The American B-2 stealth bomber is the only plane capable of carrying the bombs needed to strike Iran’s deepest nuclear facilities, but the decision to use them is not without risk.

It sounds so surgical, so precise, exactly the kind of air attack that only the U.S. Air Force can execute.

A series of B-2 bombers lifts off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri or the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Refueled in the air, they head for a remote mountain in north-central Iran, far from civilians, where they get Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear site, Fordo, in their sights.

They drop their giant 30,000-pound bunker-busters, one after another, blasting a giant hole down to the centrifuge halls that have been in the bull’s-eye of the American military since President Barack Obama and the leaders of Britain and France revealed the existence of the plant in the fall of 2009, charging Iran with a great “deception.”

Few potential operations, with the possible exception of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, have been so examined, rehearsed and debated. Technically, the military and geological experts say, it should be doable.

And yet it is full of risks — known unknowns and unknown unknowns, as the former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld used to say in the context of the Iraq War, another rabbit hole of American military action in the Middle East. That is why it has given pause to every American president who has looked at it for the past 16 years.

President Trump on Wednesday emphasized that he had yet to make a decision to drop what in private he calls “the big one.” But gone was the bellicose tone that characterized his public utterances a day earlier. In its place was a note of caution. “I may do it,” he told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn. “I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

Meanwhile, the Iranians, after five days of remarkable losses to the Israelis, seemed to be looking for a way out. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a defiant response to Mr. Trump’s call for “unconditional surrender,” but Mr. Trump said there were indications that the Iranians wanted to talk, and reports of an official Iranian plane landing in Oman, where many of the negotiations with Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, had taken place before Israel’s attack.

If Mr. Trump is taking a pause, it may be because the list of things that could go wrong is long, and probably incomplete. There’s the obvious: It’s possible that a B-2 could get shot down, despite Israel’s success of taking out so many of Iran’s air defenses. It’s possible the calculations are wrong, and even America’s biggest conventional bomb can’t get down that deep.

“I’ve been there, it’s half a mile underground,” Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said last week, as the Israeli operation began.

But assuming that the operation itself is successful, the largest perils may lie in the aftermath, many experts say, just as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are many lessons from that ugly era of misbegotten American foreign policy, but the most vital may be that it’s the unknown unknowns that can come back to bite.

Iran has vowed that if attacked by American forces, it would strike back, presumably against the American bases spread around the Middle East and the growing number of assets gathering in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. All are within missile range, assuming Iran has missiles and launchers left after the Israelis are done with their systematic targeting.

Of course, that could start a cycle of escalation: If Americans are killed, or even injured, Mr. Trump will be under pressure to exact revenge.

“Subcontracting the Fordo job would put the United States in Iran’s sights,” Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, and Steven N. Simon, a veteran of the National Security Council, wrote in Foreign Affairs on Wednesday. “Iran would almost certainly retaliate by killing American civilians. That, in turn, would compel the United States to reciprocate.”

“Soon enough,” they continued, “the only targets left for Washington to hit would be the Iranian regime’s leaders, and the United States would again go into the regime-change business — a business in which exceedingly few Americans want to be involved any longer.”

The reaction could take other forms. Iran is skilled at terrorism, and reacted to the U.S.-Israeli cyber attack on its nuclear program 15 years ago by building a fearsome cyber corps, not as stealthy as China’s or as bold as Russia’s, but capable of considerable damage. And it has plenty of short-range missiles left to attack oil tankers, making transit in the Persian Gulf too risky.

The last thing the White House wants to do is air these risks in public. Democrats are calling for a congressional role, but they have no power to compel it. “Given the potential for escalation, we must be brought into this decision,” Senator Adam B. Schiff of California, one of Mr. Trump’s political rivals, said on CNN on Wednesday. “Bombing Fordo would be an offensive activity.”

And like most offensive activities, there are longer-term perils, beyond the cycle of attack and retaliation.

