A war of many firsts: Israel and Iran cross uncharted thresholds

IN the long and checkered history of Middle Eastern geopolitics, few rivalries have been as enduring and combustible as the one between Israel and Iran. But the latest military exchange between the two powers—triggered by the events of June 2025—has ushered in an altogether new era of confrontation. This is not merely another chapter in their clandestine war; it is a strategic rupture marked by a string of unprecedented developments. For the first time in modern history, Israel and Iran have directly confronted each other in open military exchanges without the buffer of diplomatic intermediaries, especially the United States.

AI Brief

Israel and Iran are openly exchanging missile and drone strikes, breaking past covert-war norms and marking a major escalation.
The US under Trump is staying out, creating a power vacuum while Israel strikes Iran amid ongoing nuclear talks.
Domestic political pressures in both countries are fueling the conflict, turning it into a reckless and unprecedented war.

First: A War Fought in Real Time

Unlike the two previous confrontations—most notably the shadow wars involving assassinations and cyberattacks—the current conflagration features direct missile and drone strikes launched within hours of provocation. This escalation signals the erosion of previously maintained “rules of engagement,” where both parties operated within the grey zones of covert war. Tehran and Tel Aviv are now actively engaged in a real-time, tit-for-tat exchange. No longer mediated through proxies like Hezbollah or executed through shadowy sabotage, both capitals have removed their gloves.

In just 18 months, what was once an intelligence-based cold conflict has turned hot. Iran’s drone strikes reached northern Israel with alarming precision, and Israel's retaliatory raids into Iranian territory have struck infrastructure targets—including, for the first time, nuclear-related sites. This is a war fought on equal footing in speed, technology, and audacity.

Second: Absence of the American Umbrella

For the first time in decades, the United States has chosen to remain on the sidelines. In the past, the specter of escalation drew Washington into the fray—if not militarily, then at least diplomatically. Under the Biden and Obama administrations, any sign of a kinetic exchange would have triggered shuttle diplomacy. Now, under President Donald Trump’s second term, there is deafening silence. His administration seems to have been lulled into a false sense of strategic completion, believing that Israel’s recent strikes have decapitated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

This miscalculation, driven by overconfidence in Israeli operational success and a myopic view of Middle Eastern complexity, has allowed the situation to spiral. Trump, who once castigated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for resisting negotiations with Russia, now appears unconcerned about a regional war—so long as it does not directly implicate American troops. But this strategic absence, deliberate or otherwise, creates a dangerous vacuum.

Third: Bombing During Nuclear Diplomacy

Israel’s attack marks the first time a sovereign state has struck another while the latter was in the midst of official nuclear negotiations with the United States. The U.S.–Iran dialogue, scheduled to resume in Oman on June 15, 2025, was a rare opportunity for diplomacy amid the fractured nuclear landscape. While those negotiations have not been formally cancelled, they are now politically radioactive.

No state has dared to upend diplomatic efforts of this magnitude with such brazenness before. In 1981, when Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor, or in 2007 when it struck Syria’s nuclear facility in Deir ez-Zor, the targets were not in active talks with Washington. Iran is—and the talks were progressing, albeit cautiously. Israel’s timing thus suggests a deliberate attempt to scuttle diplomacy and enforce its own red lines through force, not dialogue.

Fourth: First Strikes on Iranian Nuclear Facilities—But Only Above Ground

Another major first: this is the initial overt Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure. However, all the strikes have been on above-ground installations—administrative centers, logistics nodes, and surface-level buildings. Iran's core enrichment facilities, buried at least 80 meters beneath layers of reinforced concrete and granite, remain untouched.

This highlights a severe limitation in Israel’s military capability. Even with bunker-busting munitions, the scale and depth of Iran’s Fordow and Natanz sites make a clean strike highly improbable. Thus, Israel’s latest operation—while dramatic—achieves little in halting Iran’s nuclear momentum. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran is now enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity. This is weapons-grade material, and Tehran has accumulated enough to assemble multiple nuclear warheads, if it so decides.

Fifth: Politically Engineered for Domestic Survival

Yet another sobering first: this is the first modern military confrontation between Israel and Iran driven as much by internal political desperation as by strategic logic. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—under immense pressure from corruption charges, coalition instability, and public protests—appears to have launched this campaign to resurrect his political relevance. Meanwhile, the leadership in Tehran, increasingly beleaguered by economic sanctions and rising discontent across ethnic provinces, has welcomed the war narrative to suppress reformist voices.

The result is a war waged without civilizational restraint. Unlike past confrontations couched in ideological narratives or guided by strategic ambiguity, this conflict is blunt, raw, and unmasked. No sacred dates—such as Friday, a day of prayer in the Islamic world—are spared. No red lines are honored. It is a clash devoid of any civilizational overlay. What remains is a reckless game of escalation, with each side calculating that the destruction of the other may buy time for regime consolidation. It is a zero-sum gamble bereft of diplomatic imagination.

Uncharted Terrain

What we are witnessing, then, is not a repeat of past wars but the birth of a new paradigm. It is a war of "firsts"—first-time technologies, first-time direct confrontations, first-time strategic vacuums, first-time interferences in diplomacy, and first-time strikes on nuclear assets amid active negotiations.

The absence of American mediation, combined with Israel’s assumption of unchecked preemption, reveals a dangerous recalibration of power. For Iran, the attacks may solidify hardline positions while jeopardizing internal calls for reform. For the region, especially in the Gulf and Southeast Asia, where states like Malaysia and Indonesia have called for peace and de-escalation, the conflict is a troubling reminder that deterrence has failed.

Diplomacy is increasingly sidelined by drone warfare and algorithmic targeting. As the world hurtles into a more volatile strategic age, we must ask: how many “firsts” must we endure before we remember the value of negotiation, patience, and restraint?

History may not repeat itself—but it often rhymes. The question now is whether we are listening.

Phar Kim Beng, PhD, is Professor of ASEAN Studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia and Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He was formerly Head Teaching Fellow at Harvard University. ** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.