The war between Israel and Iran didn’t begin in June 2025, but in August 2002 when the world found out about the clandestine nuclear facilities in Araak and Natanz. Discovering the nuclear ambitions of a state that for the 23 years prior to that had constantly and consistently stated elimination of Israel as one of its goals and desires, set Iran and Israel on an inevitable collision course. June 2025 was when the first direct shot was fired and this war is not over yet.
Wars end when they achieve their stated goals. That’s why wars with vague objectives tend to go on and on (remember “denazification of Ukraine” by Russia or the “war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan?).
Israel’s stated goal for this war in June ‘25 was very clear: removal of the nuclear and ballistic threat posed by Iran. However, while Israel managed to set back Iran’s abilities by months or even years, the underlying reasons for the war are still present:
12 days after the war, today, Iran stated their determination to restore their nuclear program and eliminate Israel, again, after their humiliating military defeat.
It is the ideology of the regime that compels it to spill blood and national treasure over eliminating a country with which it has no shared borders, resource disputes, common culture or historical animosity. This ideology is why diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions have never satisfied a paranoid Israel and particularly now that it is reeling from Oct 7th.
In other words, the war is not over, it’s just on pause.
This brings me to the topic occupying the public discourse in Iran and in the diaspora: war or no war. Which side are you on?
My answer: I am against the next war.
Last week’s events were a battle in a long war that will only end when the underlying reasons for it have been eliminated and the longer this war drags on, the higher is the chance of a failed Iranian state at the end of it. Here is why:
Social Cohesion
It’s always said that wars bring societies together in the face of a common enemy. This is mostly but not always true. When faced with foreign invasion or toppling of a popular government, people come together and defend their land and country.
However this war is different. Iran is not at risk of invasion by a country 70 times smaller and thousands of miles away and by all opinion polls, the Islamic regime is unpopular among 80 percent of the Iranian population. This means an attack by Israel is not going to bring the society together, it is going to polarize it, which is what we are seeing right now: Iranians against the war pitted against those in favor of it, both against the Islamic dictatorship and the 20 percent of Iranians who explicitly support it.
A polarized society is by far at a higher risk of disintegration, dysfunction and civil war.
Destruction of Infrastructure
When a state lacks infrastructure, it loses its ability to govern itself. Airports, electricity grids, ports and other infrastructure facilities are what makes a state functional. Without those, countries are at a higher risk of fragmentation and disintegration. They become dysfunctional states. Take a look at Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq: three countries with no infrastructure, destroyed infrastructure and destroyed but rebuilt infrastructure respectively. You can see the degrees of failure in the picture above.
As future rounds of this war continue, Iran’s infrastructure will be destroyed further and with it the regime’s ability to govern and bring in revenue will be eroded, leaving the country at a higher risk of becoming a failed state for a long time.
With each round of the war, the society will polarize more and the infrastructure will be destroyed further. After each round the Islamic regime will become more paranoid and oppressive and this cycle will continue.
There are two plausible ways to end this war. One is a public, lasting and verifiable end to the Islamic republic’s nuclear ambitions that satisfies Israel and the US. The second one is the collapse of the Islamic regime, almost irrespective of what comes next.
Since its inception, the Islamic republic has been a case study of ideological rigidity with very few exceptions brought about only when the very existence of the regime has been at stake. If the continuation of the war leads to an existential threat to the regime, it is conceivable that it will agree to the first option albeit at a high price for Iranians and at huge costs to the Iranian infrastructure. It is also very likely that the war eventually leads to the collapse of the regime as it fails to defend itself against the military might of the other side and loses the infrastructure to govern.
While the collapse of the regime doesn’t mean the emergence of a stable or democratic replacement, it will greatly reduce the threat to Israel. Israel might prefer a democratic or a pro-Israel form of government in Iran but it doesn’t need it to feel safe. From Israel’s point of view, a failed Iranian state, while not ideal, is better than a nuclear existential threat. That is why Israel limited its attacks to the nuclear and ballistic missile facilities and the IRGC leadership and spared the Iranian infrastructure. And while degrading Iranian infrastructure will risk alienating the Iranian public against Israel (which has historically been the most pro-Isreal in the region), it is not enough to stop Israel from achieving its main objective of a non-nuclear Iran with no or limited ballistic missiles.
As this war goes on over the next few years, many innocent lives will be lost. The Islamic regime will become more paranoid and oppressive and Iranians will suffer more, both socially and economically. The national wealth of the county will be spent on the war and Iranian infrastructure will be destroyed, while the Iranian society will be more fragmented and polarized.
But wars eventually end and this eventual end will be either marked by the emergence of an externally weak but internally oppressive and petty dictatorship or a failed state with damaged infrastructure and broken society, unable to recover for many years, if ever in a meaningful way.
If you see the events of last week, and not August 2002 as the start of this war, I can understand your opposition to it; but if you think this war cannot end without a stop to the Islamist ideology that has underpinned this and many other wars from Iran to Iraq and Yemen to Syria, your opposition to the war makes less sense to me. This is not the first war started by this ideology and will not be its last one.
For the past 46 years, I have seen and lived through wars that were started by the 1979 revolution, each time with a different enemy over ideology of the Islamic regime. Like you, I am against these wars and like many others I want to see them end and never see another war in Iran.
The only difference is that I want them to end forever, not just until the next one. That’s why I am against the next war, not this one.