[News] Iran won, Israel lost - Ali Abunimah

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/iran-won-israel-lost>
Iran won, Israel lost

Ali Abunimah <https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah> 25 June
2025
------------------------------
[image: Woman surrounded by people holds Iranian flag]

People celebrate at Enghelab Square in Tehran on 24 June, after a ceasefire
came into effect between Iran and Israel.
Xinhua News Agency

Israel launched a war of aggression against Iran on 13 June. After more
than 24 hours of ceasefire, it is clear – Iran won, Israel lost.

“It wasn’t a decisive defeat for the [Israeli] regime, where it comes to
the edge of collapse,” Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran told
<https://www.youtube.com/live/BYjX0NC-EiU> the *Dialogue Works* channel on
Tuesday.

“But it was a win for Iran.”

Marandi’s assessment is fair: Israel’s war failed and left Iran stronger.
This has enormous implications for Iran, Palestine and the world.
How do you define a winner?

Carl von Clausewitz said war is politics by other means. You win if you
achieve certain objectives.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed
<https://www.gov.il/en/pages/event-updating180525> the war aimed to remove
“two existential threats” to Israel, “the nuclear threat and the ballistic
missile threat.”

But his actual goal, only hinted at, was regime change
<https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/16/middleeast/israel-operation-iran-regime-change-netanyahu-intl>
.

Following the ceasefire, Netanyahu declared
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-claims-historic-victory-says-we-sent-irans-nuclear-program-down-the-drain/>
“a historic victory,” claiming he had eliminated the “threat of destruction
via nuclear weapons” and the threat from “20,000 ballistic missiles.”

He notably omitted regime change.

Tactically, Israel scored some early “successes” – murdering Iranian
commanders, scientists and their families. But when measured against
Netanyahu’s own objectives, Israel failed completely.
The nuclear “threat”

Iran had no nuclear weapons and was not attempting to build one, according
to US intelligence assessments
<https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/congressional-testimonies/congressional-testimonies-2025/4061-ata-hpsci-opening-statement-as-delivered>
and the International Atomic Energy Agency
<https://x.com/amanpour/status/1935095391109922822>.

President Donald Trump nonetheless adopted
<https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/06/17/trump_i_dont_care_what_dni_tulsi_gabbard_says_it_was_very_close_to_a_nuclear_weapon.html>
Netanyahu’s lie that Iran was “very close,” and bombed three Iranian
nuclear sites.

But US intelligence assessments
<https://apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-program-military-strikes-trump-f0fc085a2605e7da3e2f47ff9ac0e01d>
now say US bombing set Iran’s nuclear programs back by mere months.

US officials concede
<https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/us/politics/iran-uranium-stockpile-whereabouts.html>
that they do not know where Iran’s highly enriched uranium is. Iran moved
it before the strikes.

The ineffective attack
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/what-comes-next-war-escalates>,
moreover, relied on US power.

Israel achieved nothing.
Iran’s ballistic missiles

Netanyahu claimed Iran had 20,000 ballistic missiles.

His own military put the number
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-israel-iran-war-by-the-numbers-after-12-days-of-fighting/>
at 2,500.

The Israeli military claims Iran fired around 550 missiles during the war,
and had between 1,000 and 1,500 left at the end.

Israel asserts Iran owned about 250 mobile launchers and that by the end of
the war it had just 100 left.

Marandi estimates the number of launchers – easily replaceable trucks – to
be in thousands, a much more realistic number for a country of Iran’s size.

We can’t verify any of this. Iran does not publish its military secrets,
and Israel is not known for telling the truth. But Iran has spent decades
building a missile program to deter the United States and Israel. It is
unlikely Israel did that much damage.

Even according to Israel, Iran ended the war with a significant arsenal and
as far as we know Iran’s underground missile cities
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU96LGfErb0> and launch sites
<https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/military-balance/2021/04/iran-haji-abad-missile-base/>
remain untouched.

