Iran and Israel: Missiles Dancing in the Skies of the Middle East…The End of the Endless “War of Retaliation

The crisis facing the modern world

Countless missiles cut through the jet-black Middle Eastern skies as Israel’s air strikes on Iran, which began on June 13, quickly evolved into a “retaliatory war. On June 22, the U.S. dropped a “bunker buster,” an underground penetrator, from a B-2 stealth bomber and destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

What sparked the conflict in the first place? Hiroyuki Aoyama, a professor at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and an expert on Middle East affairs, explains.

Iran has been pressuring Israel through proxy forces such as the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad. However, the Assad regime has collapsed and Hezbollah has weakened. Israel may have seen this as an opportunity to deal a direct blow to Iran, its main target. Also, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being prosecuted for alleged corruption, and I believe he is trying to distract the public and preserve his own political life by continuing the conflict.

Iran immediately retaliated against Israel’s surprise attack by releasing hundreds of missiles and drones. The Israeli side reportedly suffered 33 deaths and more than 800 injuries, while the Iranian side reportedly suffered 430 deaths and more than 3,500 injuries. Even now, air raid alarms are still sounding in the cities of both sides, forcing citizens to evacuate to air-raid shelters.

At the root of the clashes is the long-standing suspicion that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Israel considers Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons to be a crisis of national survival and has been trying to prevent it by any means possible.’ It was also because of strong Israeli efforts that the then U.S. Trump administration resumed economic sanctions against Iran in 2006. Iran responded by accelerating its nuclear development again. The confrontation between the two countries had become decisive.

On April 19, President Trump issued an ultimatum to Iran to “sit down for negotiations within two weeks,” but the Iranians refused. The U.S. finally dropped a large penetrating bomb ″bunker buster″ against Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, which was built deep underground. This attack by the U.S. military “is a strong message to the world,” said Toshihiro Yamada, an international journalist.

The U.S. military’s attack “overturned the naive view that the U.S. would not do it,” and showed the world its firm determination to “do it when it has to do it. I think China and Russia were horrified by the demonstration of American military power with weapons such as the bunker buster, a symbol of American military might.

There is concern about retaliation on the part of Iran against the U.S., and if it takes unexpected forms, there is a risk that it could escalate into war.

If Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz or attacks Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, the U.S. military will have to concentrate its resources in the Middle East. This would leave the Pacific region thin on the ground, and there is a non-zero chance that China would take advantage of this opportunity to mess with Taiwan. The worst-case scenario is that it could lead to a world war.

European countries are also calling on the U.S. to exercise restraint, saying that it should not abandon its efforts at dialogue. Meanwhile, the aforementioned Professor Aoyama sounds an alarm about the crisis facing the modern world.

Until now, the United Nations has been a stopper, but now the permanent members of the UN Security Council can do as they please, and no one can stop them from using force according to their own logic,” he said.

On the 23rd, Iran and Israel announced a “ceasefire agreement,” but what is it? ……

From the July 11, 2025 issue of FRIDAY