Latest news with #GermanInstituteforInternationalandSecurityAffairs
NBC News
3 days ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Will Israel's airstrikes cause the collapse of the Iranian regime?
With his country having killed some of Iran's top military commanders and rattled its leadership, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government's aerial assault on Iran could trigger the collapse of the regime, opening the door to a popular uprising. 'It's impossible to predict, but it could be the result of our mighty action,' Netanyahu told reporters. 'We are changing the face of the Middle East.' That scenario, according to scholars who study Iran, as well as former U.S. and Israeli officials, is unlikely. The theocratic government remains deeply unpopular, but it still has a tight grip on power, and no organized opposition is poised to seize authority, they say. And if there is change at the top, it might come not from a popular uprising but from a coup within the regime, which might produce an even more authoritarian result. Still, the Iranian government is struggling to cope with the attacks. Some experts say that even if Israel's onslaught does not topple the regime, it could inflict permanent damage, leaving it in a weakened state that could embolden opposition activists or fuel internal power struggles inside the theocratic system. After having initially targeted nuclear and missile sites at the start of its air campaign last week, Israel has expanded its target list to include oil facilities, police headquarters and the state television center — all representing crucial elements of the government's political and economic power. 'They're going after the apparatus of repression inside the regime,' said Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that has called for imposing tougher sanctions and other measures against Iran. If they weaken the security services used to crush dissent in Iran, the strikes could open up more space for opponents of the regime, Dubowitz said. 'I think their hope is we can undermine and distract the security forces and have Iranians take to the streets, as they've been for many years now, and take back their country,' he said. 'It's one of the key pillars of the Israeli strategy.' Wary of foreign interference But Israeli missiles may not be the ideal vehicle for overturning Iran's authoritarian rule, experts said. Hamidreza Azizi, a former professor at Iran's Shahid Beheshti University who is now a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said that several days into the conflict, 'we still see no sign of a popular uprising against the government.' On the contrary, Azizi said, 'images of devastation in civilian areas and the deaths of innocent people are making Iranians — who are inherently patriotic and emotionally connected to their nation — quite uneasy about Israel's ultimate intentions.' Suzanne Maloney, who has written about Iran's politics and advised previous U.S. administrations, said the Iranian people's dissatisfaction with the regime is also coupled with deep national pride and a wariness of foreign interference. 'Iranians are very well understood to resent their government. They're deeply critical of its failures, both in terms of how it has governed the country and how it has represented their interests on the world stage,' said Maloney, a vice president at the Brookings Institution think tank. 'But they also are fiercely nationalistic.' Given Iran's bitter experience with foreign meddling, distrust of outside powers is pervasive, and it is a 'third rail' in Iranian politics since a U.S.-British coup toppled a democratically elected prime minister in 1953, she said. Since it came to power in the 1979 revolution that toppled the country's pro-Western monarch, the Islamic Republic has a long record of repression, using its security services to crush protests and imprison dissidents. The government is also struggling to contain rising discontent over the ailing economy, which has been plagued by rampant inflation and financial misery for millions of Iranians, according to regional analysts and Western diplomats. Officials in Tehran have blamed U.S. sanctions for the economic troubles. Every few years, popular anger erupts in the streets. Most recently, demonstrators vented their outrage after the killing of Mahsa Amini, who died in a hospital in 2022 after the country's morality police arrested her for not adhering to the country's dress code, which requires women to conceal their hair and the shapes of their bodies. Iranian opponents of the regime have had mixed reactions to the Israeli strikes. Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the deposed shah, who ruled Iran for four decades until he was forced out by mass street protests in 1979, said that the regime in Tehran was 'at its weakest point' and that Iranians now had an opportunity to secure democratic rule. 