Israel’s devastating strike on Iran was a tactical masterstroke but has not ended the war, a leading war correspondent has said, warning: “This regime is not defeated.”
Speaking to a JW3 online briefing from Tel Aviv, British-Iranian journalist and author David Patrikarakos said the 13 June Israeli-led operation – which included cyberattacks and a “surgical elimination” of Iranian command-and-control targets – had restored Israeli deterrence and humiliated Tehran.
“This was a cross between the Godfather baptism scene and the 1967 pre-emptive strike on the Egyptian air force,” said Patrikarakos. “Tactically speaking, it was an extraordinary operation.”
But he added: “Let’s be clear. This is not the end of the Iran-Israel war. This is not a Waterloo. The regime is not falling. We’ve witnessed an extremely important event in an ongoing war.”
Satellite images show damage to Iran’s nuclear sites. Photo Credit: Maxar Technologies via BBC Verify
He revealed that satellite imagery showed trucks leaving Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment facility just before the US and Israeli strikes – raising fears that uranium stockpiles may have been removed. Despite Donald Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear sites were “obliterated”, US intelligence reportedly disagrees.
“If Fordow hasn’t been destroyed and uranium is somewhere else, we’ll see a huge criticism of the US and Israel,” said Patrikarakos, the author of Nuclear Iran: The birth of an Atomic State. “That uranium is your core material for a bomb. One or two Hiroshima-style bombs remains on the table.”
He warned that despite Iran’s recent blows, including Hezbollah’s decapitation and Hamas being described as a “twitching corpse”, the Islamic Republic still maintains a tight grip on power.
“There is hatred of the regime, but no leadership,” he said. “There is no Iranian Navalny. Brave women are protesting, yes, but there’s no one to take the regime down. The IRGC retains the monopoly of violence and is deeply invested in the system – ideologically and economically.”
Patrikarakos dismissed suggestions that Israel’s strikes were purely politically motivated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s domestic woes.
“Any Israeli politician is guided by the IDF and Mossad,” he said. “It’s taken months, if not years, to get those assets into place. The idea that this was cooked up in a couple of weeks to distract from internal politics is simplistic and facile.”
David Patrikarakos reporting from Kharkiv, Ukraine, May 2022. Photo Credit: Wikipedia
He added that Trump had likely demanded concessions from Netanyahu in exchange for the US strikes, hinting that this may include wrapping up Israel’s war in Gaza. “Trump doesn’t do things for free,” he said. “I suspect something was extracted. Maybe some sort of commitment to finish things in Gaza.”
While the IDF may have scored a short-term advantage, Patrikarakos warned against complacency. “Israel’s disease is arrogance and hubris,” he said. “Yes, Iran is weaker – and the world knows it. But let’s not get too complacent.”
He concluded: “If the ceasefire holds, that’s the best outcome for now. But this war began in 1982 with the IRGC deployment to Lebanon. And it hasn’t ended yet.”
