods of quiet between them (approximately 60 missiles altogether). Iran also began to fire missiles with multiple warheads. The advantage of these weapons for Iran is that they are harder to intercept unless hit before the separation of the warheads. The disadvantage for Iran is that each one is smaller and causes significantly less damage. On 2-6 March, the size of the salvos decreased again without an increase in frequency – in other words, the number of missiles fired during the day went down (approximate totals per day: 2 March – 30, 3 March – 20, 4 March – 10).
During the first four days, Iran fired approximately 585 missiles and 1,520 exploding drones at American bases and embassies across the Middle East, at a wide range of military and civilian targets of Arab states, and at British, French and Italian bases in the area. Most of the missiles and drones were aimed at American targets, including military bases and embassies, and the rest at targets of the host countries. The largest number were fired at the United Arab Emirates (197 missiles and 940 exploding drones) and after it Kuwait (178 missiles and 384 exploding drones). The rest were scattered across the other Arab states. The Iranians also sent two Sukhoi-24 bombers to attack targets in Qatar, but they were shot down by the Qataris before reaching their targets.
Put together, Arab casualties from the Arab states hit by Iran (almost all civilians) number 13 killed and 132 wounded (assuming the reports are complete).
Six American soldiers were killed (apparently all in the same incident on the first day) and 18 seriously wounded plus an unreported number who suffered minor injuries. The Iranians of course claim the Americans are hiding fatalities numbering in the hundreds with many more wounded.
Among the damage Iran claims it has inflicted on American forces is at least one, perhaps two, extremely advanced radars. Satellite photographs have been disseminated purporting to show this damage, but they are not clear and could be fake or touched up. The Iranians also claim to have hit an American destroyer (they disseminated a very blurry photograph with what looks like a fire on the ship) and an American F15 combat aircraft. The United States says no F15s have been lost over Iran but has not commented on the destroyer. The United States did lose three F15s flying over Kuwait because of misidentification by Kuwaiti air defenses (they were either shot down by ground-based missiles or by a Kuwaiti F18 fighter). The Iranians claim to have shot down 25 Israeli and four American surveillance and strike drones but provided proof for only a handful. Based on experience, they are likely exaggerating. Israel has said a few of its drones were shot down while being aggressively used to hunt down missile launchers. In Israel’s view, the cost of losing a few drones was worth the return in terms of the number of destroyed launchers.
From the second day on, the Iranians seemed to focus more and more on striking targets of economic importance to the Arab states and their international clients – especially the oil and gas industries, but also tourist centers and an aluminum smelting plant. They have also threatened to attack any ship transiting the Hormuz Straits and have fired upon seven or eight ships so far, one of which sank. Most shipping companies have ordered their ships to cease transit through the Straits.
In normal times, 80 to 90 ships transit the Straits every day. Outgoing vessels carry about 20% of the world’s daily oil supply, the vast majority of which goes to Asia. The countries most affected are China (30% of its oil and 40% of its gas imports), Japan (80% of its oil and gas imports), India (40-53% of its oil and gas imports), and South Korea (68% of its oil and gas imports). Because these countries now have to find alternatives, the effect is being scattered across the globe and prices are increasing in Europe and other places. (For a more detailed assessment of the energy situation, see the appendix below written by a colleague.)
The Iranians are apparently also trying to conduct commando sabotage raids in the Arab states. Qatar announced the arrest of 10 Iranians operating on its territory to collect target intelligence and conduct sabotage.
Lebanon:
In direct contravention of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, which clearly and unequivocally stated that Hezbollah was to disarm and hand all its weapons to the Lebanese government, Hezbollah has been conducting operations to restore its capabilities (restoring damaged sites, procuring weapons, conducting training operations, enlisting new personnel, etc.). Israel has responded with repeated strikes on Hezbollah personnel active in these operations and sites at which the activities were being conducted. Hundreds of Hezbollah personnel have been killed or wounded over the approximately 15 months from the ceasefire until the initiation of the current war. In the weeks leading up to the offensive against Iran, Israel stepped up its strikes on Hezbollah, with the last one being conducted while the first Israeli aircraft were enroute to Iran.
Fearing an Israeli escalation, struggling to rebuild following the defeat of the Assad regime, which blocked its main supply route from Iran, and faced with the Lebanese government’s attempts to curtail its actions, Hezbollah preferred at first not to respond to Israel’s repeated strikes. However, on the night of 1-2 March, approximately 36 hours after Israel killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, Hezbollah opened fire on Israel, probably on orders from Iran’s new leaders. According to one source, the Iranians threatened to cut funding for Hezbollah, which would have had a debilitating effect both militarily and politically on that organization. Hezbollah has had difficulty meeting its financial obligations since its defeat (salaries to personnel, stipends to families of the killed and wounded, funding civilian programs for Shiite refugees created by the war, as well as the education and health services it provided in the past to the Shiite community). Its other sources of funding, the drug trade from central America to the United States and various legal enterprises, provide for only a minor percentage of their requirements.
Up to noon on 5 March, Hezbollah had launched approximately 65 salvos of rockets and exploding drones into Israel. Most salvos included only a single munition, a few included more, but none had more than five. A few Israeli civilians were wounded, none seriously.
