Extended Abstract:



Introduction and Objectives: In the early hours of 13 June 2025, amid nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran, Israeli aircraft launched a large-scale military offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Through airstrikes on targets inside Iranian territory, they martyred 1,062 people—including 33 senior military commanders, 13 nuclear scientists, 281 civilians, 126 women, and 47 individuals under the age of 18—and injured 5,800 others. Meanwhile, various analyses were offered by foreign policy analysts, military strategists, economists, and even ordinary members of the public regarding the reasons behind Netanyahu’s decision to attack Iran on 13 June 2025. The primary aim of this study is to analyze Netanyahu’s decision to attack Iran on 13 June 2025 based on one of the theories at the individual level of analysis (i.e., prospect theory).



Method: To achieve the main objective of this study, it examines key library and web-based data through documentary research in a descriptive-analytical study. Therefore, in examining the reasons behind the military aggression of the Zionist regime against the Islamic Republic of Iran on 13 June 2025, a rich theory that has theoretical roots in economics and is fundamentally a theory in the field of decision-making and threat perception (and technically at the individual level of analysis of war) is selected as the theoretical framework. Explaining, elucidating, or interpreting Israel’s attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran without considering and addressing Benjamin Netanyahu’s psychological variables would be incomplete and deficient. Even Netanyahu’s security cabinet was completely under his domination. Thus, in the present study, to precisely analyze Netanyahu’s decision to launch a military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran on 13 June 2025, from among the four theories of war—namely, system-level theories such as realist theories; dyadic-level theories such as the bargaining model of war; state- and societal- level theories such as democratic peace and capitalist peace theories; and individual-level theories such as prospect theory—individual-level theories are selected as the theoretical framework. Prospect theory is one of the prominent theories in behavioral economics, theorized in 1979 by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in the article “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” and it has deep roots in psychology. Prospect theory offers compelling explanations for how individuals make decisions under uncertainty and risk; therefore, it can be applied in the field of international relations and to the decision-making of policymakers and political practitioners, yielding valid results.



Findings: The findings of the present study, obtained through the application of prospect theory, indicate that Netanyahu, based on four components—the “Value Function,” the “Weighting Function,” the “Certainty Effect,” and the “Reflection Effect”—and for seven reasons, issued the order for the airstrike on the Islamic Republic of Iran:

1- According to the value function, when deciding to attack Iran, Netanyahu had framed his mental reference point as January 2025, at which point the situation was entirely in Israel’s favor and to Iran’s detriment (Donald Trump’s return to the White House, The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, the martyrdom of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah commanders, the pager incident in Lebanon, and heavy pressure on Hamas and the resistance forces in Iraq). Clearly, under such ideal conditions for Israel, tolerating an Iran with missile and nuclear capabilities was impossible.

2- Netanyahu’s perceptual apparatus regarded the continuation of enrichment on Iranian soil as a form of loss. Based on the value function, Netanyahu considered the value of Israel’s victories in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq to be very insignificant relative to the loss entailed by the continuation of enrichment on Iranian soil; based on this value function, he took action to attack Iranian territory.

3- The third effect of the value function on Netanyahu’s decision to attack Iran was that, in order to preserve his new territory acquired in the year leading up to 2025—whereby Iran’s and the Axis of Resistance’s position had been weakened—Netanyahu was willing to bear the risk of war. This is because, according to prospect theory, leaders take greater risks to preserve a territory than to seize it (preserving an asset is more difficult than acquiring it).

4- According to the weighting function, Netanyahu assigned a very high “decision weight” to the probability of victory in a war with Iran and underestimated the damages and costs of war. That is, Netanyahu’s mind distorted the probability of victory in a war with Iran and assigned a kind of “overweighting” to the benefits of war relative to its costs.

5- The second effect of the weighting function on Netanyahu’s decision to initiate a war against Iran was that Netanyahu assigned a “decision weight” and a kind of “overweighting” to the probability of unrest breaking out in Iran following Israeli airstrikes.

6- According to the certainty effect, Netanyahu preferred to accept a large probable loss—namely, the probability of failure in the attack on Iran—provided that he could escape a small but certain loss—namely, the risk of the consolidation of Iran’s nuclear knowledge.

7- The influence of the reflection effect on Netanyahu led to his risk-seeking and attack on Iran (despite his awareness of Iran’s missile capability), because, according to the reflection effect, when losses are at stake, the decision-maker (here, Netanyahu) acts in a risk-seeking and bold manner, since he seeks to escape at any cost a certain loss (here, the consolidation of Iran’s nuclear knowledge).



Conclusion: Based on four components—the “value function,” the “weighting function,” the “certainty effect,” and the “reflection effect”—and for seven reasons, Netanyahu ordered the airstrike against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Key Words: Islamic Republic of Iran; Israel; Twelve-Day War; Theories of War; Prospect Theory