When Israel and Iran clashed last year, the fighting was short and limited, usually lasting only a few hours, and both sides sought ways to reduce tensions.
Since Israel launched a new wave of fighting on Friday, the two countries have said they will continue it for as long as necessary, expanding the scope of the attacks and causing significantly higher casualties in both countries. The New York Times writes that it now looks like the conflict will last at least seven days, while both Israel and Iran ignore paths to de-escalation.
Israel appears motivated to continue until it destroys Iran's uranium enrichment program, either by force or through renewed negotiations. Yet Iran shows no sign of voluntarily halting enrichment, a process essential to producing a nuclear bomb, and Israel has no known capacity to destroy a key enrichment facility located deep underground.
“We are not days away from the end of this, but weeks away,” said Daniel B. Shapiro, who until January was in charge of Middle East affairs at the Pentagon.
"Israel will continue until Iran is, one way or another, deprived of its uranium enrichment capacity," added Shapiro, now a fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. "It is now clear that the Israeli campaign will fail if this remains unresolved."
Although Israel easily hit the main enrichment facility at Natanz, in central Iran, it lacks the American bunker-busting bombs needed to destroy the smaller facility. fordo buried deep in a mountain in northern Iran. Israeli officials hope their strikes on other targets, including top Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists and the energy industry, will cause enough damage to encourage Iran to voluntarily suspend operations at Ford.
For now, Iran appears far from such a capitulation, even as Israel demonstrates increasing dominance in Iranian airspace, according to Sanam Vakil, head of the Middle East program at London-based think tank Chatham House. While Israel seeks to bring about the regime’s downfall, the Iranian government remains in complete control of the country and continues to have a significant stockpile of ballistic missiles, although Israel has restricted their use.
“I don't see any capitulation from Tehran right now - there are no white flags,” Vakil said.
"It is difficult to imagine Iran giving up its right to enrichment as long as the program is operational and the state is functioning," she added.
"Their goal is to survive, cause damage and demonstrate resilience."
The Times notes that much depends on US President Donald Trump's reaction. Unlike Israel, the United States has the ammunition and aircraft needed to destroy Fordow. Analysts like Shapiro believe that Trump might consider such an option if Iran decides to accelerate its nuclear bomb development rather than compromise.
"This will be a watershed moment for Trump, whether the US should intervene," Shapiro said.
Iran yesterday called on Trump to force Israel to cease fire, citing it as the only way to end the air war, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was on the "path to victory."
The Times estimates that it may now be easier for Trump to get involved without serious security consequences, given that Israeli attacks have already significantly weakened Iran's defense capabilities.
Others believe Trump is more likely to avoid direct conflict with Iran unless the Iranian military redirects attacks from Israel to American interests and personnel in the Middle East, further narrowing Trump's room for maneuver. Since Friday, Iran has avoided providing such a pretext for American involvement, as well as attacking other US allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
From Trump's statements on Friday, it can be concluded that he currently prefers to use Israel's military successes as a means of pressure to renew negotiations with Tehran.
Some analysts believe Trump is more likely to avoid direct conflict with Iran unless the Iranian military redirects attacks on American interests and personnel in the Middle East.
Trump has overseen negotiations with Iran for months, hoping that Tehran would agree to suspend its enrichment program without the need for Israeli military intervention.
Those talks collapsed after Iran refused to budge. In remarks over the weekend, Trump suggested that Iran, shaken by the Israeli strikes, might finally make concessions it had not previously considered. That's why some analysts believe Trump could pressure Israel to halt the attacks - if and when he judges Iran to have softened.
"This will end when Trump decides it's over, which will likely happen when he assesses that Iran is ready to compromise," said Joel Guzanski, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Such a turn of events has historical precedent, even if it now seems unlikely, experts say. The Iranian leadership made a similarly unexpected decision at the end of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, says Meir Javaddanfar, a professor of Iranian studies at Reichman University in Israel. After rejecting numerous proposals to end the war, Ayatollah Khomeini finally agreed to a deal when the costs of the war became unsustainable, Javaddanfar said.
“Khomeini has made a 180-degree turn,” he said. “That is exactly what Israel is hoping for now.”
However, history also shows that this may take time, writes the Times, recalling that the agreement that ended the war between Iran and Iraq was only reached after eight years.
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