Two hundred Israeli fighter jets struck around 100 targets across Iran on Friday. Unprecedented in its scale and diversity of targets, the attack targeted not only the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, such as the Natanz enrichment site, but also its military chain of command, bases used for launching missiles, and scientists involved in the nuclear program. CNN reported that the attacks could last several days. In a public statement, the IDF said it had only just completed a “first stage,” and suggested that more attacks were to come.   

This offensive comes after the expiration of the 60-day deadline the United States had imposed to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran on June 12, following five rounds of talks. A sixth round was scheduled to begin on June 15, but with Israel’s strikes on Iran, the Iranian general staff announced its withdrawal from the negotiations. In response, Iran sent approximately 100 drones toward Israeli territory and, according to several reports, mobilized fighter jets during interception operations. It is too early to gauge the extent of the events. Although Iran has declared that it considers the Israeli offensive a “declaration of war,” the nature of the Iranian response is still unknown.

Following the April and October retaliations, in which Iran launched several hundred drones and missiles against Israel without inflicting significant damage, the regime could escalate significantly—although doubts remain about its actual capabilities. Ultimately, however, it is Israel’s responses that will be decisive and threaten to plunge the region into a spiral of destructive retaliation and counter-retaliation that could lead to all-out war.

So far, Iranian media have confirmed the deaths of Revolutionary Guards Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami, Gholam Ali Rashid, commander of the Khatam Al-Anbiya base (the Revolutionary Guards’ engineering branch), Fereydoun Abbasi, former director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the armed forces. The victims also include civilians, including children. The Islamic Republic is facing its most serious challenge since the war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s. The peril is all the greater for the Islamic regime because its number one ally in the region, Hezbollah, the very force that was supposed to deter Israel from attacking, has been severely weakened by the blows Israel dealt it during its invasion of Lebanon this fall.

Israel’s Attack Threatens A New Regional Conflict

The situation brings to the forefront the fear of an even greater escalation of the dramatic situation in the Middle East that has unfolded over nearly nineteen months, where civilian populations and the working classes will once again pay the price in blood, fire, and tears. While the Israeli government continues its genocide in Gaza, accelerates the colonization of the West Bank, continues to bomb Yemen, and to occupy parts of Lebanon and Syria, the imperialist powers that communicated again this Friday, from France to Germany to England, on “Israel’s right to defend itself” are primarily responsible for this situation.

Donald Trump, for his part, affirmed his support for the Israeli-led operation while calling on Iran to accept a nuclear deal as quickly as possible, threatening the country with massive retaliation. While the U.S. administration initially distanced itself from the Israeli operation to protect its regional positions from possible Iranian reprisals, an operation of this magnitude would not have been possible without U.S. military support and agreement. Several reports suggest that the United States had been informed of the Israeli attack and at the same time, the White House had evacuated its non-essential staff from its embassy in Iraq the day before.

In recent months, Donald Trump has continued to issue threats against Tehran, while the strikes against Yemen and the threat of a ground invasion have been part of a “maximum pressure” strategy to bring Iran to the negotiating table. While previously rejecting the Israeli regime’s plans for a large-scale offensive, the U.S. administration had, as the New York Times revealed last April, deployed a fleet of bombers to the region, the only bombers capable of carrying the bombs needed to destroy Iran’s deep-lying infrastructure.

Despite the scale, the (relative) surprise effect, and the initial successes of the Israeli operation, Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a very risky gamble in an unstable situation. The Israeli prime minister, who escaped a vote of no confidence this week, is facing a deepening internal crisis and growing international isolation. U.S. allies—notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, where Donald Trump toured a few weeks ago—have all responded by advocating against war, condemning the Israeli aggression with unprecedented speed. Another very important player in the region has strongly condemned the Israeli attack: Turkish President Recep Erdogan. This is not insignificant. Since the advance of pro-Turkish forces in Syria and Israel’s occupation of part of Syrian territory, relations between the two countries have been deteriorating.

For his part, Donald Trump, who has presented himself as the “president of peace” since his return to the White House, has repeatedly blamed Joe Biden, for the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Today, he risks being the sponsor or direct participant in a new war in the Middle East.

While traditional conservatives, who are very hostile to Iran, will rejoice and are already rejoicing in Congress, the MAGA world is deeply allergic to the idea of ​​any new external military adventure. This situation could open up contradictions between the wings of Trumpism, some of which are more opposed to the opening of a new military conflict in the Middle East, such as the wing of J.D. Vance, while the historical policy of the Republican Party and Donald Trump has long been to exert strong pressure on the Iranian regime to obtain a nuclear agreement, under the threat of constant economic and military retaliation.

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In this context, Netanyahu’s gamble is to engage the United States in a new regional war and to strengthen his position internally, with a permanent state of war threatening a new disaster scenario in the region. However, despite the contradictions and risks, Israel’s aggressive policy could prove functional to Trump’s if it succeeds in obtaining Iranian capitulation. It is still too early to say whether this will work, as the Iranians have withdrawn from the negotiations. Everything will depend on the magnitude of the blows the Israeli army is able to deliver to Iran, both from a military and political perspective (eliminating a significant portion of its political-military leadership). From this perspective, although Netanyahu pursues his own political and strategic objectives, Israel’s role as regional policeman of Western imperialism remains intact.

For their part, Israel’s imperialist allies and the Arab bourgeoisies bear central responsibility for the ongoing escalation and the genocide in Gaza. This new escalation could have dramatic consequences, especially since it directly targets nuclear sites whose destruction could have catastrophic consequences for the entire region. Several factors remain unknown in this situation: the extent of the Iranian response and the degree of U.S. willingness and support it is prepared to provide to Israel.

Only a resolute and independent struggle by the workers and peoples of the region can put an end to the hell that the people of Gaza and the Middle East have been going through for almost nineteen months and prevent the fate of the region from remaining in the hands of reactionary forces (Israel, the Iranian regime, the imperialist powers). While, in the wake of the courageous actions of the Freedom Flotilla activists, the international convoys to Gaza, but also the blockades of arms deliveries by dockers, the first signs of rebuilding an international solidarity movement have emerged, the hope of all those who are watching the current developments with horror lies more than ever in the construction and strengthening of this movement in the Middle East and internationally.

This article was originally published in French in Révolution Permanente on June 13

Translated and revised by Samuel Karlin