Italian
On Friday, the Middle East woke up to the roar of 200 Israeli jets that, in an unprecedented military operation, hit nuclear sites, military infrastructure, and Iranian command centers
IRAN. It was a planned, surgical, and high-risk show of force. Israel used about 60% of its combat aircraft, including American-made F-35s, F-15s, and F-16s, in an attack that is rewriting the rules of engagement in an already dangerously unstable region.
If Israel’s stated intent is to prevent the Iranian nuclear threat, the scope of this action goes well beyond the military plan. It is a geopolitical shock, an open challenge that risks triggering a chain of reactions that are difficult to control. Because in the language of regional security, an attack of this magnitude is never an endpoint. It is almost always the beginning of something larger.
The preventive war shaking the region
Israel has long made it known that it would never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. It has reiterated this with actions. But while the doctrine of preemptive war may seem justifiable from a strategic point of view, it is never so from the perspective of international law, nor even on a humanitarian level.
Tehran, predictably, has already responded with threats and actions: drones launched towards Israeli territories, third countries involved, closed skies, embassies evacuated. Jordan has been forced to shoot down drones and missiles that entered its airspace by mistake or by calculation. Diplomatic offices around the world are mobilizing, markets are shaking, diplomacy is struggling to contain a possible total escalation.
Who really loses in this conflict
The real victims, as always, are at risk of being civilians. Iranians, Israelis, Lebanese, Syrians. But also those people in the Middle East who have been living among fragile truces and chronic conflicts for decades. The blow struck by Israel is not just a military attack: it is a message to Tehran, to Hezbollah, and perhaps also to Washington. But, as always, the populations will pay the price of instability.
And the West? The United States rush to clarify that they were not involved, that the priority is the protection of their personnel in the Middle East. Necessary words, but insufficient. Because if Israel was able to deploy hundreds of American fighters so quickly, it is evident that this conflict involves — directly or indirectly — the great powers.
Now it’s time for a diplomacy of courage
We need real diplomacy, not just statements. We need an international front capable of defusing the spiral of retaliation. We need the United Nations, China, the European Union, moderate Arab states, and the United States themselves to exert pressure on both sides to stop a conflict that no one can afford.
Israel has struck. Iran will respond. But it is not written that everything must spiral out of control. It is time for the international community to abandon timidity and take action. Because if a new phase of the conflict has opened today, it is still possible to choose what form we will give it: total war or disarmament diplomacy.
Today the Middle East is holding its breath. And the world with it.