Already, the message of these past five days, as interpreted by Iranian leaders or others with nuclear skill, may well be that they should have raced for a bomb earlier, and more stealthily. That was what North Korea did, and it has now ended up with 60 or more nuclear weapons, despite years of American diplomacy and sabotage to stop it. It is a big enough arsenal to assure that its adversaries, South Korea and the United States, would think twice about conducting the kind of operation that Israel executed against Iran.

And history suggests that nuclear programs can be bombed, but not eliminated.

“Nuclear weapons can be stopped through force — the Syrian program is a good example,’’ said Gary Samore, who was the Obama administration’s coordinator for weapons of mass destruction when the existence of the Fordo plant was made public. (It was discovered toward the end of the Bush administration.)

And in Iraq, after the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor in 1981, to keep Saddam Hussein from getting the fuel for a bomb, the Iraqis “reacted by building a huge, secret program” that went undetected until after the Gulf War in 1991, Mr. Samore said. That was such an embarrassment to American intelligence agencies that more than a decade later they wildly overestimated his ability to do it again, contributing to the second failure — and leading the United States into the Iraq war.

But Mr. Samore added: “I can’t think of a case where air power alone was sufficient to end a program.”

That is an important consideration for Mr. Trump. He must decide in the next few days whether Israel’s attacks on Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility, and its bombing of workshops where new centrifuges are made and laboratories where weapons research may have been taking place, are sufficient to set back the Iranian program.

In short, he must decide whether it is worth the huge risk of direct American involvement for whatever gain would come from destroying Fordo with American pilots, American warplanes and American weapons.

But he also doesn’t want to be accused of missing the chance to set the Iranians back by years. “If this war ends and this Fordo is left intact,” said Mr. Samore, now a professor at Brandeis University, “then it wouldn’t take long to get this going again.”

Mr. Trump has not weighed these questions in public, and it is always hard to know how he is assessing the evidence. He bristled the other day, on Air Force One, when a reporter noted to him that his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had testified in Congress just a few months ago that Iran had made no decision to produce a bomb, even if its fuel production had surged.

He insisted that there wasn’t much time left — though he cited no evidence to contradict his own intelligence chief.

“Don’t forget, we haven’t been fighting,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office. “We add a certain amount of genius to everything, but we haven’t been fighting at all. Israel’s done a very good job today.”

Then, muddying the waters anew, he turned to his signature phrase: “But we’ll see what happens.”

Thousands of American troops could be in Iran’s direct line of fire if President Trump joins Israel in attacking Tehran’s nuclear program and military, as he said on Wednesday that he may or may not do.

Many would have only minutes to take cover from an incoming Iranian missile.

Experts expect that if Mr. Trump orders the American military to directly participate in Israel’s bombing campaign, Iran will quickly retaliate against U.S. troops stationed across the Middle East.

“The Americans should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned on Wednesday, according to state news media.

More than 40,000 U.S. active-duty troops and civilians are working for the Pentagon in the Middle East, and billions of dollars in weapons and military equipment are stored there. Over decades, both during and after war, the American military has fortified its defenses in the region, said Dana Stroul, the Pentagon’s top official for Middle East policy during the Biden administration.

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‘I may do it. I may not do it,’ Trump says on joining attacks

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WASHINGTON/DUBAI/JERUSALEM, June 18 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump kept the world guessing about whether the United States will join Israel’s bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites as the Israel-Iran conflict entered its seventh day on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump declined to say if he had made any decision on whether to join Israel’s campaign . “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he said.

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Trump in later remarks said Iranian officials wanted to come to Washington for a meeting and that “we may do that.” But he added, “It’s a little late” for such talks.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain plan to hold nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Geneva aimed at persuading Iran to firmly guarantee that it will use its nuclear program solely for civilian purposes, a German diplomatic source told Reuters.

But while diplomatic efforts continue, some residents of Tehran, a city of 10 million people, on Wednesday jammed highways out of the city as they sought sanctuary from intensified Israeli airstrikes

The Wall Street Journal said Trump had told senior aides he approved attack plans on Iran but was holding off on giving the final order to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program.

