By Carlos Frederico Pereira da Silva Gama
The US has launched a military attack on Iran targeting nuclear facilities. The US attack came after a series of Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, defence installations, logistic corridors and high-ranking authorities, to which Iran has responded with missile strikes. These are the largest attacks on Iranian territory since that country’s 1980s war with Iraq.
Apart from their implications for Iran and the Middle East, the current conflict also has major implications for the rest of the world in multiple ways.
So far, the dynamics of the Iranian-Israeli war depart from the normative premises of nuclear deterrence. On the one hand, Iran currently poses no credible nuclear threat to Israel. On the other hand, the Israeli assault on Iranian nuclear facilities breaks promises of granting access to nuclear energy for civilian purposes enshrined in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Though such promises have often failed to materialise, the non-proliferation regime has slowed down the pace of nuclearisation.
The first atomic bombs in the world were tested and used in 1945. There were five nuclear powers by the time the NPT came into force 25 years later in 1970. Only India, Pakistan and North Korea have become declared nuclear powers in the 55 years since, while Israel is widely acknowledged as an undeclared nuclear power.
By undermining the tenets of NPT, Israeli aggression has pushed Iran further down the road to nuclearisation – a scenario rendered famous by American political scientist Kenneth Waltz in 2012. Waltz’s forecast of nuclear bipolarity in the Middle East expected the buildup to nuclearisation to bring about stability, mirroring the balance of power eventually reached between the Soviet Union and USA across the 1950s to the 1970s.
Departing from Waltz’s thesis, Iran and Israel are now locked in a situation with no signs of de-escalation on the horizon.
The road to this war
The current Israeli attack has been preceded by an unsuccessful attempt to bring down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war coalition at the Knesset. It unfolded on the eve of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the USA, scheduled to take place in Oman on June 15.
The path to this “pre-emptive” attack on Iranian nuclear facilities was paved step-by-step. The unexpected fall of the Bashar Al-Assad regime in Syria in December 2024 overlapped with the killing of the Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon – opening an aerial highway for Israeli aircrafts, missiles and drones, relatively safe from any counterattack. The January 2025 “ceasefire” in Gaza, brokered by Qatar in the last days of former president Joe Biden’s administration in the US, was used by Israel as a window of opportunity to strike Iran.
As Iran licked the wounds of major casualties in its array of allies across 2024 at home and abroad with the killing by Israel of high-ranking officials from Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, the Gaza genocide unfolded under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli military efforts that were until then concentrated on Palestinian soil eventually spilled over into Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran. This multiplicity of foci brought the conflict to a standstill, although the victims of Israeli attacks remained politically divided, with no coalition emerging during this period.
While the world was recovering from another unexpected standstill in international relations – the COVID-19 pandemic – the preparation for the Hamas-led terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023 on Israel was apparently already underway, with the groups involved even posting about their “drills” on social media.
By then, tensions over the Iranian nuclear program were visible. Diplomatic efforts by the P5+1 group (comprising the permanent members of the UN’s Security Council plus Germany) tried to bring the Islamic Republic back to the negotiating table, side by side with harsh economic sanctions.
The involvement of Iran in the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine made trade-offs more complex. Iranian drones provided a headway for the Russian war effort and, in return, Russia helped Iran evade Western sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. The shock and awe of the October 7 attacks (considered a major intelligence failure on the part of Israel) raised the stakes for Iranian aspirations in the region.
In 2025, however, Iran could no longer count on allies with enough capacity to counter Israel. After the April 2024 Israeli attacks on Iran military facilities, the Islamic Republic faced limitations in its capacity to inflict damage on the Zionist state through missile systems, aircrafts or drones. Loss of influence over Syria, Lebanon and Iraq exposed flanks in the regime’s regional aspirations. Therefore, Iranian military efforts remained locked in standstill with Israel’s internal contradictions, with a section of Israelis supporting the war effort but pressuring Netanyahu to resign on corruption charges. This unsteady situation made Iran and Israel dependent on an oscillating US foreign policy in the transition between Biden and Trump.
As Israel launched the attack on Iran, the US and West have lined up to support Netanyahu’s actions.
The Israeli attack has been readily acknowledged and tacitly endorsed by Western powers. The European Union, as well as France, Germany and the United Kingdom in individual capacity, have framed the operation in terms of Israel’s right to self-defence. Calls for de-escalation and restraint have come alongside critiques of the Iranian nuclear program. Donald Trump sent conflicting signals. Initially, the US president indicated that the US was not involved. Afterwards, he threatened Iran with an ultimatum, as if the attack was a final chance for a nuclear deal with the West. Eventually, on June 21, Trump announced the US bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities.
Implications for all
The ongoing escalation of military action in West Asia casts a shadow over the world economy; the backdrop being the ongoing slowdown in developed and developing economies. The price of Brent Oil — a grade of crude oil — shot up after the first wave of missiles over Iran, one of the world’s major producers of crude oil. Twenty percent of the world’s oil production is transported through the Straits of Hormuz, which connects Iran to Oman. Iran has threatened to close the route as the war against it escalates.
The few emerging powers that have kept growing after the COVID-19 pandemic, such as India and China, so far remain cautiously distant from the confrontation in West Asia, and understandably so. However, cautiousness also implies limited influence in a fragmented world which lacks leadership on a global level.
The war in the Middle East provides a respite for the West from the deadlock in Eastern Europe — in which neither the Vladimir Putin regime, nor the Trump administration have mustered enough support for either a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, or a decisive push for a military victory by either side, which may in any case be impossible. Moscow and Kiev continue to be at war with no end in sight.
As the West’s focus shifts from Eastern Europe to West Asia, it buys the US and the EU time to resolve the situation back in Europe and alleviates European differences over support for the Ukrainian resistance under the departing shadows of USA military efforts there. Besides, the fog of Israeli-Iranian war has rendered the Gaza genocide less visible, and the status of the Palestinians remains in political limbo.
The Israel-Iran conflict also highlights the frailty of international institutions in the 21st century. Neither formal institutions such as the United Nations, nor the clubs with restricted membership such as BRICS, the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — which Iran joined recently — have made any significant progress in ending the hostilities.
President Trump attended the G7 meeting in Canada, celebrating 50 years of the group, but left in less than less than eight hours, with no consensus reached regarding the conflict.
The sustained decline of institutionalised cooperation makes the international community rely on the efforts of sovereign states. Israel and Iran cannot contain the effects of their confrontation within their own territories. This is not surprising. The complexity of a globalised world challenges the capacity of action of states. Usually, states are not capable of dealing with global challenges by acting alone. The stakes for global governance, therefore, remain high.
Carlos Frederico Pereira da Silva Gama is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, and the author of four books including Global Essays – From Arab Spring to Brexit, 2011-2020.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.
