Ceasefire was the only option available to Iran, Israel and USA

A protracted conflict could endanger each Player’s interests

- BY K RAVEENDRAN

Ever since Israel and the United States jointly launched strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, de-escalation began to shape the contours of strategic discourse in West Asia.

What was initially presented as a bold and surgical operation against Iran’s suspected nuclear infrastructure quickly unfolded into something far more perilous, chaotic, and revealing.

For Israel, the ambition to eliminate or at least set back Iran's nuclear program had long stood at the centre of its national security calculus. A nuclear Iran, in Tel Aviv's reckoning, would be an existential threat. That notion drove countless covert sabotage operations, diplomatic lobbying campaigns, cyberattacks, and eventually culminated in a direct military strike this month with American backing. But the aftermath of this latest escalation forced a sobering reassessment in Israel's war rooms. Tel Aviv discovered that while a nuclear-capable Iran posed a strategic threat in the long term, a ballistic missile-capable Iran was an immediate and terrifying danger. The sheer volume, range, and precision of Iranian missile strikes during the 12-day war left Israel's layered defence systems rattled, and the civilian population deeply shaken.

Reports suggest Iran fired as many as 500 ballistic missiles targeting Tel Aviv and several other key locations in Israel. The Iron Dome and other missile defence systems, though operationally successful to an extent, were stretched thin, intercepting an unprecedented barrage that disrupted normal life, overwhelmed air raid protocols, and exposed a vulnerability that no amount of diplomacy or military boasting could paper over.