Sleepwalking Into World War III

The 12-day-long Israel-Iran war has ended in a ceasefire to the relief of the whole world. The war that Israel had ignited with a preemptive strike on three nuclear sites of Iran located at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan on 13 June, pushed West Asia to the brink of total regional war. The tension shot up steeply on the escalatory ladder when the US government joined the fray and dropped GBU-57 bunker buster bombs to complete the destruction of the Iranian nuclear sites, which Israel was unable to penetrate during its first strike. 

The intervention of the US in the war on Israel's side had engendered a great risk of involving other global powers as well.  Luckily, Iran retaliated weakly by firing missiles at Al Udeid US Air Base in Qatar with prior warning. The retaliation was largely symbolic because the 14 missiles fired matched the number of missiles fired by the US on the Iranian nuclear sites and according to Mohammad Marmandi, professor of Tehran University, Iran had used "the oldest missiles at its stock as the Iran did not think the US worth the latest and sophisticated missiles". 

Face-saving retaliation 

Understandably, the US, too, took it as a face-saving retaliation from Iran and decided to condone it. President Donald Trump's telephone conversation with Iranian and Israeli leaders immediately after the Iranian strike and his subsequent announcement of a ceasefire shows he was not willing to further escalate this conflict, given the geopolitical factors clearly against further escalation.

The preemptive strike of Israel on the nuclear sites, following shockingly unbelievable decapitation of a whole top military leadership, senior nuclear scientists and degradation of its air defense capability to almost insignificance, had projected a scary scenario for Iran. However, it quickly made up of the deficiency by firing barrage of missiles and drones breaching  Israeli air defense system and inflicting unexpectedly heavy damage of infrastructure in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba and other places while Israel devastated the complexes of IRGC Quds Force, Evin Prison, Airports, missile launchers and wide swath of residential complexes in Tehran. 

Despite pervious incidents of targeted murder of high profile Iranians by Israel and Iran's retaliations, especially in connection with Qasem Soleimani's assassination in 2020 and Israeli attack on Iranian Consulate in Damascus in 2024, this was the first full scale war between the two traditional adversaries in which Iran displayed an unprecedented capability in using precision hypersonic, and ballistic missiles. In the war, Israel established air superiority by taking out Iran's meager air defense, enjoying free flight into Iranian airspace. Iran saved the situation only with a huge stockpile of ballistic missiles, which it used to overwhelm Israel's air defense systems and hit strategic targets with devastating effect. 

 The ceasefire has been enforced after a huge infrastructural devastation on both sides. Surprisingly, however, the humanitarian cost of the war appears relatively much less than in the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. According to newspaper reports attributed to Washington-based human rights activists, altogether 28 people were killed and 1000 injured in Israel, while 974 people were killed and 3458 injured in Iran during the war.

After Iran's missile strike on a US airbase in Qatar, Al Jazeera reported that Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahaman bin Jasim Al Thani criticised Iranian attack in soft and conciliatory terms.  "What happened today will have a scar on the relationship but I hope by this time every one learnt the lesson that this kind of neighbourly relationship should not be violated and undermined", he was reported as saying. 

Israel appears displeased at the USA's unwillingness to continue fighting against Iran until the latter is brought to its knees. It is eager to make Iran a weak nation-state, one that is removed from the power equation of the region. However, military strategists argue that this view is not only cynical but also reveals a lack of understanding of Iran's rich history of continuous civilization, spanning over 4,000 years. It has survived the invasion of Alexander the Great, the Arabs, the Tartars, the Turks and the Mongols. For a country like Israel, which is 75 times smaller in land area and 9 times smaller in population than Iran, toying with the fantasy of regime change could mean only chaos, destruction and continued instability for the reason.

Unilateral attack 

The present war between Israel and Iran was ignited by Israel's unilateral attack on Iran. It was not a sudden eruption but the culmination of a well-thought-out action plan for isolating and weakening the Islamic state. During the ongoing war with Hamas, Israel has decimated the capabilities of Iran's proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Israel attacked Iran when its allies were not in a position to come to its assistance. Today, Iran finds itself cornered on the chessboard of regional geopolitics. In the coming days, Iran's nuclear programme is likely to be put under stricter surveillance, putting pressure on it to account for the whereabouts of enriched Uranium in the context of the intelligence reports that the material was already removed to a safe location.  

As the delicate peace teeters on the edge of uncertainty, the road ahead for Iran does not appear to be paved with good intentions. The USA, Israel and other Western powers appear to be bent on emasculating Iran by divesting it of its military might. Israel has even threatened to kill spiritual leader Khomeini to bring about regime change- a remark which is not only sacrilegious for the Islamic world but is also irresponsible, undiplomatic and fraught with unforeseen consequences. It is, therefore, safe to say that any foolhardy steps taken against Iran with no regard for its core national interests and without regard for the shifting balance of power in the region may be tantamount to 'sleepwalking into World War III', as Elon Musk once aptly said in connection with Hamas-Israel war. 

(Dr. Bharadwaj is a former ambassador and former chairperson of Gorkhapatra Corporation.)