Shadow War on the Brink of Open War |
When retired Vice Admiral Bob Harward told the Jerusalem Post last week that American forces could dismantle the Iranian regime “in a matter of hours,” he wasn’t bluffing. He was describing a military reality.
But the crisis now hurtling toward a decision point didn’t appear from nowhere. It is the product of a 25-year shadow war between Israel and Iran a covert struggle of assassinations, cyberattacks, sabotage, and proxy battles that went overt in last June’s airstrikes on Iran and has now pulled Washington to the edge of its largest Middle Eastern military operation since Iraq.
I documented that history in my book, Operation Rising Lion, tracing the arc from the turn of the millennium through last summer’s strikes. The events of the past eight weeks suggest that book’s final chapter was only an intermission, however.
The situation is now accelerating fast. President Trump gave Tehran 10 to 15 days last Thursday to reach a deal on its nuclear program. A third round of indirect talks is set for Geneva on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has assembled a force not seen in the region since 2003: two carrier strike groups, hundreds of fighter jets, refueling tankers, and layered air defense batteries. As Harward put it, the U.S. can now conduct “hundreds of strikes a day.” If the order comes, the first targets would be strategic missile sites, followed by IRGC command infrastructure.
The diplomatic track has produced more theater than progress. Two rounds of talks Muscat in early February, Geneva last week yielded agreement on vague “guiding principles” but no breakthrough on halting enrichment. Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi calls the nuclear program a matter of national “dignity and pride.” Vice President Vance said flatly that Iran has not acknowledged Trump’s red lines.
The gap may be unbridgeable. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said last week that Iran retains approximately 400 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60% purity, despite last year’s airstrikes. With the correct centrifuges, enriching this uranium to weapons grade would take Iran 2 to 3 days. The Atlantic Council’s William Wechsler argued this week that any acceptable deal must now include zero enrichment on Iranian soil a demand Tehran shows no willingness to entertain.
Inside Iran, pressure is mounting. The rial has hit a record 1.2 million to the dollar. Student protests swept universities in Tehran and Mashhad over the weekend the first significant unrest since the brutal January crackdown. Amnesty International warns that at least 30 people face execution tied to the uprising, including minors.
The regime is preparing for war. Satellite imagery shows continued hardening of tunnel entrances at Natanz and heavy construction at Parchin. Ali Shamkhani, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt last summer has been appointed to lead defense preparations, a move analysts read as bracing for a decapitation strike against the supreme leader himself.
For anyone who has tracked this confrontation across its long, largely invisible history Stuxnet, the killings of nuclear scientists, the shadow naval war, the proxy battles from Lebanon to Yemen, this moment carries an eerie sense of culmination. Every covert tool has been tried. Every escalatory rung has been climbed. What remains is the question that has hung over the region for a generation: Will Washington and Jerusalem use overwhelming force to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions, or will Tehran find a way to pull back?
The answer may come within days