With one of the largest buildups of air and sea power in the Gulf region since the invasion of Iraq, and a record of violating deals, President Donald Trump is reportedly considering an attack on Iran as soon as this weekend. Analyses in Middle East Policy indicate that ongoing talks are not likely to avert military action, given Tehran’s insistence on the right to enrichment, confidence in its support from external powers, and recognition of Israel’s vulnerability to missile strikes. Our coverage also provides insights into whether Trump risks a return to the forever wars.
Readers can find more on this conflict in our special issue, The Israel-Iran War. We also marked the third year of the Gaza war in The October 7 Emergencies. And our Winter 2025–26 issue is still available, featuring analyses of Washington’s new model for rebuilding failed states (open access); US-Saudi relations in light of China’s increasing influence; the new order in the Red Sea (open access); and the roiling Israel-Turkey conflict in Syria. If you find this newsletter useful, please forward to others you believe will benefit, and please follow us on the social media platforms X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
After Israel degraded Iran’s air defenses in 2024, the following June it struck more than 100 military targets and killed more than 10 senior military commanders and nuclear scientists—on just the first day of a 12-day conflict. Writing in Middle East Policy, Ali Bagheri Dolatabadi examines the Islamic Republic’s reaction to what it sees as an existential threat that continues despite the end of the unprecedented June 2025 war. The regime immediately restructured its system of security advisers, purged alleged spies, and passed laws to prevent the disclosure of damage to the nuclear program.
Most important, Bagheri Dolatabadi demonstrates that the war did not make a diplomatic breakthrough more likely but instead added further complications—especially, he predicted, Israel’s new demand that Iran give up its missile program. Wyn Rees and Hossein Salimian Rizi had already shown in our pages how Trump’s abrogation of the Obama-negotiated nuclear deal, as well as Tehran’s closer ties to Russia and China, made Iran far less likely to soften its position on reducing or ending enrichment and allowing intrusive Western inspections.
As well, after the June 2025 war Banafsheh Keynoush warned, “the Trump administration’s continued narrative of dominating the outcome of a nuclear deal” is a “major obstacle.” At the same time, she contended, potential compromises could be found in “limiting Iran’s enrichment capacity in exchange for relief of sanctions on Iranian defense programs, the rebuilding of homeland defenses, and the development of an advanced civilian nuclear capacity.”
But Bagheri Dolatabadi’s article foregrounds what has become Israel’s new focus and likely obstacle to a peaceful settlement: an insistence that Iran end its missile program or at least restrict the range of its weapons. By the middle of the June 2025 war, Iran’s missiles had penetrated Israeli defenses and “hit scientific research centers related to military industries (notably the Weizmann Institute of Science in the city of Rehovot), military bases (including Tel Nof, Glilot, Tziporit, Shaar Efraim, and a base near Bnei Nehemia), Mossad facilities in Haifa and Tel Aviv, and critical infrastructure such as the Haifa oil refinery.” Indeed, 16 percent of the missile launches had successfully evaded Israeli, Jordanian, and Western defenses. For this reason, the missile program is far more a concern for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than is the nuclear file.
As Bagheri Dolatabadi notes, Iran was able to preserve much of this weaponry. “The storage of ballistic missiles in tunnels beneath mountains, which cannot be completely destroyed, prevented Tel Aviv from completely eliminating missile capabilities,” he writes. “Iran will be able to repair damaged facilities and develop new countermeasures against potential future attacks.”
This finding, in the midst of one of the largest American mobilizations since the Iraq War, should raise alarms among US policy makers. In the leadup to that devastating conflict, Middle East Policy published trenchant analyses—mostly unheeded—about the risks of poorly conceived strategies even if they are carried out by superior tactical forces.
In December 2002, two months before Secretary of State Colin Powell made the case for invasion, Anne Joyce cautioned: “Winning an actual war is more than expensive, even for a country as rich as the United States. Leaving aside the potentially decisive issue of casualties, it might be ruinous financially and strategically, alienating friends and swelling the ranks of al-Qaeda with more disaffected Muslim youth.”
Throughout President George W. Bush’s selling of the war and the disastrous early years, the journal continued to warn of the risks, the mismatch between intention and capacity, and the political environment—similar to today’s—that was stifling dissent in favor of patriotism and presidential authority:
- “Despite a powerful public-relations campaign and a largely compliant media and Congress, the Bush administration has been unable to present convincing arguments demonstrating that Iraq is a threat to its neighbors or to U.S. security,” Ron Bleier protested. “Administration justifications for preemption are a farrago of outright lies, distortions and efforts to manufacture hysteria.”
