US-Israel Attack On Iran And Lessons From The 12-Day War

Despite the Iranian government engaging in diplomatic efforts to stave off a military conflict in the region, their country has once again been subjected to war. Senior Iranian officials had conveyed a degree of optimism when the indirect negotiations with the Americans were going on. Iran had agreed to give significant concessions relating to the contentious nuclear issue. According to the Omani foreign minister, Badr bin Hamad al Musaidi who was privy to the talks, Tehran had agreed to permanently degrade its stock of enriched uranium along with the assurance that it will never opt for nuclear weapons.

The Iranians have the least trust in the current American administration. After all the Americans had attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in June last year in coordination with Israel during the 12-day war, even as negotiations were going on between Tehran and Washington.  President Donald Trump in his first term had ordered the assassination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s top general, while he was on a diplomatic mission to Baghdad.

After the recent protests which broke out in Iran, one of the most widespread since the 1979 revolution, President Donald Trump had once again amplified the calls for regime change in the country and threatening to use military force to achieve this goal. There is growing evidence that the Americans had a role to play in the widespread street protests that erupted at the end of last year. The portrait of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late Shah, was prominently displayed by sections of the protestors in cities like Tehran. The Shah was re-installed in power in 1953 by the United States and the United Kingdom after the overthrow of Muhammad Mossadegh, the popularly elected leader of Iran. It was the first coup orchestrated by the CIA and MI6 to retain control of energy assets in a third country.

The Mujahedin e Khalq (MeK), which is also supported by western intelligence, also played a big part in fomenting the deadly violence which lasted for almost two weeks. The MeK was once branded a terrorist organisation by Western governments but now gets open support from the West and Israel. The MeK is claiming that 1499 of its members were killed in the protests. During the eight-year war Iran fought with Iraq, the MeK fought on the side of Iraq. That war itself was instigated by Washington. The war which started just a year after the overthrow of the Shah, was instigated by Washington. But despite Saddam Hussein’s Iraq being supported militarily by the US and to a lesser extent by Russia, the war ended in a stalemate. But more than a million people on both sides perished.

During the last round of protests, a small but vociferous section of the protestors had called for foreign military intervention to bring about regime change.  Reza Shah’s closest advisers had said that American military intervention “is inevitable”.  Reza Shah, speaking on the sidelines of the Munich Conference, had urged the Trump administration not to waste time on negotiations and to speed up plans for a military attack.

More and more information about the involvement of the West in the violent events of January is coming out. The Wall Street Journal has reported that more than 6000 Starlink terminals purchased by the US State Department were smuggled into Iran after the demonstrations broke out and the curtailment of the internet by the government.

An official Mossad account urged Iranians to take to the streets declaring that “we are with you in the field”. Israel’s Channel 14 said that foreign actors are arming protestors and that is the reason why “hundreds of regime personnel were killed”. Trump himself was urging protestors to take over institutions of government. He encouraged them by saying that the US “was locked and loaded” to protect the protestors. The American and Israeli military intervention came two months later but by all accounts, the majority of Iranians have chosen to rally behind the flag of the Islamic Republic.

The main reason why the Iranians took to the streets was to protest against the dire state of their economy. Decades of draconian American sanctions had taken their toll. American officials have not shied away from taking credit for driving the Iranian economy off the rails. The American Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent told the US Senate that what the administration had done “was to create a serious dollar shortage” in Iran. He said this led to the collapse of one of Iran’s largest banks. “The central bank had to print money, the Iranian currency went into a free fall, inflation exploded, and hence we have seen Iranian people out on the streets”, he added.  Mike Pompeo, during his stint as the American secretary of state in the earlier Trump administration, had told BBC that “if Iranians want their people to eat” they will have to give in to American demands.

Research papers published in western academic journals have shown that the draconian American sanctions have had a very adverse impact on the Iranian middle class. Without the sanctions, the middle class would have expanded by 17 per cent. From 2011 to 2019, nine million middle class Iranians were pushed into poverty. The two years (2014-16) during which the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remained in force, the Iranian economy grew by more than 6 per cent.

The Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian has said that the US and its partners “rode on our problems” and are continuing to seek the fragmentation of Iranian society.

The Trump administration now hopes that a short brutal war will be able to achieve those goals. The Americans have signalled that the Kurds in northern Iraq are getting ready to attack Iran and are urging the Kurd minority inside Iran to rise up in revolt. Indications are that the American game plan in Iran is not going according to plan. The targeting of a girl’s school and an unarmed Iranian naval frigate near the Indian coast line by the American military, which have resulted in hundreds of deaths, has alarmed the international community. According to opinion polls, 85 per cent of Americans were not in favor of a war with Iran.  

