Middle East 2025: Iran's war, repression, and unknown future

Over the past year of 2025, Iranians have been living under the prolonged shadow of war, sanctions and repression. Six months after the 12-day war back in June, Israel threatened that it could strike Iran again.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday at an event that Israel was watching Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran as they rearm and would act if necessary.

"We are not looking for confrontations, but our eyes are open to any possible danger," Netanyahu said, before traveling to America for a year-end meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.

According to an Israeli official, the two leaders would meet and assess Iran's progress on ballistic missiles and the prospect of further military actions.

The 12-day war

In the early hours of June 13, Israel launched a surprise attack against Iran's military and nuclear facilities, citing growing threat of Iran's nuclear program.

Top military figures, including Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Bagheri and Chief Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Hossein Salami, and prominent nuclear scientists were reportedly killed.

Later, the U.S. weighed in. On June 22, American army forces carried out coordinated strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities – Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan – using bunker-buster munitions and submarine‑launched missiles.

This marked the first U.S. offensive against Iranian territory in decades, which, according to Washington, had wiped out Iran's nuclear program. Iranian forces fired missiles, striking America's Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, in retaliation.

The conflict ended with a U.S. and Qatari-mediated ceasefire, with both Israel and Iran claiming victory. Israel also warned Iran that any attempt to rebuild either its nuclear or missile program would invite an attack.

Read more:

Timeline: 12 days of Israel-Iran conflict

Deadlock over nuclear talks

The United States and Iran held five rounds of nuclear talks prior to the 12-day war, with Tehran hoping to resolve the nuclear issue in exchange for sanction relief through political and diplomatic means.

Yet the sudden strike in June snapped the negotiations back to the past. The negotiations halted immediately, as Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected any direct nuclear negotiations with the U.S.

Read more:

Israel-Iran Ceasefire: Iranian FM: Ceasefire with Israel is fragile, but Iran does not want war

On Tuesday, at a United Nations Security Council meeting, the U.S. and Iran sparred over conditions for reviving nuclear talks.

Iran rejects Washington's terms – notably over uranium enrichment on Iranian soil – a practice the West wants eliminated to minimize the risk of weaponization, but which Tehran has firmly rejected.

"We have been clear, however, about certain expectations for any arrangement. Foremost, there can be no enrichment inside of Iran, and that remains our principle," Trump's deputy Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus told the UNSC.

Iran stated its commitment to core principles of the 2015 nuclear deal, which prevents the Islamic country from developing nuclear weapons, and "genuine negotiations."

"We appreciate any fair and meaningful negotiation, but insisting on zero enrichment policy, it is contrary to our rights as a member of the NPT, and it means that they are not pursuing the fair negotiation," Iran's UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told the meeting, referring to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Unknown 2026

Attacking Iran over its ballistic missiles would mark a significant tightening of Israel's red lines toward the country. 

Drawing the line at missiles makes another war significantly more likely in the coming year, Danny Citrinowicz told The Wall Street Journal. Citrinowicz is the former head of the Iran branch for Israeli military intelligence and now a senior Iran researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies.

Iran has a deep hole to climb out of, after multiple rounds of strikes from Israel and the U.S., and yet the country is still on its way to restoring its missile program – a move Tehran believes is "non-negotiable" to defend its sovereignty.

Iran's defense capabilities were designed to deter potential aggressors and were in no way negotiable or subject to bargaining, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said at a weekly briefing on Monday.

Amid sky-high inflation, water and energy shortages and dimming prospects for a deal with the U.S., Iran's future remains gloomy, and the president seems clueless about what's next.

"From the first day we came, catastrophes are raining down, and it hasn't stopped," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told officials in a recent meeting. He has just completed his first year in office.

"You shouldn't think that the president can make miracles happen."

Supervisor: Mu Li

Producers: Li Chao, Li Zhao

Reporters: Li Jiannan

Intern editors: Wang Yiran, Ni Bing