Its defences are smashed, its allies are quiet. No-one is going to help Iran

Iran's skies are open, its missile launchers are destroyed, and its allies are silent.
Meanwhile, in Israel, restrictions are being relaxed, and citizens are returning to work and public spaces – although Iranian strikes have continued, with some hitting multi-storey buildings and a major hospital.
Israel had been expecting a longer campaign and more intense retaliation from the Iranians, but Israeli intelligence operations and a series of strikes last year appear to have successfully weakened Iran's defences.
Israeli jets and drones have needed only a few days to do the rest.
Iran's "Axis of Resistance", a key tenet of its strategy of "forward defence", has proven impotent.
The Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, which Israel previously considered a more immediate danger than Iran, has done nothing.
The group's guided missiles were thought to be Iran's insurance policy against an Israeli or United States attack.
But Hezbollah's missile arsenal and weapons factories were badly damaged by a crushing Israeli air campaign last year, and the group felt abandoned by its Iranian sponsors during its hour of need.
Now, Hezbollah knows any intervention in this conflict would see the group lose any chance of recovering, most likely dying out as both a political and military force with a whimper rather than a roar.
The Shia militias in Iraq — supposedly powerful, heavily armed and aggressive — have also not acted.
Only the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who were already firing ballistic missiles at Israel and attacking shipping in the Red Sea before Israel's attack, have maintained some form of token action, with the occasional missile or drone launch.
Another ally, the Assad regime in Syria, collapsed late last year, in part because of Israel's success against Hezbollah.
Iran's most powerful allies, China and Russia, have not intervened either.
Iran has been supplying Russia with drones to use against Ukraine, but Russia has not helped defend against Israeli attacks.
"Throughout the history between Iran and Russia, Russia has never been a reliable ally for Iran," Iran researcher Mahnaz Shirali told the ABC.
"It has always been more of a dangerous neighbour, constantly eager to seize Iranian territories. It's the ayatollahs' foolishness that made them believe they could count on Russia.
"Russia has never truly helped Iran. On the contrary, the Islamic Republic has helped Russia a great deal — providing them with missiles and drones."
Yet, Russia refuses to build Iran an air defence system.
"As for China, which supposedly supports Iran, it hasn't lifted a finger to help. And that's understandable," Dr Shirali said.
"China does $US600 billion in trade with the United States every year. They're never going to sacrifice those $600 billion for the sake of the ayatollahs."
While Israel has clearly been planning diligently to attack Iran, the Iranian government and military have proven unprepared and incapable of responding.
As Israel did with its devastatingly accurate intelligence against Hezbollah — including booby-trapping pagers and walkie-talkies — Israeli operatives had extensively penetrated Iran, allowing Israel to quickly weaken defences and dominate the skies.
Iran, struggling under sanctions and repressing its citizens for years, has repeatedly proven ripe for recruitment and infiltration.
The country's advantages — a large, mountainous landmass, a big population and a standing army — have all been nullified by a swift, intense Israeli air campaign.
"They thought they could go to war against Israel with their soldiers on the ground. They had absolutely no idea that war in 2025 is fought against an invisible enemy," Dr Shirali said.
"They were completely unprepared for this modern form of warfare."
None of this is to say Israel's attacks — particularly on scientists and residential areas — are legal under international law, or that Israel had a casus belli (legal justification) for attacking while Iran, which had previously signed a nuclear control deal, was in the middle of negotiating a new agreement with the US.
Israel also cannot claim victory.
It hasn't managed to disable Iran's secondary uranium enrichment site at Fordow, which is buried deep under a mountain, and Iran maintains a decentralised and extensive network of nuclear scientists and facilities.
Iran — and regional neighbours who are watching Israel's attack with great unease — could well decide that it now has no choice but to build a nuclear weapon as soon as possible, as its other forms of deterrence have proven so ineffective.
Israel is now switching to attacking elements of the Iranian government, hoping to weaken it enough that Iranians could overthrow it with a popular uprising.
So far, that doesn't seem to be materialising, not least because powerful elements of Iran's theocratic regime remain.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which reports directly to the supreme leader, is almost a state within a state, with its own army, air force, navy and cyber directorate that sit outside the Iranian military.
It also has lucrative commercial interests and political connections, as well as the infamous "Basij" paramilitary force, which claims it can mobilise up to 600,000 volunteers.
The IRGC has violently suppressed previous attempts at democratic revolutions in Iran and could well do so again, despite Israeli attacks.
Iran is a multi-ethnic society, and its opposition groups are not all aligned in their aims and interests.
Previous western intervention for regime change in the Middle East and South Asia has had disastrous results — the civil war in Libya, the sectarian nightmare of Iraq that gave rise to the Islamic State terror group, and the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan are all in very recent history.
Attempts to sow chaos have rewarded the worst actors in recent conflicts, with the most extreme and best-armed being the first to fill the power vacuum.
The other powers in the Middle East will also be alarmed at Israel — the region's only nuclear-armed state and a non-signatory to the non-proliferation treaty — using massive force to dictate who can do what.
Iran's government could also weather the Israeli — and potential US — assault and seek other ways to retaliate, such as asymmetric attacks, terrorism, or blocking shipping.
"These are empty threats, but they're still dangerous," Dr Shirali said.
"They have a capacity to cause harm."
As Israel has found in Gaza, it is dangerous to begin a campaign without a clear exit strategy.
Israel's goals are now unclear, and that's a recipe for further chaos in the region.

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