Iran After the Twelve-Day War: Domestic Transformation and Shifting Regional Alignments

This workshop is co-sponsored with the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies

Workshop Concept:

This workshop aims to study the domestic and international repercussions of the Twelve-Day War on Iran, examining how the conflict reshaped the state’s institutions, political legitimacy, and relations with Iranian society. It also investigates Iran’s evolving foreign and security policies, its role in regional dynamics, and the future of its alliances in the aftermath of the war.

By all accounts, Israel’s military attack on Iran on June 13, 2025, and the twelve days of war that ensued, represent a watershed moment in the life of the Islamic Republic. Soon after the attacks started, it became clear that Israeli strategic objectives extended far beyond dismantling Iran’s nuclear program and degrading its military capabilities. Israel’s ultimate goals included sparking mass uprisings across the country, encouraging Iran’s non-Persian ethnic communities to demand autonomy, and, by targeting senior Iranian leaders, to ultimately effect regime change in Tehran.

Although Israel was unable to realize most of its key objectives, the Twelve-Day War did, nonetheless, have a significant impact on the modus operandi of the Islamic Republic state and its larger relations with Iranian society. This workshop explores the manifold domestic and international consequences of the war on the Iranian state, including its conduct, institutional strength, political legitimacy or lack thereof, its security and foreign policies in relation to both regional and extra-regional actors, and its combat readiness and the strength or weaknesses of its armed forces.

The Twelve-Dar War unfolded against the backdrop of a region plagued by various conflicts resulting from Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza beginning in October 2023. The Israeli war on Gaza has triggered a chain of conflicts across the region, with Iran positioned at the center of a series of highly consequential developments. As a result of the growing Israeli threat, Tehran’s foreign and security policies have had to adapt to shifting regional dynamics. Iran’s network of non-state alliances has been heavily impacted by Israeli actions in Palestine, Lebanon and beyond. Iran’s current geo-political posture emerges in a context in which the Assad dynasty has been ousted in Syria, and Hezbollah—a key ally of Tehran and a central player in the “Axis of Resistance”—appears to have been seriously weakened as a military force.

The workshop examines the impact of the Twelve-Day War on the various aspects of Iranian politics domestically and international. Iran’s evolving regional position in light of Israel’s war on Gaza, Iranian relations with regional non-state actors, the changing position of the Axis of Resistance, Iran’s relations with the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the impact of regional developments on Iran’s domestic politics, and the different dimensions of the relationship between Iran’s post-war state with Iranian society are among the main topics that will be discussed in the workshop.

Contributors are invited to present critical insights into a variety of related topics, some of which may include the following:

• The efficacy of key state institutions in light of the war with Israel
• The composition, status, objectives, and prospects of the Iranian opposition groups based outside of the country
• Factional alignments and elite rotation within the Islamic Republic
• The state’s (in)ability to deliver basic services in urban areas
• Iran’s relations with the “Axis of Resistance”
• Iran’s combat readiness after the war with Israel
• The expansion and contraction of political space in Iran following the war with Israel
• Politics and the leadership of the Revolutionary Guard in the post-war era
• The future of Iran’s nuclear program after the US attack on its nuclear facilities
• Iran’s relations with the EU and the US after the war with Israel
• Social space and the state in post-war Iran
• A crisis of production: industrial output, economic stagnation, and the currency