Iran was prepared for the worst. They have ramped up their ballistic missile production since the war in June. The late Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well as senior Iranian military officials had warned that if their country is subjected to attacks, all American bases in the region will be targeted. “They should know that if they start a war this time, it will be a regional war”, Khamenei had predicted. Unlike in the 12-day war last year, Iran had warned that no prior warning will be given to Washington before American military bases in the region are attacked.

Top Iranian officials have been saying for some time that they will under no circumstances give in to the Trump administration’s demands that Iran limit the range of its ballistic missiles and give up the enrichment of uranium for its peaceful nuclear program. Another key American demand is that Iran give up its security ties with its allies in the region.

Iran’s leadership since the time of Imam Khomeini has insisted that the country’s nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes. The Iranian President had once again reiterated just before the American and Israeli attack, that his country was ready for “any verification” of its nuclear programme. Iran’s atomic energy chief, Mohammad Eslami, has said that if the economic sanctions are lifted, Iran is willing to dilute its 60 per cent enriched uranium to a lower level. Iran is said to have between 400-600 kg of highly enriched uranium.

Washington, during the recent round of negotiations, also wanted Iran to transfer its entire stock of enriched uranium to a third country. The Iranian government remains totally opposed to this plan.

It was President Trump who ordered the withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA under which Iran had agreed to cap its enrichment program, reduce its stockpiles and scale down its nuclear infrastructure in exchange for sanction waivers. The Biden administration continued with the maximum pressure tactics of the Trump administration with regard to Iran.

It was after the unilateral and illegal American withdrawal from the JCPOA and the full restoration of sanctions, that Iran had made the decision to enrich uranium up to 60 per cent.

Sanctions, itself is a form of economic warfare. The Iranian people have been impacted by sanctions from the beginning of the revolution in 1979. The sanctions were imposed to create hardships for the people and social instability. Now the instability caused by the sanctions has been weaponised by the West. “Make the economy scream”, Richard Nixon had ordered after the Chile elected a left-wing government in 1970. The sanctions ravaged the Chilean economy but Washington had to eventually resort to a coup to oust the democratically elected government of President Salvadore Allende.

The American desire for regime change in Iran should not be viewed in isolation with what is happening in the region. Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister in a recent speech said that Israel wants all its neighbours to be weakened so that it can continue with its expansionist programme.

Iran is among the few countries in the region that is standing resolutely against the Zionist project. In fact, Iran’s current geostrategic predicament is a direct result of what happened on October 7, 2024. Iran had no knowledge about the planning or the timing of the attack. The Hamas leadership, in fact had at times, a strained relationship with Iran. They were on opposite sides during most of the “Arab Spring” period.

But when it became clear that Israel was intent on genocide in Palestine, Iran did not stop its allies like Hezbollah and the Houthis from joining the fight against Israel. The Hezbollah militia paid a heavy price. The instability caused by the war in Gaza also played a role in the fall of the Assad government in Syria, a longtime ally of Iran. The powerful “axis of resistance” that Iran had assiduously created after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, had suffered a serious blow.  

The new “war of choice” America is waging on Iran in coordination with Israel does not show signs of ending soon. President Trump himself is saying that the war could continue for “four to five weeks or longer”. And he is now not ruling out the presence of “American boots on the ground” in Iran. Iran has learnt lessons from the 12-day war last year. The Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil supplies flow is virtually closed. Gas output from Qatar has been severely affected. Price of petrol has already gone up in the United States and the global economy could be adversely impacted if the war drags on. The Americans may find themselves being pulled into yet another quagmire in the region. Iranians are used to protracted war and suffering. The death toll in Iran was more than a thousand by the fifth day of the war. 160 girls were killed in the attack on the school in Minab.

The international community, barring a few exceptions, have condemned the US-Israel war on Iran. Iran has got strong diplomatic support from China, Russia and other BRICS countries, with the notable exception of India. President Vladimir Putin characterised the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s killing “a cynical violation of all norms of human morals”. China said that the “killing was unacceptable”. Russia and Iran had signed a “comprehensive strategic peace” treaty in 2025. The treaty however did not have a mutual defence clause. According to reports, Russia had recently suppled state of the art man portable air defense systems (MANPADS) to Iran. These are used to shoot down low flying aircraft.