The June episode among Iran, Israel, and the U.S. was the most precarious three-cornered danger since the Cuban Missile Crisis, unfolded and etched out on the sinister canvas of nuclear uncertainty and toppling in the region. This crisis broke out on 13 June, when Israel citing the immediate threat of an Iranian nuclear breakout, put into action Operation Rising Lion, sending some 200 aircraft into action against more than 100 targets in Iran, including Iranian nuclear plants in Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan, and command centres around Tehran. That attack was the end of sleeper and above-board tensions, such as air defences being neutralized inside Iran by a deep cover base of Mossad drones before the attacks.

No forceful attack will ever succeed without a plausible diplomatic precursor.

The escalation went high in a few hours. Iran retaliated with missiles and drones, firing about 200 attacks, about a sixth of the strength of the response the Tehran regime would have been likely to unleash, Israeli estimates found. These counterstrike attacks resulted to the death of 24 Israeli civilians, and above 240 were injured, with hospitals being burned, and residents shocked. The state media in Iran said that 430 people were killed and 3,500 others injured since the Israeli campaign started.

However, the human rights watchers said the figures are higher, and this is between 639 and 657 killed. Thousands of damages to infrastructure: the UN and NGOs warn that three hospitals, several ambulances, and important facilities for civilians have been destroyed, increasing the demands of the illegality of the actions.

In a calculated move, Israel is squeezing all options. The campaign was justified by the then Foreign Minister Gideon Saar at the UN Security Council as a need to face an existential and imminent threat from the Iranian nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Even senior Israeli leaders are twice as far with their rhetoric, with Defence Minister Israel Katz declaring Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei a direct target by saying that his position of leadership can be likened to that of a modern Hitler, but an Israeli plan to kill him has since been thwarted by the U.S.

Tehran has, in its turn, responded by saying it would not make any nuclear concessions when it is being bombarded. Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi made it clear that nuclear negotiations were not to resume until Israeli aggression stopped; in the past, Geneva and Istanbul tried, at diplomacy failed using such reasoning. The Supreme National Security Council threatened to attack Israeli nuclear facilities in response to provocation, as IRGC Aerospace commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh nonetheless darkly labeled the U.S. bases in the region as glass houses that can be attacked.

The world lives on the edge of nuclear uncertainty with lurking out of recognition bombs.

Washington has ended up being torn. President Trump has shown firm support for Israel and even investigated the possibility of the United States becoming engaged militarily, even launching missiles against nuclear installations in Iran, but generalizing that he is open to negotiation, which may take weeks or months to occur. According to him, a decision on whether the U.S. joins the war can take “up to two weeks” depending on whether people get their senses. Threats of nuclear escalation have been raised by Russia and China and European ministers are still in their constant flights between Tehran and Geneva.

The shadow of the nuclear looms in the background to this crisis- the unarticulated fear of its coming to a weapons-grade confrontation. Iran has proceeded to enrich uranium to 60 percent, amassing enough of it to make six to ten bombs or possibly up to 17 of them, according to IAEA and intelligence sources. Many people suspect that Israel has an impressive nuclear arsenal intact, which Israel neither denies nor affirms. No party will be completely able to certify the restraint of the other party. Even worse, IAEA access to Iran has been torn; material and facilities were misplaced by the inspectors. The world lives on the edge of nuclear uncertainty with lurking out of recognition bombs.

The triangular conflict has reflected three essential dynamics of the crisis management being Coercive Escalation, Hesitant Diplomacy, and Strategic Signaling. The coercive air assault and the undercover sabotage by Israel are designed to show power as an acquaintance. The missile retaliation and nuclear disobedience in Iran are to present a show of strength and conceal its weaknesses. The United States has vacillated: explicit threats and display of power, but constant back-channel communication and regional signaling. Oman and Qatar, as well as the Gulf states, have intervened, calling for calm and receiving mediators.

