Tehran’s willingness to accept a US-imposed ceasefire exposes how few cards the mullahs have left to play “Everlasting consequences”, promised Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, in a post on X on Sunday in response to the first direct US attack on Iranian soil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. More like “everlasting humiliation” for the mullahs. Tehran’s pathetic retaliation after Washington’s strikes on its nuclear facilities didn’t just expose the limits of Iranian power. For a regime that has built its legitimacy around its opposition to America, its willingness to accept a US-imposed ceasefire is an embarrassment for which it may never recover.
It hardly matters whether Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz were “obliterated” (in president Trump’s words), or merely suffered “very significant damage” (as Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency chief, put it). America’s deep penetration into the heart of Iran’s quest for the bomb – a major pillar of the Islamic Republic’s security strategy for decades, as well as a matter of national prestige – has demolished Tehran’s claim to be a serious power capable of taking on the US and its allies.
Almost worse for Tehran was the nature of its response to the US attacks. Multiple Iranian leaders vowed revenge, but their subsequent actions merely beclowned further an already faltering regime. On Sunday, Iran launched 14 conventionally-armed missiles at America’s Al-Udeid base in Qatar, whose aerial defence systems promptly shot them all down. The US president later revealed that the Iranians had forewarned the US of the attack, showing it to be face-saving of the most pitiful kind.
Trump expressed hope that they had “gotten it all out of their ‘system’” and would “now proceed to peace and harmony in the region”, saying he would “enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same”. By Monday morning, a ceasefire between Israel and Iran was announced. An Iranian missile attack a few hours later appeared to break that agreement, but Trump, on his way to the Nato summit in the Hague, claimed to have dissuaded an Israeli military response. “All planes will turn around and head home,” he declared on his Truth Social platform, “the ceasefire is in effect!”
Iran’s muted show of force harkened back to January 2020, when Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general who commanded the Quds Force, the special operations division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Irate Iranian leaders swore revenge back then as well, but the dozen missiles they launched against US bases in Iraq – also after prior warnings – inflicted no deaths and little damage.
This time, Iran clearly realised that it had no good options. Tehran had floated other possible retaliation scenarios, each seemingly weaker than the last, while its nominal allies in Moscow and Beijing faltered in any commitment to Iranian security. Some Iranian parliamentarians suggested that their country could withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, a multilateral agreement to contain the spread of nuclear weapons. But Iran has systematically violated that treaty for decades, meaning its abrogation would be at most symbolic and at worst another means of isolating itself from the international community.
Iran’s parliament also passed a resolution calling on the government to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic egress from the Persian Gulf, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil exports flow. But such a measure, which must be approved by the country’s rulers, would be self-defeating, since one of the greatest victims would be Iran itself, given its heavy reliance on oil exports to prop up its tottering domestic economy. China, Tehran’s nominal strategic partner, would also suffer dearly, given that it buys nearly 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports.
In any event, significant US naval forces now stationed in or near the Persian Gulf could effectively counter Iranian measures to block the strait, an outcome that would only inflict greater humiliation on Iran’s devastated armed forces and leadership. International observers never seem to have taken Iran’s threats seriously. Oil prices, which rose slightly after Israel began its attack on Iran on June 12, are now back to the level they were before the strikes began, while international stock indices have been up in early week trading.
Trump’s critics have argued that his military actions may have been illegal. Given the clear success of the president’s strategy, they rarely looked so irrelevant. For the mullahs, the situation is far more serious. They don’t have the cards to take on the United States, and now everyone – at home and abroad – can see it.