Iran in the Aftermath of the Twelve-Day War

Abstract

On 13 June 2025, Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran, two days before the sixth US-Iran nuclear talks in Oman. Citing an "imminent nuclear threat," it carried out strikes on military, nuclear, and residential sites, killing commanders, scientists, and hundreds of soldiers and thousands of civilians. The war has reshaped Iran's regime dynamics, state-society relations, and foreign policy. The regime remains intact following the ceasefire of 24 June. Yet fragile post-war cohesion is threatened by internal divisions over how best to navigate the legitimacy crisis, manage relations with foreign powers, address the nuclear programme, and confront environmental challenges. The succession issue continues to loom large in Iranian politics. Wartime and postwar state-society dynamics have seen both convergence and divergence at different levels. Convergence has occurred around a sharpened discourse on Euro-Atlantic interventions in the Middle East, targeted labour concessions, and the accelerated deportation of Afghan immigrants. Divergence has arisen in the context of the regime's heightened securitisation and repression as well as its handling of reconstruction, alongside lingering sources of prewar resentment. The conflict and its aftermath catalysed continuity and change in the country's defence stance in three critical areas: rethinking the future of the Axis of Resistance as part of the "forward defence" doctrine, the future of the nuclear programme with negotiations remaining in limbo, and the reinforcement of relations with other regional and international actors.