The conflict in the Middle East that began on October 7, 2023, took a dramatic turn when Israeli fighter jets flew into Syria and the Iraqi airspaces heading to Iran with the aim to halt its nuclear programme. A few days after the United States and Iran began their talks over the latter’s nuclear programme, I had written a piece on this Newspaper titled “Halting Iran’s Nuclear Programme: Diplomacy or War. At the time President Donald Trump had threatened to launch a military operation against Iran’s nuclear facilities if they don’t sign a deal in sixty days.

In that opinion piece I had asked the question if “Israel would go alone if diplomacy failed and also stated that “diplomacy remains the preferable option to resolve this critical issue for this volatile region that has seen so much conflict lately, but the possibility of war was very high going by the principles the Mullahs in Tehran live by and the determination of the Jewish state to stop them”. And on 13th of June, that question was answered. The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered a military operation against the state of Iran to stop its pursuit for nuclear weapons.

The night before I was following the report that the US government had instructed all non-essential diplomats and military families from several locations across the Middle East to leave. I gave some thought to this and concluded that something was about to happen even though I couldn’t put a finger on it. What could the CIA have picked up, I wondered? Is there about to be a terror attack on American citizens somewhere in the region? Nothing could be established. Unknown to me the Israeli Airforce fighter jets were already in the skies heading to Tehran. “Operation Rising Lion” was underway.

The theatre of conflict had just been moved to the shores of Tehran. I was as shocked just as the rest of the world that morning when it became clear what was going on and the damage they had done in the first few hours. Israeli fighter aircrafts were conducting a bold and complex military operation in a hostile airspace operating for hours and days with so much freedom. With commandos and the Mossad on Iranian soil operating secretly, they conducted the first sets of strikes on Iran’s air defense systems paving the way for wave after wave of attacks on targets on the ground. They went after military generals and eliminated top nuclear scientists in what can only be described as strategic surgical operations. They achieved aerial superiority in no time after successfully taking out over seventy air defense batteries in the first day of attacks.

They conducted a comprehensive air campaign over the skies of the Islamic republic hitting all 12 nuclear plants, surface to surface missile factories and missiles storage sites. The Iranians were caught off guard, and they struggled to recover from the initial shock and surprise assaults. The attacks were so intense the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei went into hiding fearing the Israelis would come after him.

The Impact of the exchanges
Israel had 2 goals going into this war. First to end Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and secondly to destroy its ballistic missile production and existing arsenal. Were those goals achieved? The Israelis believed they achieved both objectives and have successfully set back these programmes by years. In his statement PM Netanyahu said “in the 12 days of Operation Nation as a Lion” we achieved a historic victory. And this victory will stand for generations. We removed two immediate existential threats, the threat of annihilation by nuclear bombs and the threat of annihilation by 20, 000 ballistic missiles.

If we had not acted now, the state of Israel would soon have faced the danger of annihilation, but that didn’t happen because at the decisive moment we rose like a lion and our roar shook Tehran and echoed throughout the world.” The Israeli pilots went after every known missile storage facility, rocket launchers, missile silos, missile production factories, nuclear facilities, drone production facilities, and anything and everything that belongs to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp IRGC in their target bank. The Islamic Republic’s military infrastructure was under heavy bombardments.

There is no doubt that the action the Israelis took against the Mullahs have caused devastating effect to the Islamic Republic’s military and psyche, but they are a tough people. To the Israelis they didn’t believe they could take over Iran’s airspace in less than 24 hours and dominate it all through doing as they wished. It was a military feat that came to many as a big surprise. They went after targets one after another and hit over 1,000 of them. Tehran’s responded with retaliatory strikes after it was able to shove off the initial shock. They activated their strongest and most potent military asset, their ballistic missiles and their multi warhead missiles.

The ballistic missiles that went past Israel’s layers of air defense system caused devastating effect on the ground. They targeted the entire length and breadth of the land not sparring anything in an effort to cause maximum ruinous impact but most of the missiles were intercepted. The leadership in Tehran had strategically outsourced its wars to be fought by its proxies across the Middle East far away from its borders but the fight had been brought to its territory, and this was the moment those proxies were supposed to be useful unfortunately none of them could help. They had been decimated in previous rounds.

Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis have all been badly bruised. Report has it that before the war broke out the Israelis had estimated that about 4,000 of their citizens will die before they are able to achieve their war goals but fortunately for them, that was not the case. They recorded just about 28 deaths and more than 3,000 injured and lost hundreds of buildings in the process. Some believed Netanyahu miscalculated and brought destruction upon Israel. However, from a military and political standpoint in Israel, this is seen as a win. They preferred to go to war than to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and expose themselves to a possible nuclear holocaust.

