Following 12 days of back-and-forth strikes between Israel and Iran, President Donald Trump announced a mutually accepted ceasefire early Monday evening (June 23, 2025).
Reflecting on this latest conflict, several points stand out:
1) Following the murderous attack by Hamas operatives and civilian Palestinians from Gaza on October 7, 2023, Israel resolved not to restrain itself against sources of terror sworn to annihilate the Jewish state.
2) After decimating (though not yet utterly defeating) Hamas, Israel also struck Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen after they entered the fray.
3) For the first time since the Islamic Revolution turned Iran into a pariah state in 1979, Iran directly attacked Israel with waves of ballistic missiles in April and October of 2024. Having neutered the threat posed by Iran’s proxies (including the failed state of Syria), Israel vowed to take out the head controlling the tentacles.
4) With a supportive administration in Washington (following the weak and vacillating leadership of President Joe Biden), and recognizing the imminence of an Iranian nuclear capability, Israel struck the Persian state with a fury and focus that has amazed military strategists around the world. In short order, the IAF (the Israeli Defense Force’s capable Air Force) had gained unchallenged air superiority over then vast expanse of Iran and was unencumbered in destroyed military targets throughout the country.
5) Iran’s only recourse was to launch poorly guided ballistic missiles in an effort to kill and maim as many civilians as possible. At the conclusion of the war, no Israeli soldiers had been killed, but numerous civilians had perished—in spite of most of them living in bomb shelters for days on end.
In the end, Iran’s military capability and economy suffered a grievous blow, even before President Trump ordered the United States Air Force to obliterate Iran’s nuclear facilities. Facing the humiliation of defeat and the very real threat of an uprising that would bring down the Islamic regime under the 86-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei (and despite its public boasts to the contrary), Iran was eager to accept a ceasefire.
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