'Now is our moment,' he said on X. Several prominent Iranian activists and filmmakers, including Nobel laureates Shirin Ebadi and Narges Mohammadi, wrote an op-ed calling for an immediate end to the fighting and demanded that the Iranian government halt uranium enrichment work. The group also denounced attacks on civilians by both Iran and Israel and called for a transition to democracy in Iran. 'Deeply committed to Iran's territorial integrity and the inalienable right of its people to self-determination under genuine sovereignty, we believe that continuing uranium enrichment and the devastating war between the Islamic Republic and the Israeli regime neither serves the Iranian people nor humanity at large,' it said. It added: 'Iran and its people should not be sacrificed for uranium enrichment and the ambitions of the Islamic Republic.' Imprisoned reformist Mostafa Tajzadeh — an ardent critic of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — has condemned Israel's barrage, arguing it did not offer a legitimate way to oust the regime. 'I know that some sections of the people are happy with these attacks, because they see them as the only way to change the failed clerical government,' Tajzadeh said in a letter from prison, according to Gooya, a Persian-language news website based in Belgium. 'But even if the war leads to such an outcome, Iran will be left in ruins, where most likely statelessness and chaos will prevail.' Tajzadeh, who was deputy interior minister more than 20 years ago and has favored a rapprochement with the West, called Israel's strikes 'the aggression of a foreign army, on the orders of someone who has been accused of war crimes' — referring to Netanyahu — which, 'in my opinion, lacks political and moral justification and has no precedent in post-constitutional Iran.' So far, there have been no signs of major defections from the country's political leadership, and most Iranians are focused on trying to seek safety amid daily bombing raids from Israel, said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'I think people are under aerial bombardment, and they're just thinking about staying alive and staying safe, staying secure. They're not thinking about waging political protests,' he told MSNBC. Although an overwhelming majority of Iranians reject the government's rule, there is no opposition in waiting, and the regime remains heavily armed and organized, Sadjadpour said. 'At the moment, they probably are calculating 'kill or be killed,'' he said. 'And they have their fingers on the trigger right now.' Regime change Unlike their Israeli counterparts, President Donald Trump and his top aides have not encouraged the Iranian people to rise up or invoked the idea of ousting the regime. During his first term, Trump's deputies expressed solidarity with the Iranian people and privately argued that economic sanctions could cause the regime to unravel. But Trump and his current Cabinet are outspoken critics of previous U.S. attempts at 'regime change' in Iraq and elsewhere, and some of Trump's supporters worry the United States could be drawn into another military intervention in the Middle East. Daniel Shapiro, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank who was U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Biden administration, said Israel should stick to a more realistic goal of disabling Iran's nuclear and missile programs and steer clear of trying to shape Iran's internal politics. 'There are certainly plausible scenarios where this becomes a regime-threatening event, but I don't think it's imminent, and I don't think it should be the goal of the military campaign,' Shapiro said. An attempt to change the regime would be a 'massive undertaking' that would depend on factors beyond the control of any outside power, he said. 'That's a recipe for overreach and for getting drawn into a lengthy and potentially fruitless kind of military engagement. The memory is very heavy of what happened to us in Iraq,' Shapiro said. An elite coup? The Israeli assault has exposed widespread vulnerabilities in Iran's security and military establishment, which could fuel power struggles and possible defections, experts said. 'The Tehran regime is unlikely to be toppled by a popular uprising, but it is possible that Iran witnesses an elite coup,' said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. Israel's extensive infiltration of Iran's military and government, illustrated by its ability to assassinate top military commanders, shows that Israel most likely has a degree of support among elements of the Iranian regime, Khatib said. Even though those Iranians might not support Israel itself, they 'share with Israel the objective of regime change,' she said. Israel's bid to topple the Iranian government carries serious risks, including producing an even harder-line regime dominated by members of the country's Revolutionary Guard Corps, experts said. 'Given the history of this regime, given what the Iranian people have suffered, I think it's a wrongheaded and ineffective strategy and one that it may, in fact, backfire on Israel,' Maloney of Brookings said. 'Be careful what you wish for. An Iran that is racked by violence and chaos is not going to be a better neighbor,' she added.
