According to the officials, the war was prompted above all by two developments. The first was Iran’s effort to rebuild and deepen parts of its nuclear infrastructure after damage caused by United States (US) and Israeli strikes in 2025. Officials said Iran still holds substantial stockpiles of 60.0% enriched uranium that could, in their assessment, be accelerated to weapons grade within a matter of weeks, meaning that the Islamic Iranian regime could in theory possess a nuclear weapon very soon. The second was the acceleration of Iran’s ballistic missile programme, which they said would soon reach a stage where, when combined with the nuclear threat, it would pose an existential danger not only to Israel but also to other Gulf states.

Israeli officials said the military campaign has been weighted heavily towards degrading that missile threat. They said 62.0% of all strikes carried out so far have been directed against the ballistic missile programme, while 70.0% of Iran’s ballistic missile launch systems have been neutralised.

In response to a question from The Common Sense, officials said the rate of missile launches against Israel and the Gulf states has reduced markedly. They explained that once air superiority had been established, Iranian forces on the ground had become increasingly reluctant to launch, because the turnaround time for identifying and striking launch positions had shortened significantly.

In effect, they suggested, the ability to punish launch activity quickly has begun to suppress further launches.

Asked by The Common Sense about the status of Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Supreme Leader of Iran, officials said they were not in a position to comment.

They added, however, that cracks were beginning to appear in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) command and control infrastructure. The inference from the briefing was that command cohesion may be weakening and that further breakdowns inside the system could follow if current pressure is maintained. Officials also said proxy networks linked to the IRGC had been significantly degraded.

From the Israeli perspective, officials said, the overriding objective of the war is to eradicate the nuclear threat at its source. The aim is not simply to delay Iran’s programme for a short period, but to ensure that Israel does not have to return repeatedly in future years to strike the same targets again.

Most serious Western analysts agree with the assessment that Iran’s nuclear programme posed an existential threat not only to Israel but also to its Gulf neighbours and beyond them to the broader Western liberal order.

The message from the briefing was that Israel believes progress has been made, especially against Iran’s missile capacity, but that the wider success of the campaign will ultimately be judged by whether the nuclear threat is removed in a lasting way.