But What’s Next?

But What’s Next?

By

Leonard Zwelling

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/opinion/iran-israel-attack-global-struggle.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/opinion/iran-nuclear-strike-israel-war.html

Written on June 22. Updated, June 24. Things are moving fast.

This op-ed by Tom Friedman is from June 22 on The New York Times web site. It is a detailed analysis of the chaos in the world today from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to October 7, and now, to the Israeli-Irani War. In essence he says it is a worldwide war between the forces of enlightenment, democracy, and freedom, and the forces of autocracy, corruption, and control of the population.

I think he’s right. He even wonders how both Israel and the United States have leaders pressing for freedom abroad, while trying to create autocracies at home. Trump and Bibi are very confusing people until you look at them as the small men (boys?) they have become and their need for absolute power as well as to stay out of jail—where they both belong.

I want to drop back a bit to a limited view of a part of the world. That part is the Middle East and that view is through the lens of what transpired when President Trump bombed nuclear sites in Iran.

First, not only did Iran not fire a shot in retaliation (those missiles at Qatar were doo-doo), neither did China, Russia, or any Iranian proxies. This concerns me greatly. What’s next? Will another shoe fall?

Now, it appears, at first blush, the “obliteration” touted by President Trump of these nuclear sites may have been spectacularly overblown, but maybe not. Who knows?  There’s only two things to know. Where’s the enriched uranium? How long will it take Iran to make more and/or assemble a bomb?

Second, if the Iranian nuclear bomb making capability has been severely damaged as the Trump surrogates have said, isn’t that mission accomplished for Israel and shouldn’t Israel stop their bombing of Iran? By contrast, if the early intelligence reports are right and damage from the bombing is minimal, what can Israel do now and what is President Trump prepared to do? He has said he is willing to bomb Iran again.

There is currently a cease fire, but where does each antagonist really stand?

Third, if Israel stopped would Iran? Can a cease fire be arranged? It was, but its holding will depend on the benefits to be derived by each side from a cease fire. Iran doesn’t have a bomb yet, but may be close. Israel went to war to knock that capability out. Has it been knocked out?

I doubt anything really significant has been achieved by the Trump-ordered bombing. Surely, the Iranians entertained the possibility of the strike. They have probably moved their highest grade of uranium away from the three sites struck by the B2 bombers. Iran will just start over again and is less and less likely to allow inspectors in, while being more and more likely to build a nuclear weapon and use it against Israel.

While the damage may have been extensive, it was not determinative. Iran and the Ayatollah still stand. The damage inflicted by Israel is still not enough to result in regime change. Iran has been severely weakened, but it has not been defeated and I doubt President Trump will do any more any time soon unless he believes more bombing by the United States will bring Iran to the peace table. I don’t see it. On the other hand, Iran will never be weaker than it is now. What will Israel do? With or without American help?

I am afraid both the United States and Israel are going to have to understand what Tom Friedman wrote about. Iran is just one of several key players—Russia, China, and North Korea—that want a world that promotes the incubation of autocratic states denying their people freedom, and cementing their power with loyal militaries. But the real problem for both Israel and the United States is within their own countries, where there are leaders who embrace autocracy, that in turn leads to a focus on immigration when there are far greater problems in the U.S. and in Israel on the push to annex the West Bank which is guaranteed to prove explosive, divisive within the country, and lethal to both Israelis and Palestinians.

So just tell me, what’s next in Iran? (See second article, above). Did the bombings really help anything beyond Trump’s image as a tough guy?

I was impressed that there was a lot of strutting in the first 24 hours after the bombings on the part of Trump’s team. My fear is what Iran might attempt on American soil.

Once again, Trump saying it is so, doesn’t make it so. Reality bites.

And perhaps the greatest unknown of all is what do the Iranian people really want and what are they prepared to do to get it?

In a very informative segment of Fresh Air on NPR, Karim Sadjadour points out that Iran’s official government strategy is based on three principles:

Death to America

Death to Israel

Women must wear the hijab

No one can believe that the people of Iran, with the intellectual history of Persia behind them, could really believe these are the guiding principles that will advance their country, a country with riches that should make it a top twenty in the world. As Sadjadpour said during his interview, in 1979 the UAE and Iran were at the same elevator. The UAE pushed up. Iran pushed down.

Iran could be a great nation. Iranians are a great people. They must find a way to throw off the yoke of Shia fundamentalism and join the rest of society. I think that’s what most Iranians want. Whether the Trump bombing advanced that goal or advanced one to develop a nuclear weapon will likely determine the future of the Middle East.