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The recent attack by Israel and the US on parts of Iran’s nuclear project has already been dubbed by some commentators as the Twelve Day War.

However, that cut-off time was chosen by Tehran to back a claim that Iran managed to fight twice as long as Arab states led by Egypt did in the Six Days War of 1967.

In fact, with varying degrees of intensity and a diversity of locations, this war started more than four decades ago when the new revolutionary authorities raided the Israeli diplomatic mission in Tehran and handed it over to PLO leader Yasser Arafat on a visit as special guest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. A few months later, the new revolutionary regime repeated the exercise by raiding the US Embassy and seizing its diplomats as hostages.

Under international law, a nation’s diplomatic mission or embassy is part of its sovereign territory, and an armed attack on it regarded as causus belli (a cause of war). A year later, the US retaliated when President Jimmy Carter ordered a badly planned violation of Iranian territory, confirming the existence of a state of war between the two countries.

Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq provided a parenthesis in which both Israel and the US shipped arms and intelligence to Tehran against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad.

The war with Israel was resumed when Tehran started creating proxy mini-armies in Lebanon and to fish for potential mercenaries among various Palestinian armed groups.

By the early 1980s, Tehran, allied with the Assad regime in Damascus, had turned Lebanon into a battleground against the US and Israel.

In the 2000’s, Tehran started a low intensity war against US forces in Iraq while through proxies pursuing a war of attrition against Israel, wars that continue to this day.

All that needs to be re-stated to show that the recent flare-up has deeper reason than a concern about Iran building a nuclear arsenal, something which all directors general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from Hans Blix to Muhammad Al-Baradei and Rafael Grossi have repeatedly said they cannot confirm.

To be sure, the famous “one percent in risk” theory requires taking the possibility of a dangerous foe acquiring the ultimate weapon very seriously, something that all US presidents since Bill Clinton have done with various attempts at “containing” Iran, all to no avail.

Does that mean that the current regime in Tehran is totally unlikely to temporarily give up the potentially military dimension (PMD) of its nuclear project?

Judging by remarks by many figures within the Iranian regime, most recently by President Masoud Pezeshkian and in an oblique way by “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei, the answer could be a cautious: no.

The regime has hinted that it is ready to consider freezing the PMD of the project, something which it denies exists, in exchange for four concessions from the US and its allies, including Israel.

The first is to let the regime keep a straight face and proclaim a magnificent victory against the Great Satan and its little companion.

This is what Tehran is already doing both at home and, with help from anti-US and anti-Israel circles, across the globe.

The second demand is to abolish, not merely suspend or lift, all sanctions imposed on Iran.

The third demand is for the US and allies to commit themselves to never devise or support a regime change scheme against Iran. That means severing relations with dozens of Iranian opposition outfits.

Tehran’s fourth demand may be the hardest for any American administration to even contemplate accepting: Accepting the Islamic Republic’s right to “export” its model of governance, its Islamic values and its campaign for “global justice” just as the US does by propagating its values. In other words, Tehran says: Let us do what we please and we promise not to make the bomb that we have always said we never intended to build.

That message was obliquely transmitted through Tucker Carlson’s exclusive interview with President Pezeshkian: Let us boast about a great military victory and we shall let you claim a great diplomatic victory by returning to negotiations.

The ceasefire declared by President Donald Trump has injected an intermission into a deadly drama that started almost half a century ago. During the intermission, three clocks will be ticking.

The first is that of Khamenei’s physical and political life, both of which, though shaken, still appear tenable.

The second clock is that of mid-term elections in the US that could transform Trump into a lame-duck president if Elon Musk’s new political Tesla manages to rob the Republicans of just six seats in the Congress and two or three in the Senate. At the same time, Israeli Prim Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s numerous political enemies may eventually manage to bring him down.

Thus, regime insiders believe it is imperative to prolong the current ceasefire, even through negotiations, until the two big clouds shaped like Trump and Netanyahu disappear like morning mist.

Finally, the third clock that is ticking is that of swelling anger among the Iranian people at what more and more of them see as an historic failure combined with unprecedented humiliation and hardship.

The current ceasefire is a dicey intermission in a war that started almost half a century ago and seems nowhere near coming to an end.

To sum up, this was the message in Tasnim, organ of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, last Tuesday: The current political situation doesn’t have only two sides: steadfastness and surrender. The third side is change, of course. which means giving the enemy a victory it didn’t win with war.

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.

Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.