What has lacked, however, is a plausible de-escalation course. Meanwhile during a meeting of European diplomats in Geneva, in a scene straight out of a Monty Python script, a wretched set of intolerable preconditions is in place: Israel will not accept a cease-fire until Iran is brutalized by fierce bombardments; Iran is not ready to scuttle up those demands; the U.S. will not come on board unless the Israelis calm down. This stalemate provides an egregious image in contemporary nuclear shadowcraft: no forceful attack will ever succeed without a plausible diplomatic precursor. Hard power must be backed by equally strong carrots, and plausible neutrality is neither the case here.

In the meantime, civilians are making an unacceptable sacrifice. In Tehran, an unprecedented wave of departure has set in: more than 100.000 inhabitants there had left the capital for the secure provinces in the evacuation alarm by mid-June. Hospitals located in northern Iran are flooded; there is a disturbance of basic goods and services. The Iron Dome and early warning sirens in Israel have acted as a wall in preventing mass killing, but the number of victims, 24 people dead and 240 injured, is testimony to the defenselessness of the urban population. Concerned humanitarian agencies and the UN have been begging that restraint should be exercised in fear of a spill-over into the region.

Nuclear calculus requires Technical Restraint, Explicit Verification, and Mutual Restraint Systems, which are lacking now.

Creating too much fear acts against stability, and that is the paradox that remains open in the nuclear arena in terms of the crisis. Israel says it is in a hurry because Iran is nearing the breakout capacity; Iran says it is defensive deterrence. But even those measures increase the insecurity, even though they are supposed to offset it. Nuclear calculus requires Technical Restraint, Explicit Verification, and Mutual Restraint Systems, which are lacking now. Iran cannot enrich secretly, and Israel cannot continue striking without a fire alarm case.

Will this triangle be able to balance itself prior to the occurrence of the impending disaster? In the case of the U.S., an opportunity exists in bringing a nuclear-centric truce platform, on the one hand, both parties can hold off their military campaigns in parallel with the re-opening of nuclear negotiations under the control of the region, and the IAEA resumes. The Gulf intercessors should trade sequencing: ceasefire, subsequent gradual access to the assembly, and then diminishing nuclear revisions in anticipation of proportional statements of sanctions assuagement. Washington must not only be an ally of Israel, but also be the keeper of the nuclear embers.

To Israel, reserve is not the same thing as weakness. Having acknowledged the mainly civilian intentions of Iran and the threat of mass exodus, military necessity rather than symbolic decapitation attacks are necessary. Limits are nothing new to the secret operations of the Mossad. Restricting such operations or at least admitting to them in international forums can create confidence. At the same time, Israel should put any military action on display, a verifiable Iranian nuclear rollback.

Discipline is also pressing in Tehran. Shunning talks under shooting makes isolation even worse. Should the Iranians manage to interrupt the linkage between nuclear diplomacy and Israeli military action and provide negotiations on the condition of verifiable assurances, then they will stabilize the nature of the crisis. Weighty rhetoric, mass enrichment, and an attack on American bases do not prove either military superiority or moral ascendancy but introduce increased tension.

This crisis represents a hybrid nuclear confrontation: MD strike, undetectable sabotage, rocket threats, evacuation order, risky diplomacy between highs and lows, all falling short of existential collapse, under its dark cloud. It has precipitated a mass exodus from the metropolis of Tehran, heralded Israeli readiness to evacuate its wounded at home, and placed the U.S. in an existential stakes stance. Worst of all, it sends the message to the rest of humanity that nuclear instability is no longer back in the arsenals; it resides in living rooms and hospital corridors.

The issue is not winning but how to cope with the unimaginable.

As June 2025 drifts away, the world is at a juncture. Unless this triangular crisis gets a properly devised exit strategy, it can turn into metastasizing, bring in proxies, miscalculations, and even nuclear mismanagement, which is worse. However, having reasonable diplomacy built on the foundation of nuclear restraint, verification, and phased military disengagement, there is the means of unringing the bell. In the case of Tehran, Tel Aviv, and Washington, the issue is not winning but how to cope with the unimaginable.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.