Jerusalem – When Israel and Iran faced each other last year, the clashes were short and contained, usually ending in a few hours, and both sides sought alternatives to relieve tensions.
Since Israel started a new round of fighting on Friday (13), expanding the reach of attacks and leading to a much larger number of victims on both sides. This time, the conflict seems to last at least a week, with Israel and Iran ignoring ways to reduce hostilities.
Israel seems determined to follow until destroying Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, either by force or through new negotiations. However, Iran gives no signs that it will voluntarily end enrichment – a crucial process for building a nuclear bomb – and Israel has no known capacity to destroy one of the main centers of enrichment, deeply buried under Earth.
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“We are in weeks, not days, from the end of this conflict,” said Daniel B. Shapiro, who supervised Middle East matters in the Pentagon until January.
“Israel will continue until one way or another, Iran no longer has enrichment capacity,” added Shapiro, a researcher at Atlantic Council, Washington -based study group. “Now it is clear that if Israel leaves this without solution, your campaign will have failed.”
Although, in the center of the country, the “Bunker-Bush” bombs is lacking American-made fighter needed to destroy a smaller underground center, deeply excavated in a mountain near Ford, northern Iran. Israeli authorities expect attacks on other targets-including high-ranking military commanders, nuclear scientists and Iran-causing energy industry- Sufficient pain for Tehran to voluntarily close the operations in Ford.
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For now, Iran seems far from any capitulation, even though Israel has shown increasing domain in Iranian airspace, according to Saman Vakil, head of analysis of the Middle East at Chatham House, London -based research group. Although Israel expects to collapse, the Iranian government is still in the country’s total control and still has substantial ballistic missile stocks, even though Israel has limited its ability to launch part of them.
“I see no surrender from Tehran right now – there are no white flags being erected,” said Vakil. “It is very difficult to imagine Iran by giving up the right to enrichment while its program follows operational and the country remains intact,” he added. “Their goal is to survive, cause damage and show resilience.”
Much depends on how President Donald Trump will react. Unlike Israel, the United States has the ammunition and aircraft needed to destroy Forde. Analysts like Shapiro say Trump can consider this approach if Iran decides to accelerate its efforts to build a nuclear bomb, rather than seeking a commitment.
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“This will create a critical decision point for Trump about whether the United States should intervene,” Shapiro said.
Now it can be easier for Trump to intervene without major security consequences, as Israeli attacks have already degrade the defenses of Iran.
Others assess that Trump tends to avoid direct confrontation with Iran, unless Iranian military will attack US interests and personnel in the Middle East, which would limit the president’s maneuvering space. Since Friday, Iran has prevented this pretext for US involvement and has not attacked other US allies in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
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Trump’s statements since Friday indicate that his current preference is to use Israel’s military gains as a bargaining chip to resume negotiations with Iran.
For months, Trump has supervised negotiations with Iran, hoping that the country agree to end its enrichment program without the need for Israeli military intervention.
These conversations failed after Iran refused to retreat. Speaking over the weekend, Trump suggested that Iran, pressured by Israeli attacks, may finally finally make concessions they did not consider before. Therefore, some analysts believe that Trump can press Israel to end the attacks – when it is thought that Iran has become more flexible.
“This will end when Trump decides to end, which will probably happen when he thinks Iran is ready to give in,” said Yoel Guzansky, an expert in Iran at the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Such a turnaround already has historical precedents, even if it seems unlikely now, experts say. Iranian leadership made an unexpected concession at the end of the Iran-Iran War in the 1980s, according to Meir Javedanfar, professor of Iranian studies at Reichman University in Israel. After rejecting several proposals to end the conflict, Ayatollah Khomeini eventually accepted an agreement when the costs of the war became unsustainable, reports Javedanfar.
“Khomeini changed 180 degrees,” he said. “That’s what Israel waits again.”
But the story also suggests that this can take time. The agreement that ended the Iran-Iran war took eight years to be reached.
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