Key Points and Summary: Israel’s massive air assault on Iran on June 13th, part of “Operation Rising Lion,” was a dramatic decapitation strike targeting top military and scientific leaders. Among those reportedly killed were the head of the IRGC, Hossein Salami, and the chief of its aerospace force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who oversaw Iran’s drone and missile programs.
-This attack is the culmination of a year-long Israeli campaign that has systematically eliminated an entire generation of Iranian-backed leaders, including the heads of Hamas (Ismail Haniyeh) and Hezbollah (Hassan Nasrallah).
-This strategy aims to reshape the Middle East by dismantling the command structure of Iran and its proxies.
Israel Hits Iran Hard
Israel’s surprise attack on Iran in the early morning hours of June 13 saw more than 200 aircraft strike more than 100 targets in Iran. Among the targets were key Iranian commanders, including the head of the Iranian army and also the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This type of decapitation strike is how Israel dismantled Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in Lebanon.
Between the summer of 2024—when Israel also killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh—and June 2025, the Middle East has seen an entire generation of Iranian-backed leaders eliminated.
This leadership turnover is important because there are no easy replacements for Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas leaders such as Haniyeh, the Sinwar brothers, and Saleh al-Arouri—the latter was the deputy leader of Hamas when he was killed in January 2024. In addition, Hezbollah not only lost Nasrallah, it also lost his successor, Hashem Safieddine, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on October 3, 2024.
Iranian Top Leadership
Iran has now watched its IRGC being culled by Israel. The IRGC is the real power behind the throne in Iran. It maintains its own army and militia, and it has a navy and air force. Israel not only eliminated the Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, but the IDF also killed Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the IRGC Air Force.
He was killed while at a command center along with other IRGC aerial unit commanders, the IDF said on June 13. The IRGC Air Force was behind Iran’s missile and drone program. When Iran claimed to have developed a “hypersonic missile” in the summer of 2023, Hajizadeh was there at the unveiling.
Drone Warfare in the Region and Beyond
Hajizadeh’s drone and missile program impacted not only the Middle East but also aided Russia in its drone war against Ukraine. Russia has used Iranian Shahed drones against Ukraine for three years. Iran’s long-range missiles were also exported to the Houthis in Yemen for use against Saudi Arabia.
They then developed them to target Israel, and they used Iranian drone components to attack countries in the region. Similarly, Iran’s drones and missiles aided Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
Israel on Target
By targeting so many key figures in Iran’s command structure and also eliminating leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel has re-shaped the Middle East in the last year. The pummeling that Hezbollah took in Israeli strikes in October and November also emboldened Syrian rebel groups and helped lead to the fall of the Assad regime. That regime, which ran Syria for fifty years, can also be seen to be another key player in the region swept aside in part by Israel’s aggressive strikes over the past year.
These Israeli moves didn’t happen in a vacuum. Hamas began the war on Israel on October 7, 2023. Iran encouraged its proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq to target Israel in the wake of the attack. As such, it was Iran that helped light the fuse that actually led to the Israeli strikes on June 13. Israel had spent years gathering intelligence on Iran and also its proxy, Hezbollah.
Israel invested less in dealing with the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq or groups such as the Houthis and Hamas. In fact, it was Israel’s underestimating of Hamas that enabled Hamas to carry out the October 7 attack. Having failed to predict the Hezbollah attack, Israel has doubled down on dealing with the other Iranian-backed proxies and targeting Iran itself.
It’s likely the Iranian regime will try to recover from the blows of June 13. Iranian state media IRNA says the regime has already appointed new commanders to replace the fallen. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Major General Seyyed Abdulrahim Mousavi as the new head of the Iranian Armed Forces.
In addition, Major General Mohammad Pakpour was named the near leader of the IRGC. These leaders may try to fill the shoes of those who came before, but it’s unlikely they can leave the mark that those like Salami and Hajizadeh left over the last decades.
The leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas have been dominant influences within their respective groups for more than a generation. Nasrallah, for instance, was a key leader since the 1990s. Haniyeh also shaped Hamas throughout the early 2000s. Hajizadeh and Salami were the same for the IRGC. By removing all these key leaders, Israel has reset the Middle East. This is because an entire generation of Iran’s commanders and key allies have been affected.
These leaders symbolized the rise of Iran and its proxies. They lived in a world that assumed Iran was going to change the world order by working with Russia and China and weakening the US influence on the region.
They thought that Israel could be isolated and that weakening Israel would also lead countries to see the US as weak because Israel is one of America’s key allies. However, Israel’s playbook in 2024 and 2025 has dramatically shifted things against Iran and its proxies.
Iranian influence in places like Iraq won’t disappear easily. However, it has suffered a setback across the region and is now at home.
About the Author: Seth Frantzman
Seth Frantzman is the author of The October 7 War: Israel’s Battle for Security in Gaza (2024) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is a Senior Middle East Analyst for The Jerusalem Post. Seth is now a National Security Journal Contributing Editor.