DW
5 days ago
- Politics
- DW
What's the US role in the Israel-Iran conflict? – DW – 06/13/2025
US President Donald Trump claims his country was not involved with Israel's attacks on Iran. At the same time, he threatens that if Tehran doesn't reach a nuclear deal with the US, attacks on Iran "will only get worse." The US government's political line after Israel's attack on Iran is clear: Washington had no part in it. "Israel took unilateral action against Iran," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement shared by the White House. "We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense … Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel." The White House social media team posted the statement on social media platform X roughly an hour after the start of Israel's attacks on Iran early Friday morning. Later, on Friday evening, Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Israel. Before that, on Thursday, the US State Department posted a warning on X about the complex security situation in the Middle East: "We remind U.S. citizens in Israel and the broader region of the continued need for caution and encourage them to monitor the news for breaking developments." The US was informed about the attack in advance. But were they really not actively involved in any way? "Everything we know so far about the logistics, for example about the hidden drones in Iran, suggests that Israel carried out the attack alone," Sascha Lohmann, senior associate and part of the America regional research group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said in an interview with DW. "But we cannot completely rule out the possibility that the US helped." The deployment of 200 military jets that flew to Iran and back, for example, raises the question of whether the US military provided support with air-to-air refueling, according to Lohmann. Iran's nuclear program under attack Israel's attacks early Friday morning were mainly directed against military facilities and sites involved in Iran's nuclear program, such as the Natanz nuclear facility, where uranium is enriched, among other things. In addition to several leading figures in the Iranian military, at least six scientists and researchers working on Iran's nuclear program were killed. Since April 2025, Tehran and Washington had been holding talks to reach an agreement to replace the old nuclear deal with Iran, from which the US withdrew during Trump's first term in 2018. After Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure, Trump was quoted by Fox News reporter Bret Baier as saying that "Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb." Expert: Israel caught Iran by surprise To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "We hope to get back to the negotiating table," Trump said, according to the right-leaning TV channel. "We'll see." Trump: Attacks on Iran 'will only get worse!' Trump used much harsher language on his social media platform Truth Social. He wrote in a post that he had given Iran many chances to reach a nuclear deal with him. If that doesn't happen, Trump says he warned Iranian leadership that they're facing an attack that's much worse than anything they could imagine. "The United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the world by far," Trump wrote. "Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come ― and they know how to use it." The Iranian hardliners who spoke out against a nuclear deal are "all DEAD now," Trump continued in his post, "and it will only get worse!" Meanwhile, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff warned that Iran is also capable of causing considerable damage in Israel. Further nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran unlikely The next meeting between the US and Iranian delegations on a possible new nuclear agreement was supposed to take place this Sunday in Oman, but Iran canceled it. It is also unclear how the talks will proceed in the long term. Ali Shamkhani, a close confidant and advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is said to be among those killed in Iran. According to German news magazine Spiegel, Shamkhani played an important role in the nuclear talks between the US and Iran. He is said to have been open to an agreement, but also warned that the government in Tehran could end its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and expel UN nuclear inspectors if Iran felt threatened. "As long as the conflict continues with its current intensity, it is difficult to imagine that the talks will continue," Lohmann said. This article was originally published in German
Newsweek
6 days ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
Iran Issues Threat to US, Risks 'Catastrophic' Washington Response
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Iran has issued a warning to the U.S. and its allies not to help Israel repel its retaliatory attacks. The statement on Iranian state media was addressed to the U.S., France and the U.K., which have strategic assets in the Middle East. Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told Newsweek that if Iran targeted U.S. sites in the Middle East in its response to Israeli attacks on its nuclear capabilities, the move could be "catastrophic" for the Islamic republic. Newsweek has contacted the U.S. State Department for comment. This photo shows rocket trails and intercepts over the Israeli city of Netanya on June 14. This photo shows rocket trails and intercepts over the Israeli city of Netanya on June It Matters Iran has said its talks with the U.S. over the Iranian nuclear program were "meaningless" following Israel's strikes on its nuclear infrastructure on Friday. Tehran has accused Washington of supporting the attack. While the U.S. has denied the allegation that it is complicit in Israel's attacks, anticipation is building over whether American assets in the Middle East will get caught up in Iran's response. What To Know Iran continued to fire missiles on Israel on Saturday in its response to Israeli attacks on the heart of its nuclear program and armed forces. On Saturday, Iran said it had officially informed the U.S., France and the U.K. that it would launch large-scale attacks against Israel. Tehran warned that any country that helped repel Iranian attacks on Israel could face attacks by the Islamic Republic, which would target regional bases "of the collaborating state." This includes sites in the Persian Gulf states and naval vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, according to the statement on Iranian state media. The U.S. operates permanent and temporary military sites across at least 19 locations in the region, the Council on Foreign Relations said. Azizi said there was an