The US launched “Operation Midnight Hammer”
The sixty days timeline President Trump had given the Iranians for a deal elapsed on June 12 and on the 13th Israel launched that pre-emptive attack. Events that unfolded hours and days later it became clear that the Americans were fully in the picture from the word go. Whilst President Trump got many guessing his next step since the war started between these archenemies, he disclosed he was giving the Islamic Republic two weeks grace to sign a deal.

For the Iranians diplomacy had been blown off and no talks could hold while the Israeli Defense Force IDF continued in its bombing campaign in Tehran. Unknown to the world, he had given an order to the US Pentagon to hit the Fordow nuclear facility buried deep beneath a mountain. Seven B-2 stealth bombers and about One Hundred and Eighteen fighter jets arrived Iran’s airspace and dropped those heavy bunker buster bombs on their targets. The Americans have described them as the biggest conventional bombs in the arsenal of its military. They targeted Fordow, Isfahan and Nathans nuclear plants. It was the first time those bunker-busting munitions were ever used in combat.

In twenty- five minutes, the mission was over, and all the aircraft and submarine involved in the mission were on their way out of the country’s territory heading back home. The President then gave a press statement saying, “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been obliterated.” It was only then that the world knew the US had gotten involved. That was yet another surprise.

The Islamic Republic’s responded by firing 14 ballistic missiles at a US base in Qatar after it had informed the Gulf state its closest friend in the region giving the Americans ample time to prepare for the missiles. None of it reached its intended target. They were all intercepted. The Americans chose not to respond and on June 24, a ceasefire agreement was reached, and it went into effect immediately bringing the fight to a halt.

The Impact on the Fordow attack and Iran’s Nuclear Programme
There have been conflicting conclusions over the damage done by the US strikes on the highly fortified Fordow nuclear plant. Some media report had it that the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites did not destroy them quoting sources.  However the Israel Atomic Energy Commission on the other hand shared a statement reading “The devastating US strike on Fordow destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,” the statement read.

However, The International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said that the centrifuges cannot survive any kind of disturbance. There is no doubt those bunker bursters caused some earth-shaking disturbances. That said, even though the three major nuclear sites have been damaged or destroyed, Iran still has some enriched uranium believed to have been moved to another facility just before the US dropped those bombs on Fordow.

The Israelis say they know where they are stored and that is giving Iran’s military planners sleepless nights. There is no doubt Tehran’s nuclear programme has been halted for now however it is not clear how much damage has been done and how long it will take the Mullahs to get back on track again. The CIA and Mossad will have a damage assessment conducted and reach a conclusion on the level of damage done.

Conclusion
Iran brought this war upon itself. It had a choice to live in peace with its neighbours and not promote hate and chaos in the region. It had a choice to accept Israel’s right to exist but rather it sought and plots her annihilation. If anyone doubted how far the Israelis were willing to go to secure the state, the event of those 12 days should change their thoughts. They have successfully changed the face of the Middle East. Today every country in the world knows what the Israelis are capable of.

They are determined not to allow any threat to be established in the region if it is one that will threaten its security. They showed that against Hezbollah in Lebanon, fought against Iran’s quest to entrench itself in Syria during the civil war in the days of the former President of Syria Bashal-al Assad which eventually led to the fall of that regime and now went after Iran itself.

They embarrassed and humiliated the Iranian leadership, the brutal IRGC and its entire military. Iran is determined to annihilate the Jewish state and so are the Jewish people determined to stop them from achieving their aim. The war is not over yet. This is just a temporal ceasefire. This conflict has only been suspended to be fought on a later date because they both have their swords pointed at each other. It is pertinent to state that the hardliners in the Persian state are very ambitious people which means they will continue to push forward.

However, in the meantime they will both revert to their shadow wars until the eyes of the Israeli intelligence catches something significant that will require them to act. For the Israelis, it was a historic victory. My view is that Tehran and many other militaries around the world will study how the Israelis conducted that war. It is one that will go down as historical and a unique moment in time where the IDF was able to greatly degrade Iran’s military capabilities.

Iran has been significantly weakened. It must now rethink its foreign policy in the Middle East, choose the path of peace and the prosperity of its people over prioritizing the disruption of calm in the region but unfortunately the Mullahs in Iran will not stop because the country is run by religious theocracy, built around an extreme version of Islam that seek to push and propagate their brand of Islam not just in the Middle East and the Islamic world but the entire globe.

For the Israelis, they believe peace can only be achieved in this hostile region when you demonstrate strength and resilience and they are determined to stop Iran no matter what it takes. The world and landscape around Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his military generals still alive have changed nevertheless they will retreat, conduct a postmortem assessment to have a clear understanding to what happened to them in those 12 days, work to mitigate a reoccurrence and relaunch themselves.

The region is likely to experience some calm for the time being but as soon as the Iranians recover from what has hit them, trouble will begin again. I hope not.

Uwem Samson Udom is a business service expert who is passionate about national and global affairs. He writes from Lagos and can be reached at [email protected]