In brief
- What would it take to end the war in the Middle East? SBS news speaks to the experts
- Experts explain that regime change is neither easy nor certain in Iran.
As the War in the Middle East expands and rhetoric from the US and Iran continues to be antagonistic, the world is speculating about how long this will go on for and what the wider implications will be.
Azerbaijan on Friday became the latest country drawn in, as it accused Iran of firing drones at its territory and ordered its southern airspace closed for 12 hours. Iran, which has a significant Azeri minority, denied it had targeted its neighbour, but the episode underlined how rapidly the war has spread since the surprise US and Israeli airstrikes that killed Khamenei on Saturday.
Cyprus and Turkey have both been targeted. European nations have pledged to deploy ships to the eastern Mediterranean and hostilities have been seen as far afield as waters off Sri Lanka, where a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship on Tuesday, killing 80 crew members.
In Iran, at least 1,230 people have been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including 175 schoolgirls and staff killed at a primary school in Minab in the country's south on the first day of the war. Another 77 have been killed in Lebanon, its Health Ministry says. Thousands fled southern Beirut on Thursday after Israel warned residents to leave.
Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation could take "some time", while Trump, who had initially suggested the war could last four to five weeks, said it could continue for longer.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Aragchi said his message to Trump is that the US plan to achieve a "clean, rapid victory" had failed, in an interview with CBS News.
"There is no way that they can win this war. As long as it takes, we resist," he said. "So they better stop this war and stop killing our people."
Experts say it's hard to predict what exactly would end the war, but multiple factors, from the regime in Iran, to international perceptions, would predict the outcome.
Dara Conduit, a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne and Iran researcher, said it was hard to gauge when the US and Israel would cease bombardment, because their goals were scattered.
"This war is set to continue for as long as the current arrangements stay in place," she said.
"This is a war that was started by the United States and Israel that appears to have not had a plan. There was (talk of) regime change, but it was never clear how that was going to happen."
US-Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Sunday, and Trump urged Iranians to "take back their destiny", on Wednesday.
His replacement is yet to be chosen, and Trump says he wants a say in the selection.
Conduit explained regime change in Iran was "a really complicated endeavour", and would take a lot more than simply assassinating the supreme leader.
"The Iranian regime is well-institutionalised across the state. It's not hollowed out, like in some of the other countries where we've seen regime change in recent years.
"Right now, I can't see any chance of a ceasefire because the warring parties are just too far apart, and there is no middle ground between their stated goals right now," she said.
Could Trump bow to internal pressure?
Experts who spoke to SBS News thought it was likely Trump would continue the bombardment until something happened that would allow him to claim victory.
Associate Professor of American politics and foreign policy at the University of Sydney, David Smith, said that Trump's widely perceived goal of regime change, where the Iranian people would "rise up" to overthrow the government, was unlikely.
"I think [the war] will end when Trump reaches a point where he thinks that he can declare victory," he told SBS News.
Rather than regime change, "Trump has talked instead about the possibility that someone else within the regime will be more cooperative with the United States."
In an Oval Office appearance on Tuesday, Trump hinted he would like to see a similar result to the January 3 US intervention in Venezuela, when then-President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were abducted and charged, and Maduro's vice president Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as interim leader.
"Venezuela was so incredible because we did the attack, and we kept the government totally intact. And we have Delcy, who’s been very good," Trump said.
Wesley Widmaier, international relations professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, pointed to the failure of previous US political interventions in the region.
"You don't need to be a professor to know that regime change generally hasn't gone well," he told SBS News.
"In 1953, the CIA overthrew a democratically elected Iranian government, and it was widely seen as a success.
"But it didn't bring stability. It felt effective at the time. In terms of the lessons of history, I suspect this is not going to work out well either."
Smith said he thought that with the US midterms around the corner, Trump would want to withdraw from the Middle East.
"If the new Iranian leadership makes any moves at all towards a more cooperative position, Trump would use that as a chance to declare victory and end the conflict because this [war] is not very popular with the American people," he told SBS News.
"And the longer it goes on, the more likely there is to be an economic impact, which could really damage Republicans at the election."
But, Smith said, if the new leadership would not make itself amenable to the US, Trump would seek a different victory, "whether that's an assertion that they've destroyed Iran's Navy or ballistic missile capacity or nuclear capacity, or whatever."
Could Trump bow to international pressure?
