Iran is finding itself in a difficult end game in its fight with Israel, with no calvary coming to support it.
Israel now has control of the skies over Tehran, and public discussions on an attack on the Fordow nuclear facility are moving to the mainstream.
Such an event would require the involvement of the United States and the consent of President Trump, as B-2 bombers dropping bunker-busting bombs are the only way to destroy the capabilities of a plant hidden deep in an Iranian mountain.
It’s not clear Trump will authorize that kind of direct involvement, which would risk pulling the U.S. into a deeper conflict.
But either way, Iran’s regime is being confronted with existential questions.
“There’s got to be a kind of chaos in both the IRGC and the Army,” said Elliott Abrams, U.S. Special Representative for Iran in the first Trump administration and senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“There’s been a lot of high-ranking officers killed. I don’t know what orders they’re getting from the top— they’re getting hit in very significant ways every day,” Abrams said. “So, is the command and control structure loosely intact or is it falling apart?”
Iran’s path out of a conflict with Israel is unclear, unless it comes to the negotiating table with the U.S. in a way that is satisfactory to Trump. Russia is unlikely to offer its assistance to Tehran, nor are other nations in the Middle East, wary of being drawn into a conflict against a top U.S. ally.
“Iran doesn’t seem to have fast friends,” said Fred Fleitz, vice chair of the America First Policy Institute’s Center for American Security.
“I fear that Iran’s leaders are simply too ideological and stubborn to make a compromise to end this war,” Fleitz added. “But we’re in a situation that no one had anticipated.”
Much depends on Trump, who before the war began was trying to get the two sides to agree to a deal at the negotiating table.
The U.S. president has continued to make moves that could prevent things from spinning further out of control.
For example, Trump reportedly cautioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against targeting Iran’s supreme leader, though the Israeli has refused to rule that out.
Trump on Monday issued a warning for Iranians to evacuate Tehran as he departed the Group of Seven (G7) summit a day early. On his way back to Washington, Trump said he was interested in a “real end” to the conflict, not just a cease-fire.
In the meantime, Israeli leaders and some top allies of Trump have ratcheted up their rhetoric.
Trump has stressed Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and on Tuesday he warned Tehran against targeting U.S. assets, saying “we’ll come down so hard, it’d be gloves off.”
He said he was considering sending Vice President J.D. Vance and his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to negotiate with Iranians leaders, adding it “depends on what happens when I get back” but that he’s looking for “better than a ceasefire.”
Vance, like Trump, is known for wanting to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars, though in a statement on X he also emphasized the importance of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“POTUS has been amazingly consistent, over 10 years, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Over the last few months, he encouraged his foreign policy team to reach a deal with the Iranians to accomplish this goal,” Vance said in the statement on X.
The White House on Tuesday morning also highlighted more than a dozen instances where Trump said Iran could not obtain a nuclear weapon, another rhetoric signal it may be laying the groundwork for more aggressive action.
Simone Ledeen, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East in Trump’s first term, said Trump may be thinking of regime change.
“I think it’s clear that in order to achieve this… goal of the war, which is complete dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program, regime change might have to occur in order for that to happen,” she said.
“Their capabilities are certainly dramatically diminished, between the assassinations of a lot of the senior military leadership and intelligence leadership on the first night of the Israeli bombardment— they took out a lot of the leadership of the IRGC— just full stop,” she said. “Those combination of things already has made it difficult for the command and control to function the way that it was meant to and by difficult, I mean sometimes insurmountable.”
Abrams predicted that “the regime could collapse, but I think it’s more likely that [it], in essence, gives up.”
He predicted the supreme leader realizes “I’ve got to agree to the end of the nuclear weapons program or the whole thing will fall on our heads,” Abrams said.
“Trump is not saying ceasefire. Trump is saying we need a deal that solves this problem. And again, by that I think, does not mean regime change. He means the true end to the Iranian nuclear program,” he said. “I don’t think this war ends certainly until the end of the weekend… my guess is less than two weeks, another week or 10 days.”
