Iran won this war with defiant strikes. Israel lost

Khamenei could emerge as the real winner from this conflict, after his nation displayed a remarkable capacity to retaliate against Israeli-American attacks

On Monday night, US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran that took effect within hours.

Of course, as with any of Trump’s schemes, this has to be taken with a sizeable grain of caution. But for now at least, this development appears to have ended two hectic weeks that started with Israel attacking Iran.

We then saw Tehran retaliating, the US jumping into the fray by striking Iranian nuclear facilities, and Iran’s largely symbolic response against US military bases in the region.

Israel had already signalled its wish for de-escalation last weekend. Perhaps Israeli planners had not anticipated the harsh Iranian response, or had put excessive confidence in the damage inflicted upon the Islamic Republic’s s military capabilities.

It also emerged that US envoy Steve Witkoff had been maintaining direct contact with the Iranian side the entire time.

What has occurred in the last few days between the US and Iran looks more like theatrics than war, similar to the choreographed clash that played out five years ago after General Qassem Soleimani’s assassination.

US political leaders made bombastic claims about delivering a devastating blow to Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Military assessments, however, appeared more cautious about the damage inflicted, especially in the case of the Fordow enrichment site, which is buried under a mountain. Time will tell, but the general sentiment does not seem optimistic.

Beyond western media spin

Fordow is the core of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, with advanced centrifuges that could enrich uranium up to the military threshold of 90 percent. Iran is already estimated to own 400 kilogrammes of uranium enriched to 60 percent.

To increase it to 90 percent seems eminently feasible, but this does not imply that Iran will soon own a nuclear bomb; rather, it has enough material to potentially assemble a few, but according to some estimates, that process could take a couple of years.

This past March, the vast US intelligence community, through director Tulsi Gabbard, assured Congress that Iran was not in the process of building nuclear weapons – a conclusion also reached, amid other clumsy moves, by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Last weekend, by ordering strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump ignored this assessment. When challenged by journalists, his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, remarked that the intelligence assessment was irrelevant. Tens of billions of dollars spent annually by US taxpayers for the biggest intelligence apparatus on earth, just to see top officials dismiss their findings as irrelevant.

Hours after Iran carried out its largely symbolic retaliation on Monday, a deal was announced.

If the ceasefire stands, and if from here it paves the way for a new nuclear deal, Trump will bombastically portray himself as the winner, the dealmaker, the man of peace – while also recovering some credibility among his disappointed Maga base.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may emerge as the biggest loser. He apparently did not achieve the destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme, nor was he able to drag the US into a prolonged military confrontation with Iran – and it is highly likely that his decades-long dream of regime change in Tehran will remain just that: a dream.

Beyond all the western media spinning, however, the real winner – unrecognised of course – could be Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iran ultimately resisted the joint military pressure of Israel and the US, displaying a remarkable capacity to retaliate by severely depleting Israel’s missile-defence system. This will be the key takeaway for the region, and for those around the world – especially in the Global South – who grasp its significance.

As for Europe, the dystopian statements of its top leaders issued after the Israeli-US strikes on Iran will go into history’s dustbin for their sheer hypocrisy.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/iran-won-war-defiant-strikes-israel-lost