After US President Donald Trump slammed both Israel and Iran yesterday, the US brokered ceasefire appears to be holding. That could mean at least a pause to a war with highly dangerous global ramifications.

For the moment, Iran may have backed down and been contained by the surprise of the US bombing, and Israel seems restrained by the wrath of Trump.

That opens the chance for improved peace prospects in Gaza and the Middle East. Yet there is also a danger that any change in the balance of power that would result from the Iranian regime’s weakness or fall could result in new enduring international tensions.

As much as there are signs of weakness in the Iranian regime there could still be a strong push back within Iran. There are far too many moving parts to come up with a convincing scenario of what is most likely to unfold in coming months.

What is pretty certain is that the hardliners who have been able to assert themselves as Iran has come under attack, have realised that they would have no future if missile bombardments continued.

They must have feared for their lives after the heads of the Republican Guard and the Iranian military, as well as nuclear scientists had been killed. That Israel knew of the locations of those it wanted to kill, meant many feared there was a target on their backs.

Message

The strikes by Israel and the US attacks on nuclear sites have sent a message of strong political will that could not go unheeded. Even without talks, the message Iran may have taken from the past two weeks is that it has no option but to compromise.

What will ultimately be agreed upon between Israel and Iran remains unclear. If Iran agrees to end its nuclear weapons programme and terminates support for the groups in the “ring of fire” around Israel, that could amount to progress and might help bring a degree of calm to the Middle East. Iran might yet be forced into a humiliating back down from its core military doctrine of the pursuit of nuclear weapons and support for its proxies.

If, as part of a deal, Iran presses Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages, there just could be increased pressure on Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to pull out of Gaza. This could also see the end of Netanyahu as he could be forced out of office when the war ends.

The key sign of compromise was that Iran’s retaliation for the attacks against US military bases in Qatar were deliberately ineffectual. If Iran has hidden stocks of highly enriched uranium, it will now only be able to pursue a nuclear weapons programme at very high risk. It now faces a very forceful deterrent from doing so.

Israel’s ability to locate top Iranian generals at a particular moment, indicates extensive infiltration by the Mossad. That shows there is extensive disloyalty, division, and doubt within the Iranian government, and has to be immensely unnerving to even the hardliners in the regime.

Big Prize

The big prize for the US, Israel, and the West remains a favourable regime change in Iran, ideally carried out by a broad-based internal alliance. Regime changed forced by the US and Israel rather than internally driven might lack domestic credibility.

Trump is a plain speaker and after the bombings of nuclear sites over the weekend said, “Why wouldn’t there be regime change?”

As a major world oil producer with an ability to control one of the key naval choke points, the Straits of Hormuz, and its location on the edge of central Asia, Iran would be an undoubted prize to have on your side. Coupled with its good engineering skills and sound policies, Iran could become a very fast growing economy.

But imminent prospects for regime change would seem to amount to wishful thinking. While the Iranian regime has been weakened by the missile attacks, it is doubtful that it could face insurrection and regime change in the immediate future. Bringing about regime change in Iran could be immensely difficult.

It is a country of more than 90 million people that is widely spread out and the opposition is disorganised. The theocratic regime has been in power for more than 45 years and has demonstrated its ability to crackdown on internal protest with speed and effectiveness. The regime might split, but that is no guarantee that a prosperous more liberal country might emerge.

Iran’s regional allies have been crumbling and that has further weakened the ruling Mullahs. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis do not provide the same threat to Israel that they did just a year ago. The Assads have fled Syria for Moscow and an anti-Iranian President sits in Damascus.

Iran is without an effective air-defence system and key players in its security and nuclear weapons development programme have been killed. But there are no signs of imminent collapse of the regime.

International terror networks

As long as Iran does not support an international terror network that aims at the destruction of Israel, threaten global oil supplies, pursue the development of nuclear weapons, and lean too heavily toward China and Russia that just might be OK for the most part with the US. An Iran, which supplies the Russians with drones, shouts anti-Zionist and anti-American slogans, and enforces strict religious social codes is not so much of a problem for the US. Despite Trump’s wishful thinking, the US might be cautious in pushing for regime change in Iran fearing that it might deeply unsettle both Russia and China, and Iran’s authoritarian neighbours in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan.

The US might not want to push too hard for regime change as that could unnerve the region. But if and when there is regime change in Iran it will have deep regional consequences.

If the hardline theocratic regime in Iran were to fall it would result in a fundamental rebalancing in global geopolitics. Should events go the right way for the US and the West, that could be to the substantial disadvantage of Russia and China.

It could also result in long uncertainty and chaos across central Asia, setting off dangerous manoeuvring for advantages among the great and regional powers.

The political implications set off by the missile war between Israel and Iran might take a long time to unfold. The Mullahs will have to face up to their weakened position and a back down on their wider aims. And Iran’s friends will have to adjust.

The Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa grouping, which Iran recently joined, has made no commitments to help Tehran. This is the group that is meant to provide a counter-weight to what they see as US and Western domination. But there has hardly been a squeak out of them.

South Africa is treading a very careful path on the US attacks on Iran. President Cyril Ramaphosa issued a statement over the weekend saying that the US should be talking to Iran, not bombing them, and called for a role for the United Nations. Russia and China condemned the bombing but offered no help.

The past week might just be the beginning of a very changed Middle East.

The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.

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Jonathan Katzenellenbogen is a Johannesburg-based freelance journalist. His articles have appeared on DefenceWeb, Politicsweb, as well as in a number of overseas publications. Katzenellenbogen has also worked on Business Day and as a TV and radio reporter and newsreader. He has a Master's degree in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.