- Judith Yaphe looked past the fervor of regime change, questioning whether the administration had any idea how to manage the chaos and work with regional partners: “The issues are complicated by the competing national interests of Iraq’s neighbors in the composition and character of the successor government and their view of the role they, the United States, and other external powers should and must play in reconstructing Iraq. It will be hard to reconcile their demands for a pacific post-Saddam Iraq with those of Iraqis, who will have their own visions and definitions of life after Saddam and without fear.”
- As Bush prepared the troops to storm Baghdad, Donald F. Hepburn compared the minimum costs, even of a relatively short conflict, to the expected gains from the oil trade: “The cost of the post-war decade of humanitarian aid, Iraq’s reconstruction, payment of Gulf War I reparations and the servicing of existing pre-war foreign debt could be on the order of $400 billion. This assumes a 4-6 week war, with a moderate level of collateral damage and a limited level of Iraqi sabotage of the oil fields. Total revenue from oil exports over the same ten year period is estimated to be on the order of $300 billion, leaving a shortfall of $100 billion. The estimated cost to the United States of the war and five years of peacekeeping is $350 billion. These costs clearly cannot be plundered from Iraq’s post-war oil revenues.”
- Mohammed Ayoob turned the focus to the effects of the invasion on international diplomacy. “American unilateralism on Iraq has clearly conveyed the message that the United Nations, and particularly the Security Council, is useful as an instrument for imposing and managing international order only when it does Washington’s bidding,” he wrote in an analysis that rings true today. “Where it resists American designs, it is either berated or by-passed or both by the American leadership.”
- And in his exasperated plea for US officials to stop “drinking the Kool-Aid,” Patrick Lang argued that the Iraq War was enabled by “the sincerely held beliefs of a small group of people who think they are the ‘bearers’ of a uniquely correct view of the world, [who] sought to dominate the foreign policy of the United States…through a practice of excluding all who disagreed with them. Those they could not drive from government they bullied and undermined.”
With the Iraq War as background and the June 2025 air attacks as context, Bagheri Dolatabadi concludes with a bracing admonition for those seeking a simple resolution:
While there is reason to be optimistic about potential success of the nuclear negotiations, one should be pessimistic about an agreement on Iran’s missile program. Tehran will not engage in missile talks as long as it is threatened by further attacks. To achieve a broader deal, Iran must be integrated into regional peace and security programs, it must reach collective-security accords with its Arab neighbors, the West must de-escalate, and the status of Palestine must be resolved.
Middle East Policy articles on the Iran and Iraq wars
THE JUNE 2025 WAR AND ITS EFFECTS
The June 2025 Israeli War: Iran’s Assessment and Regional Consequences
Ali Bagheri Dolatabadi, 2025
The Perils of Nuclear Talks after the US-Israel War on Iran
Banafsheh Keynoush, 2025—open access!
THE NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS
Negotiating the Restoration of the Iran Nuclear Deal
Wyn Rees | Hossein Salimian Rizi, 2024
Negotiating the Impossible? A WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East
Robert Mason, 2025
Israel’s Future and Iran’s Nuclear Program
Leonard Weiss, 2009
THE REGIME AND AMERICAN ENMITY
Iran’s Annus Horribilis in 2024: Beaten, but Not Defeated
Thomas Juneau, 2025—open access!
The 2022 Iran Protests: The View from the Streets
Rauf Rahimi | Sajjad Rezaei, 2025
Conjuring an Enemy: US Discourse and Policy on Iran, 1979–88
Annie Tracy Samuel, 2025
SELLING THE IRAQ WAR
Editor’s Note
Anne Joyce, 2002
Invading Iraq: The Road to Perpetual War
Ronald Bleier, 2002
Reinventing Iraq: The Regional Impact of U.S. Military Action
Judith Yaphe, 2002
Is It a War for Oil?
Donald F. Hepburn, 2003
The War Against Iraq: Normative and Strategic Implications
Mohammed Ayoob, 2003
Drinking the Kool-Aid
W. Patrick Lang, 2004
Lessons from America’s Misadventures in the Middle East
Chas W. Freeman, 2015