Executive Summary

Iran has recently suffered several significant strategic setbacks that began with Israel targeting its air defences in April 2024 in response to Iran’s own missile attack on Israel, followed by the decapitation of Hezbollah and the fall of the Assad regime. This series of events was concluded with the 12 Day War of 13th-24th June 2025 in which Israel and the US successfully targeted Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile facilities as well as eliminating senior Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders. The future of the regime was unclear while the Supreme Leader, hunkered down in a bunker, was not reachable to give orders. Not only was the strategic calculus of the Iranian regime undermined, but so was the Supreme Leader’s cult of personality which underpins the entire regime. This was the first time that Iran had been held to account for its malign activities after its ability to – over decades – establish new norms of terrorism that had not only led to the October 7 massacre, but the killing of over 1,000 US service people across the region.

Israel’s spearheading of the attacks that destabilised the Iranian regime was greenlit by the Trump administration. This was a reversal of the Biden administration’s commitment to ‘de-escalation’ that only served to embolden the Iranian regime further, as referred to in my report “Restoring Deterrence: Destabilising the Iranian Regime” that was published in May 2024.

This was also a departure for Israel and the US. Until recently, Israel maintained a purely defensive posture, striking at Iranian proxies on its immediate borders. This shielded Iran, which uses its terrorist proxies to enhance its strategic depth. The Trump administration had also shifted from maintaining a transactional ‘America First’ foreign policy that was reluctant to engage in foreign interventions to suddenly joining Israel’s strikes by dramatically bombing three enrichment sites in Iran: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Suddenly Iran was exposed, and the regime appeared brittle.

Going forwards, Israel must maintain its air supremacy that affords it operational freedom in Iran. Rather than merely target uranium enrichment facilities, Israel must reconcile itself to the fact that it is the very nature of the regime that causes its nuclear goals to remain unchanged. Indeed, achieving a nuclear capability is deemed critical for regime survivability. Therefore, Israel and the US should adopt a broader strategy of seeking to topple the Iranian regime, rather than merely reacting to Iran’s malign activities in a symptomatic manner.

This report attempts to identify the likelihood of Iran backsliding into greater authoritarianism as well as sources of the current regime’s resilience and vulnerabilities. This will enable determination of which levers can be used to undermine the regime and ultimately lead to regime collapse and replacement with a better alternative.
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The time has come for a new policy towards Iran. The US-led policy of deterrence has failed spectacularly. Its two goals were to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb and to contain Iran’s aggression in the Middle East. Now, Iran is on the brink of acquiring a nuclear weapon, has extended its sphere of influence across the region and, on 13 April 2024, directly attacked Israel for the first time.

This paper analyses Iran’s grand strategy in the Middle East and explains how the US and Israel have contributed to the failure of deterrence. It argues that for too long, Iranian aggression has been unchallenged. Even when the US has been directly targeted by Iranian proxies, successive administrations have refused to respond directly to Iran and hold the regime accountable. The strategy was to localise conflict, avoid regional escalation and prevent broader war from breaking out in the Middle East. Ironically, it has led to the exact opposite. By attempting to prevent war, the US has encouraged conflict to erupt. The reason why: the calculus of the Iranian regime is primarily driven by regime survival and fosters disruption to insulate itself and extend its strategic depth. As such, Tehran responds to strength not diplomacy.

Israel has also miscalculated its strategy towards Iran. Like the US, Israel has focused on targeting Iran’s proxies rather than associating them with their state sponsor. To this end, Israel has avoided a broader strategy of attempting to destabilise the regime.

This report makes the sober case for why the US and Israel now need to adopt a broader and more holistic strategy towards Iran and its proxies. This will entail Israel expanding its projection of power to target Iranian facilities on Iranian soil, and could be accompanied by the US conducting disproportionate responses to destabilise the Iranian regime with the effect of paradoxically restoring deterrence. Measures should include:

• Removing US carriers from the Persian Gulf, granting the US strike capability while insulating them from drones, mines and anti-ship missiles.
• Targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)¹ bases such as the Pasdaran base and senior IRGC personnel on Iranian or foreign soil.
• Conducting cyber-attacks on Iran’s critical infrastructure.
• Targeting Iran’s drone and missile facilities.
• Targeting Iran’s oil infrastructure, including refining and processing facilities, domestic distribution pipelines and terminals, and the hydrocarbon export ports and related facilities.
• Targeting Iran’s air defence capabilities, including airfields, command and control and anti-aircraft batteries.
• Targeting Iran’s nuclear programme, including uranium conversion and uranium-enrichment programmes.

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