On June 22, 2025, the United States launched military strikes against three critical Iranian nuclear facilities, dramatically escalating U.S. military intervention against Iran. In announcing the strikes, President Trump warned Tehran against retaliation, demanding that Iran “make peace” or face additional strikes against a wide range of targets. The extent of damage against the three sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—remains unclear, although the Pentagon reported the targets had sustained “severe damage.” The attack included the first-ever use of 30,000 pound “bunker buster” bombs on Fordow, a deep underground nuclear enrichment facility, as well as submarine-launched cruise missiles on Natanz and Isfahan. Administration officials underscored that the objective is not regime change in Iran and instead focused on the limited nature of the operation.
Q1: What is the significance of the U.S. strikes?
A1: The U.S. strikes on Iran mark a defining moment for the Middle East and perhaps the most consequential decision of Trump’s second-term presidency. The strikes hold the potential to catalyze the region’s trajectory into one of two key directions: either (1) compelling Iran toward negotiations and a de-escalation of tensions or (2) a widening conflict with regional and even global reverberations. Developments over the next several days will offer important signs as to which path the region is embarked upon.
Trump’s decision to intervene militarily alongside Israel entails significant risks. First, an Iranian retaliation is virtually assured. Days of Israeli strikes (as well as earlier interventions in 2024) likely have significantly eroded Iran’s military capabilities. But Tehran could still wreak havoc—either by conventional or asymmetric means—prompting a U.S. counter-response and setting off a cycle of strikes and counterstrikes that draws the United States deeper into the conflict. Second, tensions could flare in ways that negatively affect global energy markets, leading to spiking gas prices in the United States just as the summer driving season begins. Third, while the Trump administration has underscored that regime change is not the goal, conflict dynamics can spiral in unintended ways. President Obama’s 2011 decision to establish a no-fly zone in Libya evolved into regime change with Libya still a failed state nearly 15 years later. Obama termed the intervention “the worst mistake” of his presidency.
Q2: What factors will shape Iran’s response?
A2: Senior Iranian officials have vowed to retaliate against the United States, but several factors are likely to shape Tehran’s response. While Iran feels compelled to respond, it also is mindful of the constraints it faces in terms of both its own capabilities and the willingness of its allies to provide support. The decapitation of Iran’s military and paramilitary leadership coupled with significant hits to its ballistic missile capabilities necessarily constrains Iran’s response options. Nor does Iran have the strategic depth once provided by the fallen Assad regime in Syria or Hezbollah, the now decimated Lebanese Shiite militia. Moreover, key allies such as Russia have not offered more than rhetorical support for Tehran to date. Given these limitations, Iran will likely look to respond in a way that threads the needle between a minimal response that underscores its weakness and a maximalist retaliation that could provoke a regime-threatening response from the United States. Finally, Iran will likely seek to preserve the warming ties it has built with Gulf Arab neighbors. It will not want to provoke their ire by hitting targets that dramatically undermine their domestic security or economic equities.
Q3: What’s at stake for Iran’s immediate neighbors and for the Middle East more broadly?
A3: The escalating conflict’s stakes are enormous, even existential, for Iran’s immediate neighbors. Its potential spillover poses significant short- and long-term challenges for Iran’s Arab Gulf neighbors. In the short term, immediate threats to oil and gas production and transport would undermine the lifeblood of their economies. Should the conflict persist, or if Iran becomes even more destabilized, Iranian refugee flows could imperil domestic stability among Gulf Arab and other Arab countries. Shia populations could also become radicalized, especially in places with substantial Shia populations such as Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, or the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Over the long term, an open-ended conflict between Iran and the United States would upend the Gulf’s strategic vision for the Middle East, which depends on the de-escalation of conflict, diversified economies, and building economic ties across the region and globally. Indeed, for the Middle East more broadly, the region has focused on the imperative of exiting an era marked by more than two decades of conflict—beginning with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq—and inaugurating a period of stability and prosperity.
Q4: Can we expect the Gulf Arabs to support the U.S. effort?
A4: In their public statements, Gulf Arab countries have not supported the U.S. effort but have also resisted outright condemnation of the United States. Instead, they have raised concerns about the perils of escalation and called for restraint on all sides. Going forward, Gulf Arabs will seek to navigate a delicate path between the United States and Iran, seeking to minimize the spillover from the conflict. Traditional mediators such as Oman and Qatar will redouble their efforts to de-escalate tensions and find creative offramps for the conflict.
Mona Yacoubian is senior adviser and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
