The U.S. and Israel’s joint military operation against Iran could lead to extraordinary power shifts in the Middle East, especially if the strikes help force Tehran’s Islamist regime from power. The campaign could also spur chaos in a region that has known far too little stability.
The strikes are the second time since President Donald Trump returned to office that Israel and the United States have conducted military operations on Iranian soil. Already, Tehran has responded with fury. Iran launched missiles at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar and is likely to conduct further attacks if U.S. and Israeli strikes continue.
As the strikes unfolded, Trump urged Iranians to seize the opportunity to help take down the clerics whose rule so many in the country long to see end, chief among them Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Here’s what we know about the strikes against Iran, and what questions are still out there.
What are the goals of the strikes?
The Trump administration and Israel conducted their strikes in part to push Iranians to overthrow their country’s system. Trump also spoke about the need to destroy Iran’s nuclear, ballistic missile and other military capabilities, which Israel, too, sees as major threats.
The attack also aimed to take out regime leadership. Among the sites targeted were the residences of Khamenei and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and of other major Iranian military and political figures.
What’s not clear is when the Trump team will declare “mission accomplished.” With the strikes last June, the administration claimed victory after just one bombing raid, despite the gradual emergence of intelligence assessments that the strikes had a limited effect on Iran’s nuclear program. Iran insists its nuclear program is needed for peaceful purposes, such as medical research, but the U.S. has long suspected Tehran wants a nuclear weapon despite its repeated promises not to seek one.
The Trump administration, for now, has not publicly telegraphed how much firepower it is willing to use in service of ousting Khamenei.
What happened to Khamenei and other Iranian leaders?
The fates of all the figures the U.S. and Israel targeted remained unclear as of Saturday night in Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged in a Saturday NBC News interview that the country lost “a few commanders,” but insisted no senior officials were killed.
Iranian state media has also said Khamenei will deliver remarks on Saturday, though some have pontificated that Khamenei could have always prerecorded the message before the strikes.
Even if Israel and the United States succeed in eliminating many of the country’s most powerful figures, the Iranian system set up after the country’s 1979 revolution is not easy to take down. While political authority ultimately rests in Khamenei, there’s a bench of clerics eligible to succeed Khamenei as supreme leader if he were to die and a clear process to replace him enshrined into law. In other words, a leadership vacancy in Iran would — in theory — be brief, and filling it would also be predictable, unlike in other authoritarian regimes, where power may be centralized in one leader’s hands.
Iran’s theocracy already lived through the death of the regime’s founding supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989.
Still, what helped ensure continuity back then was the fact Khamenei, a prominent cleric and the country’s president at the time, was well known and respected.
The elderly Khamenei, however, has taken few steps to publicly elevate a successor, though it’s believed he’s tried to position his son Mojtaba to succeed him. Iran’s Assembly of Religious Experts could also go in a different direction in naming the next supreme leader.
There is also the possibility the strikes do enough damage to the regime’s grip on power that an uprising could emerge. So far, protesters have not taken to the streets, despite lingering dissatisfaction with the state of the Iranian economy.
Does this mean the end of nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran?
In recent days, the Trump administration briefed lawmakers and told the public that Iran was resuming its nuclear program and warning that Tehran was committed to developing a nuclear bomb. Trump has also warned about Iran’s ballistic missile program, which Iran would not discuss. Israel views that program as a special and growing threat.
Trump said Friday he was not happy with the status of negotiations with Iran, despite assurances from mediator Oman that a deal was “at hand.”
Since the U.S.-Israeli strikes last June, which Trump said “obliterated” Iran’s program, there’s been no sign that Iran has resumed refining uranium. But Iran also has insisted it has the right to enrich uranium, a key nuclear fuel.
France, the United Kingdom and Germany have called for diplomatic talks to resume. In an interview that aired Saturday on NBC News, Araghchi bemoaned the idea of negotiations given what just happened: “I don’t know why the U.S. administration insists on starting negotiations and then, in the middle of negotiations, attacks the other party.”
One other factor: If the ailing Khamenei has died amid the strikes, a fatwa — or religious decree — Iran has said he issued against nuclear weapons could die with him. The next Iranian supreme leader may choose another path.
Will the Middle East descend into broader regional conflict?
Iran’s threatened retaliation has already led to strikes against military bases in nearby countries. Iran can also attack via its proxy militias in the region, including ones in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and to a lesser extent Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis of Yemen also could come to Tehran’s aid.
An aggressive response from the proxies, which comprise Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance, would only be more likely if Israeli and U.S. strikes succeeded in killing Khamenei. Iran also warned neighboring countries that it was closing access to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint in global shipping before the strike.
Iran’s strikes have already caused some Arab countries to put aside differences, at least for now. Saudi Arabian and Emirati leadership spoke on the phone after Iran’s strikes on the Emirates, despite the brewing tensions between the two Gulf countries over the war in Sudan and other issues.
Several Arab countries have stressed that they played no role in the U.S.-Israeli strike. It’s an open question if more Iranian strikes on their soil could lead these states to hit back.
How will voters in the U.S. react to this?
Trump began the week at the State of the Union address to Congress soothing antsy Republicans who’ve wanted the president to devote more time to affordability and less time to foreign entanglements as voters have soured on the president’s handling of the economy.
Heartburn about the president’s continued focus on foreign affairs is only likely to continue.
While a majority of Americans said in a recent POLITICO poll that they support military action against Iran, that support may be fragile. A poll from far-right outlet Breitbart found that Americans’ backing would likely rapidly crater if the U.S. suffers any casualties. Trump has already warned that the campaign against Iran may result in loss of American lives — the U.S. has thousands of troops in bases throughout the Middle East.
Democrats are already seizing on this, accusing Trump of waging a wanton war against Iran without much consideration of the lives of U.S. servicemembers.
