It was supposed to be the headquarters for Iran’s response in the event of an Israeli-American attack. Buried dozens of meters beneath central Tehran, the bunker was struck on the morning of Saturday, February 28, in the opening salvos of the war, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and many senior regime officials. When Israeli intelligence then learned that the command center was still operating, they sent fighter jets again to bomb it three more times. On the night of Thursday, March 5 to Friday, March 6, 50 aircraft dropped about 100 bombs.

This case illustrates the approach taken to disarm the Iranian regime and target its leaders. For the past seven days, Israel and the United States, working in close coordination, have relentlessly bombarded military centers, barracks, ports and ships. “The goal is to break the enemy’s backbone and to break each vertebra of that spine separately,” an Israeli analyst said on Friday during a seminar held by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) think tank.

Just one week into the war against Iran, the Middle East has been shaken in every sense. Israel and the US can already claim several spectacular successes: near-total control of Iranian airspace, the reported destruction of 60% of missile launchers, the elimination of numerous political and military leaders, the disappearance of 30 Iranian ships and the (unverifiable) destruction of secret nuclear facilities near Tehran. All this has been achieved without any major losses on their side, apart from six American soldiers killed in Kuwait.

Second phase

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