understanding in Tehran that everything happening now—Israeli strikes and the broader military campaign—was approved by Washington. In that sense, Iran might believe it already had enough justification to take on the U.S. and target American bases in the region—such as those in Iraq and member states in the Gulf Cooperation Council—thus expanding the scope of its target options. This would allow Iran to use some of its shorter-range missiles to sustain the war, instead of relying solely on its longer-range missiles to target Israel, Azizi said. But Tehran is concerned that such action would almost certainly provoke a strong American response, possibly even more effective than Israel's, he added. Iran relies on support—or at least neutrality—from Arab states with which it has been engaged in a process of rapprochement. Targeting U.S. bases in Arab countries at this moment would likely be seen as a serious escalation, alienating those states and isolating Iran diplomatically, Azizi said. As Newsweek previously reported, James Anderson, a former acting undersecretary of defense for policy, warned that it would be "suicidal" for Iran if its forces tried to target American interests in the region. Israeli flags near damaged buildings in the city of Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, Israel, on June 14. Israeli flags near damaged buildings in the city of Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, Israel, on June are growing concerns over whether the U.S. could be pulled into the war via Iranian strikes or attacks by its proxy forces on American personnel in the region. If Israel's attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities are not effective and provide Tehran with an excuse to race toward developing nuclear weapons, then U.S. officials may use military force to prevent this worst-case scenario, according to William F. Wechsler, the senior director of the Atlantic Council's Middle East programs. Justin Logan, the director of defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, told Newsweek that U.S. President Donald Trump should not ask American service members to protect Israel from Iranian retaliation and should immediately remove U.S. troops from regional bases. Meanwhile, Sina Toossi, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy, said that even without direct involvement, Washington now faced the prospect of indefinite intelligence and diplomatic backing for Israel. What People Are Saying The Iranian government said on Telegram: "Any country that participates in repelling Iranian attacks on Israel will be subject to the targeting of all regional bases of the collaborating state, including military bases in the Persian Gulf states and naval vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea." Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told Newsweek: "At this stage, Iran has no desire to expand the scope of the war or invite direct U.S. involvement by targeting American bases and interests in the region. Iran might believe it already has enough justification to take on the United States. But on the other hand, it's also a question of capabilities and consequences—a cost-benefit analysis." Justin Logan, the director of defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, told Newsweek: "The American president should make clear that the United States had no part in the Israeli attack on Iran. He should not ask U.S. service members to protect Israel from Iranian retaliation, and should immediately remove U.S. troops from bases in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere that do nothing other than welcome Iranian reprisals." Sina Toossi, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy, told Newsweek: "For the United States, the consequences could be profound. Even without direct involvement, Washington now faces the prospect of indefinite resupply, intelligence, and diplomatic backing for Israel." What Happens Next Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said on Saturday that Iran "will burn" if Tehran continued to launch missiles. The Israel Defense Forces has said the country's air force is ready to resume striking targets in Iran, which has continued to send missiles into Israel.
DW
13-06-2025
- Politics
- DW
Israel-Iran conflict: Where do Trump and the US stand? – DW – 06/13/2025
US President Donald Trump claims his country was not involved with Israel's attacks on Iran. At the same time, he threatens that if Tehran doesn't reach a nuclear deal with the US, attacks on Iran "will only get worse." The US government's political line after Israel's attack on Iran is clear: Washington had no part in it. "Israel took unilateral action against Iran," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement shared by the White House. "We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense … Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel." The White House social media team posted the statement on social media platform X roughly an hour after the start of Israel's attacks on Iran early Friday morning. Later, on Friday evening, Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Israel. Before that, on Thursday, the US State Department posted a warning on X about the complex security situation in the Middle East: "We remind U.S. citizens in Israel and the broader region of the continued need for caution and encourage them to monitor the news for breaking developments." The US was informed about the attack in advance. But were they really not actively involved in any way? "Everything we know so far about the logistics, for example about the hidden drones in Iran, suggests that Israel carried out the attack alone," Sascha Lohmann, senior associate and part of the America regional research group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said in an interview with DW. "But we cannot completely rule out the possibility that the US helped." The deployment of 200 military jets that flew to Iran and back for example raises the question of whether the US military provided support with air-to-air refueling, according to Lohmann. Iran's nuclear program under attack Israel's attacks early Friday morning were mainly directed against military facilities and sites involved in Iran's nuclear program, such as the Natanz nuclear facility, where uranium is enriched, among other things. In addition to several leading figures in the Iranian military, at least six scientists and researchers working on Iran's nuclear program were killed. Since April 2025, Tehran and Washington had been holding talks to reach an agreement to replace the old nuclear deal with Iran, from which the US withdrew during Trump's first term in 2018. After Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure, Trump