Asked if he thought the Iranian government could fall as a result of the Israeli campaign, Trump said: “Sure, anything could happen.”

Referring to the destruction or dismantling of Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment center, Trump said: “We’re the only ones that have the capability to do it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it – at all.”

Military analysts believe that Israel might need U.S. military help to destroy Fordow, dug beneath a mountain near the city of Qom.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , 86, rebuked Trump in a recorded speech played on television, his first appearance since Friday.

The Americans “should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” he said. “The Iranian nation will not surrender.”

In its latest bombings, Israel said its air force destroyed Iran’s police headquarters.

Israel’s military said sirens sounded in northern Israel just before 2 a.m. local time on Thursday (23:00 GMT on Wednesday) and that it had intercepted a drone launched from Iran. It said several minutes later that another drone was intercepted in the Jordan Valley area.

The Iranian missile salvoes mark the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of projectiles fired from Iran have penetrated defences, killing Israelis in their homes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a video released by his office on Wednesday, said Israel was “progressing step by step” towards eliminating threats posed by Iran’s nuclear sites and ballistic missile arsenal.

“We are hitting the nuclear sites, the missiles, the headquarters, the symbols of the regime,” Netanyahu said.

Israel, which is not a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.

Netanyahu also thanked Trump, “a great friend of the state of Israel”, for standing by its side in the conflict, saying the two were in continuous contact.

Item 1 of 21 A destroyed drone, which the Iranian Army says belongs to Israel, is seen in Isfahan, Iran, in this handout image obtained on June 18, 2025. Iranian Army/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS [1/21] A destroyed drone, which the Iranian Army says belongs to Israel, is seen in Isfahan, Iran, in this handout image obtained on June 18, 2025. Iranian Army/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

Trump has veered from proposing a swift diplomatic end to the war to suggesting the United States might join it.

In social media posts on Tuesday, he mused about killing Khamenei.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, asked what his reaction would be if Israel did kill Iran’s Supreme Leader with the assistance of the United States, said on Thursday: “I do not even want to discuss this possibility. I do not want to.”

A source familiar with internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering options that included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear installations

Iran’s mission to the United Nations mocked Trump in posts on X, describing him as “a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance.”

Israel’s military said scores of Israeli jets had struck targets in and around Tehran and in western Iran in the previous 24 hours in three waves, hitting sites producing raw materials, components and manufacturing systems for missiles.

FLEEING TEHRAN

Arezou, a 31-year-old Tehran resident, told Reuters by phone that she had made it out of the city to the nearby resort town of Lavasan.

“My friend’s house in Tehran was attacked and her brother was injured. They are civilians,” she said. “Why are we paying the price for the regime’s decision to pursue a nuclear programme?”

In Israel, sirens rang out anew at dusk on Wednesday warning of further incoming Iranian missiles. A motorist was injured by missile debris, Israeli medics said. The army later advised civilians they could leave protected areas, signalling the threat had passed.

At Ramat Gan train station east of Tel Aviv, people were lying on city-supplied mattresses or sitting in the odd camping chair, with plastic water bottles strewn about.

“I feel scared, overwhelmed. Especially because I live in a densely populated area that Iran seems to be targeting, and our city has very old buildings, without shelters and safe spaces,” said Tamar Weiss, clutching her four-month-old daughter.

Iran has reported at least 224 deaths in Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, but has not updated that toll for days.

Since Friday, Iran has fired around 400 missiles at Israel, some 40 of which have pierced air defences, killing 24 people, all of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

LEVERAGE

Iran has been exploring options for leverage, including veiled threats to hit the global oil market by restricting access to the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important shipping artery for oil.

Inside Iran, authorities are intent on preventing panic and shortages. Fewer images of destruction have been allowed to circulate than in the early days of the bombing, when state media showed pictures of explosions, fires and flattened apartments. A ban on filming by the public has been imposed.

