I can see you care, and I think most people, even on here, want the same outcomes: for Iran not to develop nuclear weapons, for both Israel and Iran to maintain territorial integrity, for the region to become more stable, and for the United States to avoid being dragged into another prolonged war in the Middle East.
Your perspective made me reflect. I do wonder if Trump is more of an improviser than an ideologue. It's difficult to evaluate this moment when the U.S. president speaks unpredictably and shows little evidence of strategic thinking. Yet by attacking Iran directly, Trump went against many of his advisers and the "America First" philosophy he once championed. His sudden embrace of regime change even stunned his own team. Senators Vance and Rubio scrambled to deny it, only for Trump to contradict them hours later.
Unlike the Bush administration, which at least attempted to plan for the aftermath in Iraq, Trump appears to have made this decision without a long-term strategy. He has acted in a far more divided political environment and with no clear endgame. His transformation of “Make America Great Again” into “Make Iran Great Again” echoes the hubris of the Iraq War- the idea that foreign regimes can be overthrown and remade in our image. Iran is a country of nearly 90 million people, not a dollhouse to rearrange. This feels like exactly the kind of ripple effect your chaos theory analogy describes, where one unpredictable move triggers destabilisation far beyond what was anticipated.
One detail that rarely gets attention is the legal and diplomatic precedent this action breaks. Israel has previously struck known or suspected nuclear facilities, such as Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and the alleged al-Kibar reactor in Syria in 2007. Osirak was under IAEA inspection at the time, similar to Iran’s facilities today. The recent American strikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan mark the first time a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has attacked facilities actively monitored by the IAEA. This is a sharp reversal of past U.S. policy. In 1981, Washington condemned Israel’s strike on Osirak and supported a UN Security Council resolution against it. Today, a similar resolution would almost certainly be vetoed by the United States.
Like you, what drew me to post, after lurking on Mumsnet, was frustration at some of the oversimplified portrayals. People framing Iran as "pure evil" or as “crazy mullahs” stockpiling nukes seem unable to imagine Iranian decision-making as anything beyond a maniacal determination to wipe out Israel. That’s simply not true. This kind of good-versus-evil narrative is dangerous, and I felt there was a real lack of attempting to understand the motivations of one of the key sides in the conflict.
That said, I absolutely understand that Israel feels threatened by Iran. Iran has undeniably supported proxy networks across the region to pressure Israel. But it is also true that Tehran sees Netanyahu and Trump as existential threats. Both have publicly called for regime change, and Netanyahu has long advocated military action to destroy the Islamic Republic.
During 2011 to 2012, Israel considered unilateral military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program but ultimately pulled back, aware that it couldn’t fully dismantle Iran’s capabilities and concerned about alienating Washington. Since then, it has waged a covert shadow war of sabotage, cyberattacks, and assassinations. These tactics largely subsided while the JCPOA was in effect, but returned and intensified after Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018. Iran, meanwhile, was reluctant to escalate into direct confrontation, knowing it lacked the conventional strength to match Israel’s firepower or its U.S. backing.
Even when Trump publicly opposed a strike on Iran during negotiations, Israel likely calculated he would not punish them for acting. That too turned out to be correct.
What often gets overlooked is how this war also serves domestic political interests. Netanyahu's corruption trial is now on hold. His coalition, previously shaky due to the Haredi draft issue, has stabilised. Political opponents like Lapid and Gantz are rallying around the flag. Publicly calling for the assassination of a sovereign country’s leader crosses a glaring red line in terms of international norms, but domestically, it has brought Netanyahu significant short-term gains.
My argument is that all the outcomes we hope for are more likely under a JCPOA-style agreement. The conditions that led to this conflict would almost certainly not have emerged if Trump had handled Iran policy differently in his first term. It would have been far more difficult to justify an attack on Iran had it continued to comply with the JCPOA and maintained low levels of enriched uranium. Some posters here have claimed the JCPOA strengthened the regime. I haven’t seen compelling evidence of that. In 2017, the JCPOA’s success helped secure a second term for reformist President Hassan Rouhani and Trump’s abandonment of the deal critically weakened more moderate voices in Iran.
Of course, this doesn’t absolve Iran of its own failures, nor does it excuse the regime for abandoning the nuclear restrictions of the JCPOA, even if it was the United States that broke the deal first.