Iran War
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Doyle
June 13, 2025 at 2:16 pm
Israel will one day get itself decapitated.
That’s because the rest of the world (sans western nations) now sees Israel as a bona fide monster nation despite its relatively small size.
What happens if the west starts using Israel as a smashing club or a club used for smashing western foes.
The only way to counter that smashing club is a rods-from-god attack club. Swung (down) from space.
That’s the most ideal method to counter the west’s famed smashing club since Israel is a small-sized country.
Zhduny
June 13, 2025 at 10:11 pm
Israel’s June 13 2025 oahu-style style attack on Iran, demonstrates why the so-called no-first use policy, championed by some or a few nations, is totally stupid and obsolete.
What if, in the coming years, especially after 2028, somebody launches a oahu-style or israeli-style attack on someone’s nuclear power plants and attempts to kill or wipe out its top leadership, would that someone still refrain from using nukes.
The Israeli attack clearly shows that the no-first use policy ENCOURAGES criminal or offensive & aggressive behavior by genghisian powers or bigfootie powers.
Supposing Iran already has ballistic rockets equipped with north korea-made nukes, would Israel still have gone ahead with operation rising lion.
Nope, it would be reduced to sticking to ‘operation peaceful chicken’ instead.
The Israeli attack clearly shows that all those nations with a big bullseye on their heads need to deploy powerful nuclear arsenals straightaway into space.
Those space-based nukes represent a very most effective deterrent against any oahu-style attacks.
Especially after 2028.
doyle
June 14, 2025 at 6:36 am
Israel’s current heightened militarism is highly reminiscent of George w bush attack on Iraq and his subsequent global WOT.
Great strategy or strategies indeed.
The current 2025 militarism displayed by Israel is a golden opportunity for China to sell j-10 fighter jets to iran !
(Not the current version which is a piece of flying crap compared to adir.)
Chengdu aircraft corporation must design a whole new j-10 with side intakes to allow the incorporation of a massive large spanking new radar.
It’s said the new radar has 3x detection range than current AESA radars. Assuming it’s true.
But will china sell such an aircraft to iran.
China’s leader xi jinping is a super expert at playing the double or triple game, and thus unlikely to approve selling the jet to iran, for fear of harming his excellent excellent ties with trump and netanyahu.
So, to fight 2025 militarism, chinese people must first rise up and overthrow xi jinping and send him into exile in Canada or USA or Africa. Or rikers island.
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Swamplaw Yankee
June 15, 2025 at 4:53 am
The Bible speaks of GOG. Gog and Magog were released in 2014. The USA POTUS Obama unilaterally greenlighted the free, giveaway of the WEST’s geopolitical advantage in the Middle east by the free, no-cost giveaway of the Ukrainian Crimea to the prime vile cold war enemy: Putin.
That Obama-Biden covert unilateral betrayal of the WEST reshaped the Middle East and threw Israel to the GOG. As the Jewish faithful read the Biblical warning, GOG now, thanks to Obama, can slime thru the Azov Sea direct to the waiting arms of Erdogen. The shores of Israel are now accessible by GOG thru the vile MAGOG (Putin).
This free distribution of bombs in Iran is virtually nothing, a blip, compared to the POTUS Obama betrayal of the stability of the geopolitical balance of the Middle East. Obama unilateral greenlighting Putin’s “little green groomers” into Ukrainian families is a 11 year human trafficking nightmare that the USA owes 100%.
The real international show is MAGA POTUS Trump soft talking Putin and giving two week extension after two week extension so that peasant russian pedophiles can get their free, no-cost cuddle gift from Trump.
MAGA Trump needs to terminate the Obama moral turpitude with a demand ot Putin to immediately transfer $10,000,000 in gold bullion to each and every Ukrainian human trafficking victim as compensation and reparation damages.
Trump needs to demand Putin do this first, immediately, before any slithering deflections of his favourite code words for sex trade permission: Peace and cease fire. This scam code wording, Peace and cease fire, is just Trump insincere blabber to kill time! Trump adds two weeks of vicious peasant russian cultural genocide to hundreds of thousands of little Ukrainian Children so glibly, pretending that in his first four years as POTUS the MAGA Trump freed no a single Ukrainian child from Putin’s muscovite orcs cultural genocide.
Talk up $10,000,000 gold bullion for each victim! Or, maybe, you think, Trump, deep inside, does not want to make the release of every stolen child his POTUS priority? -30-
Doyle-2
June 15, 2025 at 5:24 am
The june 2025 attacks on iran are like hitler’s attacks on jews, first destroy their careers, their jobs, their homes and business, and then their lives.
After attacking iranian top honchos and their homes, iranian air bases, nuclear sites, missile sites and now their energy complexes.
That has caused global crude oil prices to spike 9% benefitting oil companies, oil traders, oil speculators, deep state reps, hedge funnd managers, reuters and russian war coffers. And putin.
Thanks, trump. Thanks, netanyahu.