The Israeli occupation state’s early morning blitz on 13 June – the most brazen assault on Iranian soil in decades – was designed to replicate its past successes in Lebanon. It didn’t work.

That Friday morning, Israeli fighter jets launched multiple attacks across Iran: 60 civilians were killed in a residential tower, several top nuclear scientists and senior military commanders were assassinated, and key air defense and nuclear infrastructure sites were hit. 

The strikes marked a high-risk escalation, modeled in part on Israel’s September 2024 campaign in Lebanon, where a coordinated assassination spree eliminated Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit leadership and, ultimately, secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah himself and his presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine. 

A failed template

This “shock and awe” blueprint found some success in Lebanon, where Israeli intelligence had achieved deep penetration. In Tehran, however, it met a far more resilient nation.

While US President Donald Trump loudly demanded Iran abandon its nuclear enrichment rights, he pursued a carrot-and-stick approach of ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, military threats, and negotiations to try and persuade Tehran to accept his unilateral demands during indirect talks. 

This pattern had previously been repeated in the Ukraine–Russia conflict after negotiation deadlocks, involving operations deep inside Russia and attacks on Russian strategic bombers.

For months, Tehran had calculated Israel's Hezbollah strike model as one likely scenario for an attack on Iran. Accordingly, measures were taken to quickly replace commanders in such an event. At least tactically, however, Israel still managed to shock Iran with its attacks, mostly resulting from domestic infiltration and sabotage operations.

Tehran counters swiftly

But Iran's response was swift. Within 72 hours, Tehran had launched three significant retaliatory operations. The country's air defenses were restored, drone units re-engaged, and key command posts replenished. Footage and images of Israeli targets struck by Iranian munitions soon proliferated online, signaling both Tehran's operational recovery and strategic messaging.

Iran’s offensive and defensive response was such, that Trump, initially jubilant about Israel’s actions and seeking to offer Iran a “second chance” for negotiation – even possibly entertaining the idea of joining a war with a certain victory against the Islamic Republic – returned to a declared neutral stance, seeking to rapidly end tensions.

But Tehran's message has been clear and consistent: It views any Israeli aggression as inseparable from US support. The Islamic Republic has long warned that Washington's logistical, intelligence, and operational backing enables all of Tel Aviv's military campaigns. And while right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to try to entangle the US in his Iranian regime-change agenda, Trump and others appear increasingly cautious.

Security for all or none

Iran has clearly stated its strategy in case of a US attack: security for all or none, meaning maritime security, energy security, and the security of US bases in West Asia. 

Mohsen Rezaei, former overall Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said in a recent interview that: 

“America and Europe must withdraw their statesmen from behind Israel as soon as possible. If this does not happen, we cannot witness the United States and other countries continuing to supply ammunition to Israel. Their planes will enter the sky and will collide with our missiles; whether they are British, French, or American planes. Therefore, the dimensions of the war may become more serious and we have prepared ourselves for it.” 

He added, “Of course, our effort has always been not to be the initiator, but we will be the finisher. If support for Israel continues, my prediction is that the supporters may also be drawn into the conflict.”

Iran possesses diverse defensive and offensive tools and conventional and unconventional options, which it will certainly reconsider seriously after the recent exchange of heavy fire. 

As Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a top foreign policy advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and secretary of the nation's High Council for Human Rights, has said: 

“There is an old rule in the Persian Gulf, if our (Iran's) oil facilities are seriously damaged, we will not allow any country in the region to use its oil.” 

There are many options Iran can employ to execute on that threat. Brigadier General Esmail Kowsari, a member of the Parliament's National Security Commission, argued that “closing the Strait of Hormuz” could easily be one tactic on Iran's agenda.

Misreading the Iranian battlefield

Tel Aviv has mistakenly assumed its Lebanon strategy was scalable. Several miscalculations undermined its copy-paste plan to decapitate Iran's leadership.

First, Iran’s military command is vast, experienced, and rapidly replaceable. Unlike Hezbollah, a non-state actor with more limited resources, Iran maintains depth and redundancy across its armed forces. Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi pointed to this capacity, dismissing Israeli assumptions that a few assassinations could cripple national defense.

Second, geography matters. Iran’s sheer size allows the strategic dispersal of critical assets. Israeli jets may have briefly penetrated key western nodes, but much of Iran’s infrastructure remains embedded in its eastern and central territories. The state’s military doctrine is built around such depth.

Third, while Israel’s intelligence apparatus did succeed in penetrating Iranian command circles, it did not achieve full-spectrum dominance. The Islamic Republic retains the capacity for counter-intelligence operations, and in the days since the attack, internal security has reportedly dismantled multiple espionage cells, which caused most of the recent explosions.

The Iranian version of solidarity as a strategic weapon 

But perhaps Tel Aviv’s gravest misjudgment lay in its reading of Iran’s internal cohesion. Israeli PM Netanyahu appeared to believe that a sudden external strike would activate opposition forces within Iran – unleashing separatists, militants, and government critics to destabilize the state. This calculation has an equally ill-informed precedent: Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein made a similar error in the 1980s.

But Iran’s political unity in the face of external threats has been repeatedly demonstrated. Even segments of society critical of the Islamic Republic have closed ranks when faced with foreign aggression. It is a nationalism forged not from state propaganda, but from the collective memory of wars, invasions, and isolation.

Tel Aviv has, in three short days, killed 224 Iranian nationals, the majority civilians, and reduced several residential buildings to rubble. That level of provocation has consequences. In this conflict, Iran’s deterrence is not only military – it is social.

A war not yet decided

As of now, the situation remains fluid. Tel Aviv’s campaign has triggered a rapid Iranian response, both in rhetoric and in kind. But more than that, it has exposed the limits of Israel’s military doctrine when applied to a state actor with deep – and even unknown – defenses and a mobilized population.

Tel Aviv's western allies, once content to issue muted statements during months of Israeli attacks on Gaza, and its more recent strikes on Iran, have since shifted to active diplomacy. Washington is now scrambling to prevent a regional conflagration. What was once passive support is now active mediation, as Tel Aviv pushes to pull Washington deeper into its confrontation with Iran. Netanyahu, meanwhile, still eyes a broader war to settle Iran’s nuclear file by force and aims for a complete regime change. Israel's aim is clearly to draw the US into a military campaign that could damage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and weaken its military strength.

But Tehran has drawn its line. As Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh warned in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli strikes: 

“We are fully prepared and will support our operational forces in any way we can. We are ready for years of continued combat, and the armed forces are fully equipped.”

As with any conflict, outcomes remain uncertain. Yet, whether this spirals into a wider war or stalls into another frozen regional standoff depends less on Israel and more on whether the US is willing to follow Tel Aviv into the fire.