The communications ministry said on Wednesday that temporary restrictions on internet access would be imposed to help prevent “the enemy from threatening citizens’ lives and property”.

Iran’s ability to hit back hard at Israel through strikes by proxy militia close to Israeli borders has been limited by the devastating blows Israel has dealt to Tehran’s regional allies – Hamas and Hezbollah – in conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon since 2023.

Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Alistair Bell and Costas Pitas; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Deepa Babington and Diane Craft

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As Trump weighs whether to attack Iran, some demonstrators in New York call for the US to support Israel, while others demand the US stay out of the Israel-Iran war (Adam Gray/Getty Images)

While Israeli strikes have dealt a blow to Iran’s military infrastructure, Tehran’s much-feared axis of regional allies has yet to fully mobilise. Trump’s strategic indecision and muted responses from Hezbollah, Iraqi militias and Russia, mean a complex web of restraint, caution, and political calculation is holding back a broader regional eruption — for now.

Trump still undecided

The US military has built up its presence in the Middle East in recent days. A third US Navy destroyer has entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and a second US carrier strike group is heading towards the Arabian Sea. While the Pentagon claims the build-up is purely defensive, it also positions the US more favourably should President Trump decide to join Israeli attacks on Iran. It may also be a tactic to pressure Iran into capitulation or concessions.

The IDF and Mossad’s early success in their campaign against Iran could potentially tip the scales in favour of US intervention Amos Harel argues in Haaretz. While Israel launched the devastating surprise attack on Iran in the first days of the war, it now appears to be approaching the limits of its capabilities. Israeli officials have long acknowledged that, despite the air force’s advanced capabilities, Israel cannot destroy the fortified, deep-underground nuclear facility at Fordow without American support. The US Air Force’s B-2 heavy bombers are not available for lease, and Israeli pilots cannot fly them without extensive training. This puts the decision squarely in the hands of US President Donald Trump.

The “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) syndrome—coined by the Financial Times—portrays Trump as someone who avoids confrontation. Such accusations reportedly enrage him, and he may now be tempted to ride the wave of Israel’s military success and declare himself the one who finally eliminated the Iranian nuclear threat through force.

As of late Wednesday, Trump appeared still undecided. He stated he had not ruled out a meeting with Iran: “I may do that,” he said, ahead of a meeting in the White House Situation Room to discuss Israel’s operation. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump told senior aides late Tuesday he had approved attack plans against Iran but was waiting to see whether Tehran would abandon its nuclear ambitions.

This came after Trump left the G7 summit in Canada early to return to Washington. French President Emmanuel Macron had assumed Trump would push for a ceasefire, but Trump declared that Macron “once again had no clue” and that the matter at hand was “much bigger.” A high-level consultation was scheduled that evening with senior administration officials.

Trump also launched a crude attack on right-wing commentator and TV host Tucker Carlson—once one of his most ardent supporters—over Carlson’s isolationist stance on American support for Israel. Trump argued that the “America First” doctrine does not include allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

Khamenei to Trump: Iran will not surrender

IIran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a televised speech that the Islamic Republic “will not surrender,” warning that if the US takes military action, it “will undoubtedly cause irreparable consequences for them.” He declared:

“The Iranian nation stands firm against an imposed war, just as it will stand firm against an imposed peace. This nation will not surrender to anyone in the face of imposition.”

Khamenei added: “Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation, and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language. The Iranian nation will not surrender, and the Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly cause irreparable harm.”

This was Khamenei’s first response to President Trump’s Tuesday call for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.”

Missile stockpiles depleting

The outcome of the defining conflict between Israel and Iran may come down to one rough estimate: Israel’s supply of Arrow missiles versus Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles.

Israeli military sources and analysts suggest Iran has fired around 700 medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) at Israel over the past 14 months, leaving an estimated 300–1,300 remaining. This stockpile has been targeted by Israel’s ongoing air campaign, which the IDF says has destroyed at least a third of Iran’s surface-to-surface launchers, potentially weakening Iran’s retaliatory capability.

