On the night of June 12-13, the Israeli military launched simultaneous strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in the Tehran, Qom, Esfahan, Arak, and Bushehr regions. According to unofficial sources, the Natanz and Fordow atomic facilities, adjacent research centers, as well as the residences of high-ranking military personnel of the Revolutionary Guard Corps were targeted.

The Shadow of Natanz: Has the War Already Begun?

Iran has confirmed the presence of dozens of casualties, including military scientists and representatives of the highest ranks of the Iranian armed forces. This circumstance indicates the high effectiveness of Israeli targeted strikes, as well as the vulnerability of Iranian strategic facilities and air defense systems.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had promised a significant retaliation, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on his country's population to prepare for a prolonged military confrontation.

The new military escalation between Israel and Iran is moving the broader Middle East region to a qualitatively new, unprecedented level of high tension, which could radically change the balance of power and the military-political landscape. This will largely depend on whether Iran will view the heavy blows inflicted on it as a real war challenge and will move the conflict to a war phase. At such a distance, combat operations against Israel will be carried out using ballistic missiles and UAVs, which, if prolonged, will firstly force Iran to empty a significant part of its strategic arsenal and, secondly, in conditions of noticeably weak air defense systems, will facilitate more intensive Israeli strikes on its own, Iran's, nuclear facilities. Such a war would drain Iran of enormous logistical and financial resources, and only Tehran knows how capable the Iranian economy, which is almost in crisis, is of such a debilitating war and what price it will cost them.

A double-edged game: will Iran escalate the situation or try to save face?

The human losses (primarily in terms of quality) indeed leave Tehran no alternative but to respond as harshly as possible to the strikes. However, it is not excluded that, as before, they could be more of an effort to save face, especially not to question the internal authority of the fundamental theocratic centralized government within the country.

It is noteworthy that Israel carried out these strikes on the eve of the sixth round of US-Iranian talks on Iran's nuclear program, scheduled for June 15, 2025, in Muscat (Oman). Official Tehran has already announced the cancellation of these negotiations after the incident while claiming that Israel would not have been able to carry out such an operation without the consent and permission of the United States.

After the Israeli strikes, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement characterizing Israel's actions against Iran as unilateral and emphasizing that they were not participating in the strikes against Iran.

Despite these claims, Washington's previous behavior gave all the clues about a possible military action against Iran. The US had begun evacuating its non-military contingent from military bases adjacent to Iran, and President Trump was declaring that he no longer had high expectations from Iran in terms of reaching agreements on the nuclear program, and he would not want the settlement to take place through violence.

Against this background, the US, before the Israeli attack, was developing two main leitmotifs: First, that Israel can and is preparing to take independent action against Iran, and second, that they have nothing to do with it; moreover, Jerusalem will act against them. And yet, after Israel, ignoring the will of the United States, inflicted such heavy blows, the White House rushed to declare that they would defend Israel in the event of Iranian retaliatory strikes. This, at first glance, contradiction sheds light on Secretary of State Rubio's statement that their main priority is the protection of American forces in the region and that Iran should not target US interests or personnel. Rubio's hint is more than transparent: Tehran's targeting of American military bases and bases in the Middle East will give Washington legitimate grounds to speak to Tehran in the language of force instead of diplomatic language, which will mean a transformation of the war from Iranian-Israeli to Iranian-American, for which Iran itself will be responsible.

"Whip and Donut" or the last warning

Washington's tactics are similar to the well-known "whip and donut" policy, where Washington is positioned as the donut giver. Perhaps it was no coincidence that almost immediately after the Israeli strikes, US President Donald Trump considered it necessary to write in his microblog that they remain committed to a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue and instructed his entire administration to negotiate with Iran. "They could be a great country, but first they have to completely abandon their hopes of acquiring nuclear weapons," Trump concluded on his Truth Social page.

And here, Israel plays the role of the whipper-slayer and, simultaneously, the one who takes the brunt of the blow. The latter fulfills this role with great enthusiasm since it has received the opportunity to destroy the military and nuclear infrastructure of its strategic adversary with pinpoint precision strikes - a tactic that Israel successfully used against post-Assad Syria.

The goal of such tactics is not at all to deepen the war but to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program. Washington estimates that Tehran is using the shuttle negotiations on the nuclear program without any significant results, only to enrich the nucleus to the level necessary for the creation of atomic weapons. Therefore, they are trying to show the spiritual leader of Iran, who is the most radical in not giving up the nuclear program, with such hefty and resource-consuming blows what will happen if he refuses this "open window."

In this sense, the US, with the help of Israel, is replacing soft diplomacy with complex or "ballistic missile" diplomacy in the Iran issue. Whether it will escalate into war or not depends on Iran, which also can target the American military bases surrounding it. Whether these blows will occur also depends on the position of Russia and China, particularly on this issue. At least the initial reaction of Moscow and Beijing was pro-Iranian; one could say moderately pro-Iranian. The position of Turkey will also play an important role and will undoubtedly try to pull its chestnuts out of the Iranian fire, which will also directly affect the interests of Armenia. Yerevan's vital interests require a very quick extinguishing of the "Iranian fire" before it turns into a mega-regional fire that can burn the "limbs" of Armenia as well. That is precisely what the RA Foreign Ministry's statement on the aggravated situation around Iran was about.

However, this is a separate topic.

Gor Abrahamyan