was quoted by Fox News reporter Bret Baier as saying that "Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb." Expert: Israel caught Iran by surprise To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "We hope to get back to the negotiating table," Trump said according to the right-leaning TV channel. "We'll see." Trump: Attacks on Iran 'will only get worse!' Trump used much harsher language on his social media platform Truth Social. He wrote in a post that he had given Iran many chances to reach a nuclear deal with him. If that doesn't happen, Trump says he warned Iranian leadership that they're facing an attack that's much worse than anything they could imagine. "The United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the world by far," Trump wrote. "Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come ― and they know how to use it." The Iranian hardliners who spoke out against a nuclear deal are "all DEAD now," Trump continued in his post, "and it will only get worse!" Meanwhile, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff warned that Iran is also capable of causing considerable damage in Israel. Further nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran unlikely The next meeting between the US and Iranian delegations on a possible new nuclear agreement was supposed to take place this Sunday in Oman, but Iran canceled it. It is also unclear how the talks will proceed in the long term. Ali Shamkhani, a close confidant and advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is said to be among those killed in Iran. According to German news magazine Spiegel, Shamkhani played an important role in the nuclear talks between the US and Iran. He is said to have been open to an agreement, but also warned that the government in Tehran could end its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and expel UN nuclear inspectors if Iran felt threatened. "As long as the conflict continues with its current intensity, it is difficult to imagine that the talks will continue," Lohmann said. This article was originally published in German
DW
13-06-2025
- Politics
- DW
Israel's attack on Iran: Where do Trump and the US stand? – DW – 06/13/2025
US President Donald Trump claims his country was not involved with Israel's attacks on Iran. At the same time, he threatens that if Tehran doesn't reach a nuclear deal with the US, attacks on Iran "will only get worse." The US government's political line after Israel's attack on Iran is clear: Washington had no part in it. "Israel took unilateral action against Iran," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement shared by the White House. "We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense … Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel." The White House social media team posted the statement on social media platform X roughly an hour after the start of Israel's attacks on Iran early Friday morning. Later, on Friday evening, Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Israel. Before that, on Thursday, the US State Department posted a warning on X about the complex security situation in the Middle East: "We remind U.S. citizens in Israel and the broader region of the continued need for caution and encourage them to monitor the news for breaking developments." The US was informed about the attack in advance. But were they really not actively involved in any way? "Everything we know so far about the logistics, for example about the hidden drones in Iran, suggests that Israel carried out the attack alone," Sascha Lohmann, senior associate and part of the America regional research group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said in an interview with DW. "But we cannot completely rule out the possibility that the US helped." The deployment of 200 military jets that flew to Iran and back for example raises the question of whether the US military provided support with air-to-air refueling, according to Lohmann. Iran's nuclear program under attack Israel's attacks early Friday morning were mainly directed against military facilities and sites involved in Iran's nuclear program, such as the Natanz nuclear facility, where uranium is enriched, among other things. In addition to several leading figures in the Iranian military, at least six scientists and researchers working on Iran's nuclear program were killed. Since April 2025, Tehran and Washington had been holding talks to reach an agreement to replace the old nuclear deal with Iran, from which the US withdrew during Trump's first term in 2018. After Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure, Trump was quoted by Fox News reporter Bret Baier as saying that "Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb." Expert: Israel caught Iran by surprise To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "We hope to get back to the negotiating table," Trump said according to the right-leaning TV channel. "We'll see." Trump: Attacks on Iran 'will only get worse!' Trump used much harsher language on his social media platform Truth Social. He wrote in a post that he had given Iran many chances to reach a nuclear deal with him. If that doesn't happen, Trump says he warned Iranian leadership that they're facing an attack that's much worse than anything they could imagine. "The United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the world by far," Trump wrote. "Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come ― and they know how to use it." The Iranian hardliners who spoke out against a nuclear deal are "all DEAD now," Trump continued in his post, "and it will only get worse!" Meanwhile, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff warned that Iran is also capable of causing considerable damage in Israel. Further nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran unlikely The next meeting between the US and Iranian delegations on a possible new nuclear agreement was supposed to take place this Sunday in Oman, but Iran canceled it. It is also unclear how the talks will proceed in the long term. Ali Shamkhani, a close confidant and advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is said to be among those killed in Iran. According to German news magazine Spiegel, Shamkhani played an important role in the nuclear talks between the US and Iran. He is said to have been open to an agreement, but also warned that the government in Tehran could end its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and expel UN nuclear inspectors if Iran felt threatened. "As long as the conflict continues with its current intensity, it is difficult to imagine that the talks will continue," Lohmann said. This article was originally published in German