Meanwhile The Wall Street Journal reports that Israel is running low on its defensive “Arrow” missile interceptors, citing a US official. This raises concerns about Israel’s ability to withstand a prolonged ballistic missile campaign. Since the war began, the US has deployed additional missile defence systems to Israel and may even start using its own interceptors.

The IDF responded by stating it is “prepared and ready to handle any scenario,” but declined to comment on specific munitions. There has been no official Israeli confirmation of an Arrow shortage, and most Iranian missiles launched recently have been intercepted—at rates similar to those during Iran’s 2024 attacks.

In the past 24 hours, missile launches from Iran have declined slightly, with only a handful of missiles fired per salvo. However, the IDF warns this could reflect a strategy of attrition rather than a lack of munitions.

Russia’s position

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday offered to mediate an end to the Israel-Iran conflict, suggesting Moscow could help negotiate a deal that allows Iran a peaceful nuclear program while addressing Israeli security concerns.

“It’s a delicate issue,” he told senior international news editors, “but in my view, a solution could be found.” Trump responded by saying he told Putin to focus on resolving his own conflict in Ukraine.

Despite calls for diplomacy, Russia has not offered direct assistance to Iran. Nikita Smagin, a Russia–Iran expert, told The Guardian that Moscow is unwilling to risk a confrontation with the US or Israel on Iran’s behalf.

A source close to Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned that if Iran’s regime collapses, it would be a greater strategic and reputational loss for Moscow than the fall of Damascus. Iran’s parliament recently ratified a strategic partnership treaty with Russia, but the Russian Foreign Ministry clarified that it does not commit Moscow to military support.

Russia has also refrained from delivering advanced weaponry Iran has requested. Claims of pending sales of Sukhoi Su-35 jets remain unconfirmed, with only Yak-130 training aircraft known to have arrived. Moscow’s restraint reinforces the perception that it will not risk a direct confrontation to defend Tehran.

Iran’s allies are not coming to the rescue

Six days into the Israel–Iran war, Iran’s armed proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen have largely stayed on the sidelines, despite rhetorical support. For years, Israel and its defence establishment warned of a united “Axis of Resistance” comprising Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iraq’s Shia militias. Yet this supposed alliance has not materialised into collective military action.

Hezbollah, weakened by its recent clashes with Israel and under political pressure in Lebanon, has taken a restrained position. Its leaders have expressed solidarity with Iran but have made no threats of retaliation, emphasising that Iran has not asked for military support and can defend itself.

Iraqi militias, similarly, have avoided escalation. Limited drone activity near US bases appears intended as a symbolic warning rather than an offensive. These militias remain aligned with Iran’s call for restraint, while warning that if the US joins the war, they will target American interests. Iraq’s government has pressured these groups to avoid provocation and maintain stability.

Only the Houthis in Yemen have continued launching missiles at Israel, though at a reduced pace. Houthi leaders condemned Israel’s strike on Iranian nuclear sites and warned of retaliation against any aggression toward Arab or Muslim countries.

As Haaretz’s Jack Khoury noted, it is unlikely Iran was surprised by this lack of support. Tehran probably understands the regional power dynamics well—Russia and China are not dependable allies in the American-Israeli sense. Their moves are slow, cautious, and shaped by complex, often conflicting interests.

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As Israel continues its attacks on Iran, US President Donald Trump and other global leaders are hardening their stance against the Islamic Republic.

While considering a US attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, Trump has threatened Iran’s supreme leader, claiming to know his location and calling him “an easy target”. He has demanded “unconditional surrender” from Iran.

Meanwhile, countries such as Germany, Canada, the UK and Australia have toughened their rhetoric, demanding Iran fully abandon its nuclear program.

So, as the pressure mounts on Iran, has it been left to fight alone? Or does it have allies that could come to its aid?

Has Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ fully collapsed?

