Key Points – Following Israel’s massive air assault on Iran on June 12-13, which reportedly killed top commanders like IRGC chief Hossein Salami and armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri, the prospects of a direct US-Iran war are being re-evaluated.
-While past events like the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani sparked similar fears, Iran’s options for conventional retaliation against the US are limited.
-The Israeli strikes, which reportedly used heavy bunker-busting bombs with impunity, suggest that Iran’s air defenses have been severely degraded.
-This operational reality, combined with the strategic blow, makes a major conventional conflict unlikely, though Iran will likely be blamed for any ensuing chaos.
Iran – America War of 2025?
WARSAW, POLAND – “A deadly opening attack. Nearly untraceable, ruthless proxies spreading chaos on multiple continents. Costly miscalculations. And thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — killed in a conflict that would dwarf the war in Iraq.”
This was how an article written a few years ago on the Vox news site described what was then seen as the sequence of events that would play out in the event of a war between the US and Iran.
At the time ,the same article predicted that a US-Iran war had “the potential to be one of the worst conflicts in history.”
This article was written shortly after the targeted killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) senior officer had been taken out in a US drone strike that had been ordered by US President Donald Trump.
Soleimani had led Iranian covert operations and intelligence activities and was one of the nation’s most influential senior military leaders.
He was also so well-known and was so popular that elementary school children went to school with his image festooned on their lunch boxes and classroom workbooks.
The Possibility of War with Iran
After Soleimani’s killing there were endless predictions that this would result in a war between the US and Iran – all due to the assassination of just one prominent military leader.
In last night’s attack by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Iran today says that not only several top commanders but also six nuclear scientists were killed.
These included the armed forces chief of staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, and the IRGC chief Hossein Salami.
In total, at least 20 Iranian senior commanders were killed, according to two regional sources who spoke to the Reuters news service.
The head of the IRGC Aerospace Force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, was additionally reported to be among them.
There were some low-probability forecasts of an attack on Iran following yesterday’s defiant declaration by the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi.
He announced that his organization had activated a new uranium enrichment site that is “already built, prepared, and located in a secure and invulnerable place”.
In response to his somewhat inflammatory announcement, the international consulting firm Eurasia Group rated the possibility of an attack on Iran by Israel at only 30 per cent.
Oddly enough, after the Soleimani’s killing, the same consulting firm calculated the chances of “a limited or major military confrontation” between Iran and US slightly higher, stating it could be up to 40 percent.
Iran’s Options and The Onset of War
Despite the fact it was Israel that carried out yesterday’s airstrikes on Iran and not the US, Washington will still be assigned blame for the attack.
The US will be in Iran’s crosshairs as much as or more than Israel’s.
But the question is, how will the Islamic state take on the US, given the parlous state of its air force and its degraded air defenses?
Testimony to the latter comes in the form of comments made by Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
These were about photos released by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) of F-15s and F-16s that should have been taken last night before the aircraft took off on their strike missions.
These aircraft, he pointed out, “are carrying 2000lb GBU-31(V)1 JDAMs.” This manner of weapons load “suggests Israel has established sufficient control of the air to operate directly over Tehran and Natanz without relying on standoff weapons like Rampage.”
The IAF operating over Iran with near-impunity is not that much of a surprise given the number of Iran’s air defense systems that have been destroyed in previous clashes between Iran and Israel. It suggests that the degree to which the IAF does – and which the US Air Force would – enjoy air superiority over Iranian air space rules out any major conventional conflict between Washington and Tehran.
Israel has been targeting Iran’s air defenses over the past year, having struck a radar installation for a Russian-made air defense battery in April 2024 and surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites and missile manufacturing facilities in October.
Iran Would Be Crazy to Fight America
Iran has two high-priority objectives in the Middle East: the first is that the US should be ejected from the region and have no influence. The other is that the state of Israel has no right to exist. If the government in Tehran is true to its convictions some military action should be in the offing.
But with Israel now talking about its planned program of strikes possibly stretching out for up to two weeks the question is how much of any military capacity Iran might have left to take any meaningful action.
About the Author:
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
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