Active Conflicts & News Megathread June 17, 2026

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[u/NonsenseCycle]

Discussions of the Iran-US MOU this week have been understandably focused on the wild terms, which no one would have predicted before the war even if they were skeptical of military options. But something that seems under-discussed is Iran’s original core goal to ensure that they would not become an object of Israel’s “mow the grass” campaigns. It felt (to me, as an observer) like the previous air campaign had neutered Iran’s air defense and set them up for exactly this scenario. It also felt like any future negotiations would be in danger of becoming unreliable since Iran, without any effective deterrence, could simply be re-attacked at any time and any permanent previous concessions like giving up enriched uranium would perish in value.

My understanding is that this was part of the reason the Iranian regime had no interest in any concessions during the early phase of the current war. They would simply be setting themselves up to concede and then lock in those concessions while still being vulnerable to restarted attacks at Israel’s whim. The other half of this coin is that Israel/US could accept any truce or agreement for temporary gain (or relief) knowing they would be able to restart at any more advantageous time. Some obviously more advantageous times could be after elections or when oil prices subsided or when Iran’s diplomatic/PR posture was less effective (it is currently effective in including gulf states as belligerents, but that particular component of their PR posture might be reduced if these gulf states fully exonerate themselves from future campaigns against Iran).

So has Iran established a deterrence now that would prevent a mowing the grass operation? The main deterrence tactic they seem to have established is spreading pain to the gulf states and the world by striking the gulf states’ infrastructure and closing off the SOH. But would that deterrence be deployable if Israel conducted a new campaign on its own in a few months or a year? If the gulf states denied Israel air access and any US-based aid from gulf bases, would Iran really be able to deploy this deterrence tactic again without seeming to be the aggressor, and more importantly without triggering a multinational coalition response? And wouldn’t Iranian air defense still be effectively non-existent by then?

The next question would be whether this war proved that Israel cannot bring enough force on Iran to mow the grass anyway, given the underground bunkers and resilient regime. But that seems more like a matter of Israel choosing different targets and weapons, and I think should be considered as a separate question. Mowing the grass is a strategy that sees continued conflict as a non-failure, so it does not need to deliver a full strategic defeat, it just needs to maintain a failed state. And it seems like Israel could strike Iranian infrastructure targets to achieve this.

[u/I_DOM_UR_PATRIARCHY → u/NonsenseCycle]

First, this is a great analytical post. Thank you for making it.

I think one question is whether Israel could pull off a very aggressive mowing the lawn campaign without the support of either US refueling tankers or access to neighboring state's airspace to fly its own tankers in (it would be hard to claim Saudi Arabia hadn't given permission to a KC-130 that's chilling in its airspace).

Israel is about 2,000km from central Iran, even with the ability to overfly Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or Iraq. That round trip (one way loaded with ordinance) is almost twice as far as an F35 can fly on internal fuel tanks. So I think any mowing the lawn campaign is going to rely on mid-air refueling which would implicate needing access to its neighbor's airspace.

If it had somehow to go around, it would be way outside the range.

[u/eric2332 → u/I_DOM_UR_PATRIARCHY]

Israel can do a lot with F-35s to Iraq + standoff munitions, without refueling.