Alastair Crooke is summarizing the first days of USrael's war on Iran:
The situation in the broadest terms is that the attempt by Israel and allied Intelligence services to launch a surprise ‘synergistic psychic-shock’ to the Iranian state through simultaneous muti-domain decapitations, assassinations of scientists, disruption of Air Defence systems and the insertion of drone saboteur teams, failed.
It failed in its expected outcome — that of paralysing and panicking the Iranian leadership and even creating the space for ‘the hoped for’ regime-change vibe to take hold. (It never happened. Iranians buried political differences and rallied to national sovereignty).
Rather, despite the loss of eight military line commanders, the system quickly re-booted itself: the Air Defence systems were restored within 8 hours, and Iran retaliated with missile attacks on Israel.
The point here was that – other than superficial surface damage – there was no setback made to Iran’s nuclear programme. And to be clear, that was never the Israeli aim. They simply do not have the ability to destroy infrastructure buried 800 metres into mountains. They (with their allies — the US and European States) rather hope for ‘regime change’.
[…]
So, the situation has inverted from that of 13 June. Israel now is in big trouble: Its Air Defences are performing badly and it is Israel sustaining (verified) substantive damage to key assets. Basically, every politician in Israel now is begging the US to enter the war for them.
Israeli Minister & Cabinet member, Gila Gamliel: “We categorically demand that the United States join the war against Iran”.
While it first looked yesterday as if Trump may join the war with more overt action that changed after a meeting with his national security council.
As Larry Johnson observes:
Trump continued his intemperate postings on Truth Social until he convened a meeting of his National Security Council in Washington, DC this afternoon.
Something happened in that meeting to derail what seemed to be an inevitable collision with Iran because Trump’s subsequent social media posts only focused on mundane domestic matters, such as erecting two new flag poles on the White House grounds. I have seen one news item claiming that Trump is giving Iran 24 hours to surrender. That ain’t going to happen.
Ayatollah Khamenei confirms that this "ain't going to happen":
Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir – 11:18 UTC · Jun 18, 2025
The US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him.
They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats.
Since the first day of the war there have been waves of attacks by Israeli forces against Iran each followed by a wave of missile attacks by Iranian forces. Neither side has sufficient air defenses to prevent all hits. Neither side has air supremacy over the territory of the other country.
Iran has intercepted long range drones from Israel. It claims to have shot down several F-35 airplanes but has shown no proof for that. Israel has made claims of having hit Iranian missile launchers. But the video evidence of such strikes is poor and many hits seem to have been on decoys.
The tit for tat strike exchange is likely to continue for a while. Iran has several thousand of missiles. It is firing a mix of old ones, which can be intercepted, with a number of new ones which can't. It has changed its tactic from one big strike per day to multiple strikes per day with smaller numbers.
Israel's air defense seems prone to hit itself. The number of interceptors it is using is limited the Wall Street journal says (archived). It may be less than two weeks before those run out.
Israel claims to have launched some 800 sorties against Iran with which it hit 1,000 targets. It also claims that Iran has fired 400 missiles and 1,000 drones of which only 20 missiles reached their targets while only 200 drones reached Israel but did not hit anywhere. I can assure you that none of those numbers is true.
Both sides censor the results of strikes. From what is known both appear to have taken some significant damage.
But Iran is the much bigger country. It has more than ten times the people than Israel. Its area is 1.5 million square kilometer versus Israel's 21,000 square kilometer. Iran is mostly self sufficient. It has a widely dispersed industry and a well trained work force which can be switched from civil to military production. Israel depends on imports which can be interrupted. Its industry is small and highly concentrated in a few areas.
There is no doubt that Iran would win in a (long) war of attrition.
That is why Israel needs the U.S. to jump in.
I still have doubt that Trump, despite his rhetoric, is willing to do so. The risk is high and the outcome uncertain. Even if U.S. bombers manage to demolish Iran's centrifuges, buried below mountains, Iran will be able to reconstitute its nuclear program within a few months.
His intelligence people will tell him that this threat is not empty:
Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir – 11:38 UTC · Jun 18, 2025
The US entering in this matter [war] is 100% to its own detriment. The damage it will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter.
At the UN Security Council Russia and China have taken strong positions against Israel's war of aggression. Neither can be expected to give overt support to Iran – at least not yet. The content of a few transport planes from China arriving in Iran will not change the big picture.