Week of War: Israel Has Blindsided Iran, Leaving it Weaker but Not Yet Defeated

In the week since Israel unleashed its surprise attack on Iran, many assumptions underpinning the balance of power in the Middle East have been swept away, leaving the fate of the region more uncertain than at any time since the Arab Spring.

- Julian Borger

Iranian defenses that once seemed formidable crumpled in the first minutes as the bombs began to fall soon after 3:30 a.m. on the morning of Friday, June 13.

Like the Palestinians of Gaza, the people of Tehran now know what it is like to look upwards and see Israeli drones hovering above them, and to receive evacuation orders from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on social media, telling them when to abandon their own homes.

Some of the crown jewels of Iran's nuclear program—built up over a quarter of a century and identified by the Islamic Republic regime as synonymous with the nation's sovereignty and identity—lay in ruins by the end of the first week of Israeli bombardment.

The above-ground uranium enrichment hall in Natanz was destroyed in the initial wave, as was the facility's power plant. The interruption in electricity supply was likely to have ruined many of the delicate centrifuges spinning at very high speeds to enrich uranium hexafluoride gas in the underground facilities, according to an assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The nuclear complex outside the ancient city of Isfahan was also pounded in the opening salvoes, which hit its uranium conversion plant and another facility for making nuclear fuel for reactors. Satellite images emerged showing these sites pockmarked with holes.

The regime in Tehran, with all its pretensions of being a regional power, had told its population that the privations it had suffered over the decades were a necessary sacrifice for the nation's defense against its enemies, near and far. But under fire, the Islamic Republic was impotent to protect its own people—even its top generals.