For months now, a confusing state of uncertainty has pervaded across the Middle East and the Gulf.
The ceasefire that was first in place in April and then followed up by a Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran has left the region poised between peace and war.
Conflict simmers up without quite fully coming to the boil, as the two powers refuse to back down – most of all over control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Yet neither side wants to enter upon a full-blown resumption of the air strikes and missile exchanges that dominated the operation that America’s ally Israel dubbed Operation Roaring Lion earlier in the year.
This tense, febrile stasis was obviously not indefinitely sustainable.
Israel’s leaders know this better than anyone: witness Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the US this week and warning President Donald Trump that the stakes, ultimately, are existential.
Iran missiles on display in Tehran at parade to commemorate 1979 revolution earlier this year (Majid Saeedi/Getty)Getty Images
Whatever comes out of the stateside discussions, a resumption of full-scale war has seemed to be beckoning for weeks.
Iran and the US have escalated the scope and frequency of their attacks. American air power has targeted Iran’s surveillance and air defence systems, along with drone and missile capabilities.
The US navy has imposed a blockade on ports to put a financial squeeze on the regime.
Meanwhile, Iran has targeted American military bases in the Gulf states, killing at least three soldiers. Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are among the countries that have been targeted.
Yet what of Israel, the arch enemy of Iran that has led two wars against the Islamic Republic in the past year?
For now, Tehran has pointedly avoided attacking the Jewish state. Yet according to a source familiar with the issue, it is only a matter of time before Israel will enter the war once it sees the “right opportunity”.
Last week explosions were heard in Eilat after Iranian ballistic missiles fell on Jordan. The week before that, Israel activated its air defence system when another missile was launched close to Israel’s eastern border.
“The latest missile fire was very close to Eilat and it wasn’t some random incident,” the source told JC.
What will happen when Iran escalates the situation still further?
“Then we’ll step in. In my opinion, there will still be some delay until the elections,” the source added.
An Israeli government official told the JC that Israel is “monitoring the developments in the Gulf and in the region, and are prepared for any scenario – in defence and in offence alike. We remain vigilant and will defend ourselves should we need to.”
Netanyahu is still determined to achieve goals he set forth on February 28 when Israel and the US embarked on the war: destroy Iran’s nuclear programme and create the conditions on the ground for regime change.
Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant in 2019 (ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty)AFP via Getty Images
It is understood that the prime minister has refrained from joining the US in the current round of fighting because Trump has asked him to stand down.
Former deputy Israeli national security adviser Chuck Freilich told the JC: “I think, not for the first time, that it depends entirely on what Trump wants.
“So far, he’s wanted to keep us out. I think Netanyahu very much wants to enter both for legitimate strategic reasons and for less legitimate personal political reasons. But Trump will make the decision.”
Ram Ben-Barak, Israeli lawmaker for Yesh Atid and former deputy head of Mossad, questions the wisdom of rejoining the conflict at this point: “It was a terrible mistake to stop the war [in April] but I don’t think it’s good for Israel to to join the war now as it’s longer about the nuclear issue.
“The war now is about the Strait of Hormuz and with all due respect to all the other partners in the region; Hormuz is not our problem. Our problem is the nuclear issue.”
The prime minister has indeed kept a close eye on Iran’s nuclear programme for decades, warning about the regime’s bad intentions while launching myriad different attacks to slow it down over the years.
A strategy that significantly delayed the programme seems to have reached a sort of dead end, according to Dror Doron, a member of the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute in Israel.
“The Iranian nuclear project that was discovered in 2003 was always two years away from crossing the finish line.
"But it was two years away for 20 years because Israel was able to postpone this, going back to Stuxnet [a cyber attack on Iranian nuclear facilities] in 2011 to the assassination of [top Iranian nuclear scientist] Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020.
“And the assassinations of nuclear scientists in 2012. Israel constantly pushed the can down the road. It didn’t solve the problem, but it definitely delayed the Iranians from achieving the final goal.”
American destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr launches missiles as operation against Iran began on February 28 (US Navy via Getty)Getty Images
A former senior analyst in the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel, Doron says the Israeli and American attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites in June last year and again this spring have significantly weakened their ability to develop nuclear weapons.
“Everything that could be destroyed has been destroyed from the air. I’m quite sure that the Israeli and American ‘target banks’ of the nuclear programme are empty.”
Doron points to a critical nuclear site in Isfahan that was attacked by the Americans that had one purpose: transforming enriched uranium into gas and then converting it back into metallic form used to develop a bomb.
But recent reports indicate that Israel believes the Iranian regime has begun moving parts of its 400kg stockpile of 60 per cent enriched uranium into a heavily fortified site known as the Pickaxe Mountain right next to the Natanz nuclear site.
What if the regime succeeds in moving the stockpile into the mountain, continues to enrich the uranium to weapons grade levels of around 90 per cent, and builds a facility that process it still further into gas and metallic form?
It is, to say the least, a deeply sobering prospect for both the US and Israel.
Iran first began constructing a nuclear facility in the Pickaxe Mountain in 2020. The site is heavily fortified, both with a large security barrier as well as security guards.
Doron said: “Not even the most advanced American bunker-busting bombs can penetrate that, so that’s a big problem.”
Freilich, also a professor at Tel Aviv University and Columbia University, agrees that the situation poses a significant challenge to both Israel and the US. He said: “Both the enrichment and the conversion process, which was at Isfahan, were destroyed or badly damaged, mostly in June, and then somewhat more during the war itself. Now, obviously, the biggest worry is that they’ll do those two things in Pickaxe.”
The Pickaxe Mountain has also gotten Trump’s attention in recent weeks, with the president promising to hit the site “very soon”. But while it is doubtful that American bombs can penetrate the 100-metre-deep nuclear site in the mountain, another option remains: a ground operation.
Yet Freilich is doubtful, saying: “Certainly, I don’t think the US is interested in sending in ground forces at this point, and for Israel – I mean the chances of failure are so significant that I don’t know that Netanyahu wants to do that either just before the elections.
“I think we’re talking mostly about an air campaign.”
Whatever the toll of war, the regime has made it clear it will never give up the nuclear programme.
Doron said: “Iran is looking at a nuclear (weapon) as an insurance policy. It needs it in order to prevent foreign actors from intervening and toppling the regime. Iran has learnt the lesson of Gaddafi and Kim Jong-Un.
"When Libya had a nuclear programme, it gave it up, and that led the way for Western interference in Libya and finally toppled the regime.
"North Korea insisted on developing its nuclear capabilities even though the international community demanded that they stop. And now, when it has a nuclear weapon, it is protected from any kind of intervention.
"This is the Iranian lesson, and I think, unfortunately, in that aspect, the Iranians are correct.”
If and when Israel does re-enter war against Iran, destroying the ballistic missile capabilities of the regime will be the highest priority. There is now doubt over what were believed to be earlier successes in achieving that.
Freilich said: “I think the information that’s come out shows that the missile strikes were not as successful as thought at the time, and less was destroyed than we thought.
“And the Iranians have been able to reconstitute more quickly. In some cases, they’re just taking a piece from here and a piece from there, and putting together a new missile or a new launcher, they were able to quickly unseal the entrance tunnels that we had blown up.
"So yes, they certainly have more than we thought they had when the war ended, and I presume that they’ve also just started reproduction since then. How much? That actually is unclear.”
Whether Israel returns to the battlefield may ultimately depend less on Jerusalem than on Washington. Trump appears determined to keep the conflict focused on the Strait of Hormuz rather than escalating the conflict. But the situation is deeply unstable.
One misstep by Iran may be all that’s needed for another war to start.
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.