Iran Expert Says a Return to Intense War Could Come Quickly if Mediation Fails
The United States continued striking targets in Iran overnight Thursday, in response to the downing of the American helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz. Dr. Raz Zimmt, head of the Iran and Shiite Axis Program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), analyzed the latest night of exchanges on 103FM Thursday morning and explained that the campaign has now moved into a war of attrition phase, aimed at achieving two military objectives and one political objective.
According to Dr. Zimmt, the U.S. military goals are to reduce Iran’s ability to attack tankers in Hormuz, including by targeting the Iranian navy’s UAV array, as well as to strike air defense systems to make any future return to intense warfare easier to handle. The political objective, no less important, is to pressure the Iranians to move toward a deal, but despite the current attacks, there is so far no sign of any willingness from Tehran to soften its known positions.
As for the conduct of the negotiations, Dr. Zimmt points to cumbersome decision-making in Tehran, stemming from the need to communicate with a supreme leader who is remote. He stressed, however, that Mojtaba Khamenei knows how to make decisions, and the leadership that has formed under him is waiting for his word, while it is important to them that any decision be made by broad consensus, due to the presence of highly radical elements in the regime who oppose the very idea of negotiations with the Americans.
In Dr. Zimmt’s assessment, the current status quo will not be sustainable for long, and the situation could escalate quickly if the mediation efforts by Qatar and Pakistan fail. In such a scenario, if the Americans intensify the strikes, the Iranians may decide not to hit American bases in countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait or Jordan, but instead launch missiles directly at energy facilities in the United Arab Emirates or similar targets, a move that would immediately lead to renewed high-intensity warfare.
At the end of his remarks, the expert referred to what he called the strategic mistake of U.S. President Donald Trump, who, influenced by events in Venezuela, believed that the Iranian regime could be defeated in a short, inexpensive campaign and that Ali Khamenei could be replaced. Reality has shown that these assumptions were wrong, since this is a regime that has spent 47 years building itself to survive, and after developing advanced missile and UAV capabilities, it has accumulated enough bargaining chips to prevent the campaign from ending as simply as the administration initially assessed.
