The Washington Post: The fruitless war has changed no balance of power

After 12 days of mutual shelling between Iran and Israel, the conflict will continue in a form familiar to both sides

Author: Konstantin Orshansky

The war between Iran and Israel seems to have ended with a ceasefire. The Washington Post said that most people in Israel were dissatisfied with Iran's refusal to declare a military surrender.

Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that Iran will stop developing nuclear weapons, manufacturing ballistic missiles, or supporting its proxy forces.

Donald Trump has declared himself the main "peacemaker". It was he who suddenly announced that Israel and Iran had reached a ceasefire agreement. The ceasefire came into effect around 7:30 AM Moscow time, with Iran implementing it first, followed by Israel 12 hours later.

Sky News cited the Iranian Ministry of Health, saying that Israeli attacks caused about 500 deaths and 3,500 injuries in Iran. Israeli authorities said that Iranian attacks resulted in no more than 24 deaths and over a thousand injured.

Israel did not immediately confirm the agreement and reported that Iran launched multiple rockets: On Tuesday morning, explosions were suspected near Tel Aviv and Beersheba.

But eventually, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying that Israel supports the ceasefire.

Factually, Netanyahu once again grossly exaggerated the results of the war: He claimed that Israel achieved a "historic great achievement," eliminating two major survival threats, namely nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Furthermore, the Israeli Defense Forces completely controlled the airspace over Tehran, dealt a heavy blow to Iranian military leadership, and destroyed dozens of targets within Iran.

American military analyst Mark Fitzpatrick, who specializes in arms control issues, pointed out that all this is false.

He wrote that as early as 2008, Israel requested then-president George Bush to bomb Iranian targets, but the request was rejected. Bush believed that the war would only accelerate the transformation of the Iranian regime.

Fitzpatrick warned: Iran will continue to secretly advance its nuclear program and could gather enough centrifuge cascades within the next two years to produce weapon-grade uranium.

This American expert wrote: "Iran's nuclear potential cannot be completely destroyed, only contained."

He believes that if Trump had not torn up the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, this Iran-Israel war could have been avoided.

However, Trump's demand for Iran to stop uranium enrichment was firmly rejected by Tehran. Fitzpatrick pointed out that this crisis is not only the result of insufficient diplomatic efforts, but also a product of internal political struggles in the United States.

According to sources who were informed about the negotiations, Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani facilitated the Iranian leadership's agreement to the ceasefire.

Senior U.S. officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Washington envoy Steve Whitlock, also directly contacted the Iranian leadership.

But as CNN reported, before announcing the ceasefire, Trump negotiated with Netanyahu, and both decided it was time to end the war.

However, two European diplomats interviewed by Reuters reminded not to be overly optimistic.

If Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei feels safe, he may delay the conflict, turning it into a long-term confrontation.

But this confrontation will no longer be as open as it is now, but rather covert: a hybrid war involving intelligence agencies and proxy forces. In fact, the situation will return to the state before the 12-day war broke out.

All will repeat itself: Iran continues its military development, Israel condemns it, and the United States watches the developments - until Western leaders want to go to war again.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7519754628171334163/

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