Associate Professor Srinjoy Bose is an expert in the Middle East and International Relations at UNSW. He said the international community needed to hold the US and Israel to account.
"They'll stop bombing Iran if they achieve their immediate goals and objectives," he told SBS News.
"It is unclear, though, what they are, other than regime change, number one, and to degrade Iran's military capability and capacity.
"What will it take for them to stop bombing Iran, other than achieving their goals, is for the international community to stand up against what is increasingly rogue state behaviour."
But, Bose said, there seemed to be little appetite for the international community to speak out. He said large blocks of the international community lacked the political will or capacity to intervene, while others were outright supportive of the Israeli and American attacks.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the first world leader to support the US-Israeli strikes on the weekend, had initially expressed concern about "regional escalation".
On Thursday, as he stood side-by-side with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, there was a shift, as Albanese appeared to call for broader "de-escalation" of the conflict.
"I think the world wants to see a de-escalation, and wants to see Iran cease to spread the destinations of its attacks," he told reporters in Canberra.
Peace and conflict researcher and futurist Shadi Rouhshahbaz considered regime change in Iran a possible outcome, one she labelled "The Imploding Fortress".
"Iran could undergo a regime collapse and transition into another mode of governance that would reduce this war to casualties of domestic affairs soon. That would repaint the image of the West — Israel, US, UK, et cetera — as legitimately above the law, able to export democracy or regime change."
Alternatively, this could lead to a re-balancing of power toward the Islamic Republic, with the formation of a military hegemony "consolidating power to fight back atrociously — suppressing dissent inside and demonstrating endurance and erosion outwardly."
Another option was "The endless quagmire", spelling long-term regional destabilisation and war, like in Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq, which would cause locals and the global economy to pay humongous prices.
Conduit said long-term impacts of a protracted conflict would see the degradation of the relationship between the Gulf states and the United States.
"I think there is significant frustration within the Gulf states that have hosted US military facilities and assets for decades, and that has now meant that they have come under direct attack from Iran.
"The United States has gone into this conflict, even though these states were very against military intervention in Iran, and it's clear that the United States has decided to favour its partnership with Israel over its long-standing partnership with the Gulf states."
She said the US had proved it would act to the detriment of its partner states, which would do "long-term, detrimental damage" to the country's international relationships.
Could any parties run out of weapons?
Bose said he didn't believe Iran's weapons stockpile would withstand the onslaught for long.
"If the accounts of the various Gulf states are accurate as to the number of missile and drone attacks that have taken place, they are rapidly depleting their stockpiles.
"So Iran will run out of opportunity to carry out retaliatory attacks very soon."
Conduit said the twelve-day war in June 2025 indicated the limitations of Iran and Israel's munitions.
"By the end, both were running out.
"We know that they've restocked since then, and experts were quite surprised at how quickly it was able to rebuild its arsenal."
Currently, with the US military might behind it, Israel may not face as many limitations as Iran.
But, Conduit stressed, Israel is currently involved in invading parts of Lebanon, effectively opening up another front in its war.
Could Iran's regime transform?
Bose said the next thing he predicted was a regime transformation, which could be fuelled by rejection from Iran's neighbours in the Arabian Gulf, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
"I think the Gulf states that have been targeted by Iranian strikes will now turn against the current Iranian regime more forcefully and vociferously. I think they will also calculate that the current Iranian regime needs to go, to preserve their own security."
"One could reasonably argue that the regime's days are numbered," he said because of internal and external pressure from its citizens.
More than 50,000 Iranians were arrested during protests that broke out across the country in January, according to the United States-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
At least 7,000 people were killed during the protests, and HRANA is currently investigating another 11,700 suspected deaths. Iranian authorities have disputed these figures and say the number of casualties is just over 3,000, including security forces personnel.
"The Iranian populace has endured decades worth of hardship and suffering, whether it's oppressive authoritarian politics, which have denied them human rights, or severe economic downturn, largely in part due to sanctions imposed by the Americans and the international community. So they have already reached breaking point — that's why they have been protesting since 2019, and even before," Bose said
"I fear, as the Iranian regime continues to be backed into a corner by the Americans and Israelis, they will lash out against their own citizens. So more hardship awaits Iranians."
Conduit said Iranians had been left out of the conversation.
"The Iranian people are the ultimate victims of this. It's quite clear that the Iranian people have never been part of the US administration's goals, and they're the ones that are going to pay the price."
- With additional reporting by Reuters
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