The direct confrontation between Israel and Iran marks a historic shift in the regional security architecture of the Middle East. Since October 2023, both countries have engaged in accusatory rhetoric, which they had already translated into action in April 2023 and October 2024. However, the developments in recent days have significantly escalated the scale and intensity of this confrontation. For decades, both states operated within a framework of proxy engagement, cyber operations and plausible deniability. That framework has now collapsed.
On June 13, 2025, Israel launched one of its most aggressive and overt military operations in recent memory: a coordinated air campaign targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, military infrastructure, strategic command posts and high-level officers. In response, Iran retaliated with ballistic missiles that reached deep into Tel Aviv, Haifa and other locations. These escalations reveal two deeply consequential trends: the normalization of direct inter-state strikes and the collapse of gray-zone warfare as a sustainable strategic tool.
The Middle East is now witnessing a phase in which Iran and Israel are directly targeting one another, with the war along the Tel Aviv-Tehran axis increasingly shaping the regional security landscape. At a time when Tehran finds itself historically weakened post October 2023, Tel Aviv leadership, seemingly seeking to capitalize on the moment with a "final blow," is driving the region into profound instability.
While the objectives of Israel’s June 13 attacks are quite clear, the timing and execution appear designed to undermine ongoing diplomatic processes and strategic calculations across the Middle East. First, Israel aimed to deal a crippling blow to Iran’s nuclear program, particularly at a moment when U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to office presented a somewhat permissive geopolitical environment. Israel saw an opportunity to act decisively before any new American diplomatic efforts could constrain it. Second, Israel sought to accelerate regime instability in Tehran by striking high-value command targets. This is not solely a counter-proliferation strategy; it is a coercive campaign aimed at long-term strategic change within the Iranian state apparatus.
By striking during Trump’s term, Israel is betting on presumably reduced American backlash. Through this approach, Israel seeks to cast itself as a victim, using the image of being under Iranian attack to legitimize its destruction of cities such as Gaza, Beirut, Damascus and Sanaa. It thereby aims to create the political and psychological groundwork for pursuing much sharper and more aggressive military objectives, while simultaneously mobilizing support and conducting persuasion campaigns.
What makes this moment unique is that Iran has responded directly. While still less lethal and precise than Israeli strikes, Iran’s missile retaliation targeted military and civilian zones in central Israel, a clear departure from its traditional reliance on Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) or other regional proxies.
Iran’s deterrence calculus has shifted. It now believes that overt retaliation is necessary to preserve its domestic and regional image. But it is also constrained. Israel’s moves follow the targeting of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) figures, nuclear scientists and command infrastructure. If Iran escalates further, it risks full-spectrum war; if it does not, it appears weak. Tehran walks a dangerous tightrope in this new direct engagement paradigm, and Israel’s strategy seems designed to push it to the edge.
The wider implication is that gray-zone warfare, a staple of Iranian strategy and Israeli countermeasures, is collapsing. The region is no longer operating in the realm of ambiguity. Instead, overt kinetic warfare is now the language of power projection. This shift is deeply unsettling for Gulf states. The main policy choice for the Gulf is appeasement, before it is too late.
Within this context, Gulf states that supported and embraced diplomatic engagement between the U.S. and Iran aim to keep dialogue channels with Tehran open to avoid becoming targets of Israeli aggression and prevent the U.S. from being drawn into a wider war. This strategic posture stems from the Gulf’s geographic position; situated, much like Iraq, directly between Iran and Israel and therefore highly exposed to the fallout of any regional escalation.
That balance has now fractured. With Israel engaging in open war, and with images of devastation in both Tel Aviv and Tehran circulating across social and traditional media, regional actors are retreating from public engagement with Israel. The normalization wave championed by the Abraham Accords is now gravely at risk of disintegration at the expense of Israel.
For regional governments, maintaining relations with Israel has shifted from being a diplomatic question to one of regime survival. No Gulf state can afford to be seen as Israel’s partner while Tel Aviv is engaged in decapitation strikes across the region. The gray zone once allowed plausible deniability; it enabled Arab states to remain quiet to Israel while containing domestic opposition. That zone is now gone. Direct war has turned Israel from a silent partner into a political liability. Normalization is no longer just unpopular; it is gravely dangerous. The strategic consensus that once enabled covert alliances is unraveling.
In short, Israel and Iran are no longer engaged in a proxy shadow war. They are redefining the regional order through direct, overt violence. This shift has de-tabooed state-on-state attacks and rendered the gray zone strategy obsolete. The consequences will be enduring: destabilization of normalization, disruption of deterrence logics, and a re-militarization of diplomacy. The Middle East is entering a new phase, less stable, more exposed and stripped of the ambiguity that once provided strategic space.