Iran has long relied on a network of allied paramilitary groups across the Middle East as part of its deterrence strategy. This approach has largely shielded it from direct military strikes by the US or Israel, despite constant threats and pressure.

This so-called “axis of resistance” includes groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) in Iraq, the Houthi militants in Yemen, as well as Hamas in Gaza, which has long been under Iran’s influence to varying degrees. Iran also supported Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria before it was toppled last year.

Ahmed Jalil/EPA

These groups have served both as a regional buffer and as a means for Iran to project power without direct engagement.

However, over the past two years, Israel has dealt significant blows to the network.

Hezbollah — once Iran’s most powerful non-state ally — has been effectively neutralised after months of attacks by Israel. Its weapons stocks were systematically targeted and destroyed across Lebanon. And the group suffered a major psychological and strategic loss with the assassination of its most influential leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

In Syria, Iranian-backed militias have been largely expelled following the fall of Assad’s regime, stripping Iran of another key foothold in the region.

That said, Iran maintains strong influence in Iraq and Yemen.

The PMF in Iraq, with an estimated 200,000 fighters, remains formidable. The Houthis have similarly sized contingent of fighters in Yemen.

Should the situation escalate into an existential threat to Iran — as the region’s only Shiite-led state — religious solidarity could drive these groups to become actively involved. This would rapidly expand the war across the region.

The PMF, for instance, could launch attacks on the 2,500 US troops stationed in Iraq. Indeed, the head of Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the PMF’s more hardline factions, promised to do so:

If America dares to intervene in the war, we will directly target its interests and military bases spread across the region without hesitation.

Iran itself could also target US bases in the Persian Gulf countries with ballistic missiles, as well as close the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil supply flows.

Yahya Arhab/EPA

Will Iran’s regional and global allies step in?

Several regional powers maintain close ties with Iran. The most notable among them is Pakistan — the only Islamic country with a nuclear arsenal.

For weeks, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has tried to align Iran more closely with Pakistan in countering Israel’s actions in Gaza.

In a sign of Pakistan’s importance in the Israel-Iran war, Trump has met with the country’s army chief in Washington as he weighs a possible strike on its neighbour.

Pakistan’s leaders have also made their allegiances very clear. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has offered Iran’s president “unwavering solidarity” in the “face of Israel’s unprovoked aggression”. And Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif recently said in an interview Israel will “think many times before taking on Pakistan”.

These statements signal a firm stance without explicitly committing to intervention.

Yet, Pakistan has also been working to de-escalate tensions. It has urged other Muslim-majority nations and its strategic partner, China, to intervene diplomatically before the violence spirals into a broader regional war.

In recent years, Iran has also made diplomatic overtures to former regional rivals, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in order to improve relations.

These shifts have helped rally broader regional support for Iran. Nearly two dozen Muslim-majority countries — including some that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel — have jointly condemned Israel’s actions and urged de-escalation.

It’s unlikely, though, that regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey would support Iran materially, given their strong alliances with the US.

Iran’s key global allies, Russia and China, have also condemned Israel’s strikes. They have previously shielded Tehran from punitive resolutions at the UN Security Council.

However, neither power appears willing — at least for now — to escalate the confrontation by providing direct military support to Iran or engaging in a standoff with Israel and the US.

Theoretically, this could change if the conflict widens and Washington openly pursues a regime change strategy in Tehran. Both nations have major geopolitical and security interests in Iran’s stability. This is due to Iran’s long-standing “Look East” policy and the impact its instability could have on the region and the global economy.

However, at the current stage, many analysts believe both are unlikely to get involved directly.

Moscow stayed on the sidelines when Assad’s regime collapsed in Syria, one of Russia’s closest allies in the region. Not only is it focused on its war in Ukraine, Russia also wouldn’t want to endanger improving ties with the Trump administration.

China has offered Iran strong rhetorical support, but history suggests it has little interest in getting directly involved in Middle Eastern conflicts.