But the clearest evidence of Israeli failure came Tuesday morning, in the
hours before the ceasefire went into effect: Iran hammered
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/4-killed-in-beersheba-as-iran-fires-multiple-missile-salvos-just-before-ceasefire/>
Israel with repeated salvos of ballistic missiles, keeping millions of
Israelis in shelters, where they had spent much of the previous 11 days.

One missile struck an apartment building in Beersheba on Tuesday morning,
killing four, bringing the number of people killed in Israel during the war
to 28.

Israel killed
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/over-600-people-killed-in-israeli-attacks-in-iran-health-ministry/3611490>
more than 600 people in Iran.

Yet with a few hundred missiles, Iran depleted
<https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-is-running-low-on-defensive-interceptors-official-says-fd64163d>
Israel’s stock of interceptors in days and caused unprecedented damage,
shattering Israelis’ sense of safety and immunity.

Iran revealed new types of missiles
<https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/514629/New-type-of-Iranian-missiles-previously-undisclosed-reach-occupied>
that pierced <https://trt.global/afrika-english/article/5f959eb08485>
multi-layered US and Israeli defense systems with apparent ease.

Israeli censorship
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-media-censors-iranian-strike-cyberwarfare-base>
hides much of the damage.

But what was visible showed Israel’s vulnerability – even with massive US
military protection
<https://defence-industry.eu/u-s-navy-deploys-five-ballistic-missile-defence-destroyers-to-mediterranean-to-protect-israel/>
.

Netanyahu’s war exposed Israel as more vulnerable than ever.
Regime change failed

Though Israel never officially admitted regime change was its goal, it was
clearly Netanyahu’s goal
<https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/16/middleeast/israel-operation-iran-regime-change-netanyahu-intl>
.

Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador in Washington, acknowledged
<https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnr/date/2025-06-22/segment/08> that
regime change was an “implicit goal.”

He said Iran’s collapse – even if it spread nuclear material among
competing factions in a “balkanized Iran” – was preferable to its current
centralized leadership.

Oren’s remarks to CNN on Sunday reveal Tel Aviv’s real fear: It is not a
nuclear Iran, but a sovereign Iran that supports resistance. The same fear
drove US-Israeli destruction of Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Despite sanctions and discontent, the Islamic Republic commands domestic
legitimacy, Marandi says.

The joint US-Israeli aggression, he argues, strengthened the Iranian state
and left Western-oriented segments of society disillusioned by Western
deceit.

“Iran’s biggest achievement or gift wasn’t on the battlefield but at home
amongst the people, becoming as one,” said
<https://x.com/Soureh_design2/status/1937542414480343078> one Iranian.
Trump’s claims about obliterating Iran’s nuclear program are, as analyst
Mouin Rabbani said <https://x.com/MouinRabbani/status/1937386900311900311>,
“a boast better known as proclaiming victory and going home.”

The US likely realized
<https://x.com/MouinRabbani/status/1937386991445832058> that the Israeli
attack had reached its limits and that “it only made sense to continue in
the context of achieving the different outcome of regime change.”

So Netanyahu not only failed to provoke regime change, he also failed to
draw the US into a wider war. Trump’s strikes were, in the words
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/what-comes-next-war-escalates>
of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, “an act of political theater.”
What about Gaza?

Some hoped Iran would tie a ceasefire to ending the genocide in Gaza.

That is understandable, amid the unbearable, ongoing horror. During the
12-day war with Iran, Israel killed almost 900 Palestinians in Gaza.

But this was unrealistic and would have been extremely risky.
Iran’s strategy has never been to support Palestine by direct war with
Israel. Rather, it has been to support indigenous resistance groups. That’s
precisely why Iran was targeted.

Iran said from the start that it would punish Israel and stop retaliating
when Israel stopped attacking. Iran’s goal was defensive, not to seek
escalation.

What might have happened if Iran had linked this war to ending the Gaza
genocide?