It is estimated that Hezbollah has approximately 25,000 rockets left from its prewar arsenal of 130,000-150,000. Most can only reach the northern quarter of Israel, but a few can reach central Israel and at least two were launched at Tel Aviv. In addition, they have an unknown number of exploding drones, probably a few hundred.
Israel ordered the inhabitants of approximately 100 villages in south Lebanon and the Shiite Dakhya quarter of Beirut to evacuate (it is estimated that at least 350,000 people began evacuating these areas). The movement of people from Shiite to non-Shiite areas of Lebanon is creating friction with the non-Shiites, who view the Shiites as responsible for the situation. In some cases they are turning on them, with people being refused transit or sojourn in many places.
Following the evacuation order, Israel began an aerial offensive that mixed massed airstrikes on Hezbollah sites with focused strikes on individual command personnel. By the morning of 5 March, it reported having struck more than 320 targets, including commanders, headquarters, storage sites, launch sites, etc.
In addition, Israeli ground troops entered Lebanon at several points where the terrain on the Lebanese side overlooks Israeli border villages in order to set up defensive positions to deny use of this advantage by Hezbollah. The Lebanese army, which had deployed along the border since autumn 2024, retreated rather than resist. Ground fighting has been sporadic so far. Hezbollah claims to have destroyed some Israeli tanks, but Israel has admitted damage (not destruction) to only one, with two soldiers wounded. Hezbollah videos purporting to show the hits actually show nothing of the kind. Israeli fire has killed or wounded a number of Hezbollah fighters.
The Lebanese government has severely criticized Hezbollah for attacking Israel and providing it with a pretext to strike Lebanon. It has deployed military units to prevent the movement of Hezbollah personnel and equipment to south Lebanon and claims to have arrested Hezbollah personnel involved in the shooting of rockets at Israel. It is not yet clear whether these are genuine indications of Lebanese military activity against Hezbollah or mere propaganda statements.
The Lebanese government reported that since Hezbollah opened fire on Israel, 102 Lebanese have been killed and 638 wounded, but did not separate Hezbollah personnel from civilians.
Syria:
The Syrian regime has reinforced its troops facing Israel and the autonomous Druze enclave in southern Syria. Israel passed on a message to the regime warning it not to try to exploit Israel’s fighting with Iran and Hezbollah to resume its past strikes on the Druze. Israel has reinforced its ground forces facing Syria.
Simultaneously, the Syrian regime has reinforced its troops along the Lebanese border to prevent transit between the two. It is probably worried that Hezbollah will attempt to use Syrian territory to circumvent Israeli troops on the Lebanese border. Furthermore, Hezbollah is an enemy of the new Syrian regime and an ally of the ousted former regime.
Iraq:
Pro-Iranian proxy militias conducted a barrage of exploding drones and missiles on American bases in Iraq.
Israel and the United States bombed several locations of these militias and killed a number of militiamen. There are also reports of at least one commando raid that captured a pro-Iranian Iraqi leader.
Yemen:
So far, apart from issuing threats and claiming they had shot down an American surveillance drone, the Houthis have not actively joined the war. They stopped firing missiles at Israel when the ceasefire in Gaza came into effect in mid-October 2025, following a series of Israeli strikes on their government and senior military headquarters that killed the Prime Minister and several other ministers and senior military officers including their senior military commander. Israeli had also attacked various economic targets, including airports, seaports, and oil storage facilities.
The Houthis, while Shiite and ideologically related to Iran, are not a proxy along the lines of Lebanese and Iraqi Hezbollah. They are more of an ally with a similar, though not completely overlapping, agenda.
WHAT NEXT?
The focus is still Iran, but the fighting has expanded to include some of Iran’s proxies – the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi Hezbollah organizations. The Houthis have not joined in so far.
Though Iran’s missile supply and immediate launch capability continue to be a major objective, there are now two more major objectives gradually being addressed with greater intensity:
The military industry. The question arises: How many of the factories are manufacturing equipment when bombed, and how many have had their equipment moved and hidden for future use?
The regime’s stability. This seems to be a major focus for the Israelis, who are attacking the regime’s internal security forces, calling on the public to come out again, and looking for senior regime members to continue the success of the initial strike. The attack on the election of the new Supreme Leader was a blunt message. This appears to be the next point on the agenda of the American forces too.
As Iran’s ability to create major damage is gradually eroded and its military and nuclear industries are reduced, Israel and the United States will divert more attention to destabilizing the regime in order to convert the temporary, even if long-term, reduction in Iran’s weapons manufacturing capability into something permanent.
Regime stability is very difficult to estimate. As a matter of principle, it is expected that the Iranian regime is, though much weakened, not yet destabilized enough to be toppled by mass protests. Millions of Iranians support the regime for ideological and/or practical economic reasons (their livelihoods are dependent on its continued functioning). Therefore, destabilizing the regime, if it is possible, will require a lengthy and massive effort. Having said that, there have been cases in history where supposedly stable regimes turned out to be façades hiding deep internal cracks and they suddenly collapsed after much less pressure than was thought necessary.
There has been a fairly rapid reduction in the Iranians’ rate of fire. This is likely the result of the aggressive hunting by the Israelis and Americans of launchers and storage sites. However, it could also be a deliberate decision to conserve capability for the longer term – firing fewer weapons each day reduces daily casualties and damage to the enemy but also reduces exposure of the equipment. The Iranians have lost hundreds of launchers, but it is not clear how many they have left.