Wednesday, 2 July 2025

Does Iran have any other option but surrender?

Iran retaliated massively against Israel after the first Israeli strikes on its nuclear sites last month. Many of the ballistic missiles got through and killed Israeli civilians and damaged property. So, unlike the first retaliation against Israeli raids in April when Tehran launched a fairly modest retaliatory strike and achieved very little, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this time round might feel satisfied that his military dealt a significant blow to Israel. Nevertheless, the overall result of the twelve days of war and then the intervention of Donald Trump and the B-2 Spirit bombers is that Iran has been hugely weakened, its nuclear programme has been set back potentially by years, its stockpile of ballistic missile launchers have been partially destroyed and its air defence systems have been ravaged. Iran, therefore, has nothing to show for its strike back against Israel, and as for its retaliation against the US for the B-2 bombers, no one died and every missile aimed at the American al-Udeid base in Qatar was intercepted. All the ayatollahs have got as a bargaining chip is the relative mystery of whether they have managed to hide away the 400 kilos of 60-per cent-enriched uranium and whether they have an unharmed inventory of gas centrifuges also concealed somewhere. TRhey could play on that if there are going to be negotiations between Iran the US. But, basically, Iran is in a pretty poor state to negotiate anything and if the regime refuses to cooperate, then Israel and possibly the US will return with more bombs and missiles.

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