It is likely the US would have launched a strategic bombing campaign to
save Israel. It would attack Iran’s institutions, industry and
infrastructure with even more ferocity than Israel did.

Thousands would be killed, and Iranian leaders could lose internal
legitimacy to continue such a fight.

Marandi doubts such losses would provide any strategic benefit. In the long
term, Iran’s goal is to strengthen itself and the resistance in the Global
South.

Iran and allied resistance movements have never aimed to defeat Israel in a
single blow, but rather to wear it down. That is how asymmetrical warfare
works when you are the weaker side facing the full might of the US-led
Western empire.

Although Israel started it, this war advanced that aim. Israel now appears
weak, unstable, unsafe to live in and totally reliant on foreign support in
a world where it is more hated than ever after nearly two years of its
livestreamed genocide in Gaza.

Brain drain and capital flight will likely accelerate.

Had Iran gone further, it would have lost the initiative.

By ending the war from a position of strength – after showcasing its
missiles and surviving a war of aggression, Iran preserved its capabilities
and may now enhance them.

Iran signed no agreement to halt support for any resistance group. It
remains independent and sovereign.

There is no sign that this war “has altered Iran’s strategic posture,”
observes <https://x.com/SinaToossi/status/1937566583628661131> Sina Toossi
of the Center for International Policy.
Dangers ahead

While Iran prevailed, the dangers it faces
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/what-comes-next-war-escalates>
cannot be overstated: Washington and Tel Aviv will intensify their efforts
to subvert and weaken it.

Iranians know they will not be able to rest and, according to Marandi, will
work immediately to address vulnerabilities revealed by the Israeli attack.

“If the ceasefire Trump just announced holds – and is paired with serious
US-Iran diplomacy – it would mark a strategic defeat for Israel in
launching this war,” according
<https://x.com/SinaToossi/status/1937292971818578038> to Toossi.

But the terms and purpose of any “diplomacy” are key. Iran has absolutely
no reason to trust the United States or its European vassals. “Negotiation”
for them means demands to surrender.

Any negotiation must be from strength.
Global implications

As a result of Israel’s illegal aggression
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/06/un-experts-condemn-israeli-attack-iran-and-urge-end-hostilities>,
Iran gained international legitimacy and support.

It drew forceful statements of support from countries around the world,
including Russia
<https://www.rt.com/russia/620317-iran-attack-no-justification/>, China
<https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202506/24/WS685a1235a310a04af22c81b2.html>,
Brazil
<https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/internacional/noticia/2025-06/brazil-condemns-israeli-and-us-attacks-nuclear-facilities-iran>
and Muslim and Arab
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/21-arab-muslim-nations-condemn-israeli-strikes-on-iran-urge-de-escalation/3601100>
nations.

Saudi Arabia
<https://www.saudigazette.com.sa/article/652857/SAUDI-ARABIA/Saudi-Arabia-denounces-Israeli-attacks-on-Iran-calls-for-de-escalation>
and the United Arab Emirates
<https://www.mofa.gov.ae/en/MediaHub/News/2025/6/13/13-6-2025-UAE-iran>,
Israel-friendly Arab regimes that have long been hostile to Iran, joined
the condemnation of Israel’s aggression.
Israel’s pitch to weak US-backed Arab regimes has long been that it can
help them counter a supposed threat from Iran.

That offer looks much less attractive now.

Even Iran’s token strike
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/what-comes-next-war-escalates>
on a US base in Qatar, pre-announced to avoid casualties, sent a clear
message: Iran is willing to fight anywhere in the region if provoked.
That should focus minds across the Gulf. Even Trump, whose perfidy and
recklessness helped set off the war, recognized the danger and rushed to
put out the flames.

We must hope that this brush with even broader regional disaster and
recognition of Israel’s weakness will push Washington to end the US-Israeli
genocide in Gaza.

That is more likely to happen while there remains a strong, sovereign Iran.
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