By forcing Iran into a defensive posture, Israel seeks to secure a broader Israeli victory, though this comes at a significant humanitarian cost and risks sparking a wider regional conflict.
Erwin van Veen
Several Israeli attacks on Hezbollah communication systems, aerial attacks on its rocket launchers and caches, assassination of much of the movement’s top leadership and now an Israeli ground offensive form a macabre dance with assaults in the form of relentless Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel, as well as a direct Iranian missile attack more recently. The air hangs heavy with threats of retaliation.
By Israel, that promises Tehran a painful response. By the US, which simultaneously says it wants to prevent a regional conflict but also keeps underlining Israel’s right to defend itself. By Iran, that hints at a choice of targets next door if Israel hits back, including US bases in Iraq and Persian Gulf shipping.
In brief, the rapid sequence of events in the Middle East has brought us to a point where they have nearly outpaced available analytical frames and insights. But not quite. While the fog of war makes predictions of what exactly will happen next a fool’s errand, it is nevertheless possible to reflect critically on the current status of the Israeli–Iranian conflict and to outline possible consequences. As a starting point, it is useful to call a few prevailing assumptions into question.
Prevailing Assumptions
It is now clear that Israel aims to deal Iran a knock-out blow by first forcing it to respond to the assassinations of Messrs. Haniyeh and Nasrallah, as well as its offensive against Hezbollah, so that it can subsequently react harshly to such a response from Tehran in turn.
In other words, the assumption that Israel will tolerate being shot at from several fronts forever is no longer valid. Israel will no longer restrain its offensive action against Hezbollah or Iran out of concern for a ‘missile rain’ either.
In fact, it called the bluff of this threat by assassinating Hassan Nasrallah. Iran’s most recent missile salvo did not restore deterrence either since Tehran declared the matter closed immediately afterwards unless Israel retaliates – which is likely to be perceived as a sign of weakness. And Israel will strike back. It does not fear Iran because of US support, because Tehran is domestically weak and because it lacks good military options to inflict real damage on Israel.
Israel’s assassination of Mr. Haniyeh in Tehran combined with its mounting assault on Hezbollah was bound to trigger an Iranian response. Tehran’s missile attack just gave West-Jerusalem a reason to finally escalate into the regional war that Prime minister Netanyahu has long sought. It has also become clear that the US is a conscious and even willing partner in this regional war, elections or not.
Otherwise put, the assumptions that the US actually wants a ceasefire in Gaza and does not want a regional war must be discarded, or at least heavily caveated in the sense that the US can support Israel in a regional war with Iran as long as it is not directly engaged itself.
The track record of the past twelve months for example suggests that the US never mobilised the kind of effort and leverage necessary to bring a ceasefire in Gaza about because it considered the protection of Israel to be the supreme priority and viewed destroying Hamas as a useful way to give Gaza a governance makeover as basis for a resolution of the Palestinian issue.
In the eyes of the world, however, Washington has aided and abetted Slaughterhouse Gaza with its countless but non-productive regional tours of shuttle diplomacy and its reassuring but ineffectual language. With a self-declared Zionist in the White House at this historical junction, US actions for all practical intents and purposes rather point to Washington having joined Israel in an effort to re-establish regional dominance. It is only the extent of this joint project that remains to be established: will it be adequate to undo Iran’s regional network of axis partners, is destruction of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure the aim, or does regime change in Tehran remain on the table?
Despite their rhetorical condemnation of civilian casualties in Palestine and Lebanon, most ruling elites across the Middle East probably welcome Israel and the US taking the fight directly to Iran in principle, if not necessarily in practice, due to the many risks. Either way, once accomplished, the US and Israel could formulate a hollow ‘solution’ to the Palestinian issue, which would probably amount to subjugation and autonomous apartheid given their respective stances towards the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of 24 July 2024 on the illegality of Israeli occupation, based upon which normalisation with Saudi Arabia can proceed.
Put together, just as the US has kept up a good show pretending to want a cease-fire in Gaza, so has Israel given Tehran and the axis a masterclass in the real art of strategic patience, i.e. the ability to absorb limited damage for months on end, but strike back hard and unexpectedly when it could. Israel and the US made Tehran think time was on its side and that it could continue harassing Israel on multiple fronts without substantial costs. The tables have now been turned and Iran faces a real crisis in its regional security policy, and perhaps even serious risks to its homeland security. But in putting Tehran in a corner, the US and Israel are also playing with fire.
Down, But Not Out
This is because Iran and its partners are down, but not out. In the conflict with Israel, it is likely that Hezbollah can still bring far greater missile fire to bear despite its recent losses, but using this asset guarantees a regional war. Pundits claiming the demise of the organisation likely overlook years of preparation, deep resilience, strong roots and a substantial rallying capability against an Israeli ground offensive.
Even if the organisation has corroded on the inside due to its growing role in Lebanese politics since 2006, corruption and unpopularity included, and has been subject to Israeli infiltration after its expansion in Syria after 2011, the movement still has resources, cadres, experience and a constituency to fall back on.
Moreover, the recent direct Iranian missile attack against Israel serves warning that Tehran has belatedly realised its prior assumptions were faulty, and that the new strategic game has higher stakes. While Israel is hard to reach, Tehran has more options to hit the US even though exercising these options is bound to trigger attacks on Iran itself. They may just deter the US or cause it to moderate Israel, however.
In any case, if the US participates in Israeli attacks on Iran there will be little to lose. This sequence of events brings attacks on US bases in the Persian Gulf and Iraq closer.
Should large Israeli or combined Israeli/US strikes on Iran happen but produce survivable damage, Tehran will be much more likely to develop a nuclear weapon as quickly as it can. If its oil facilities are hit too hard, it may start targeting Persian Gulf shipping. Again, it has much less to lose in such a scenario. Covertly transferring advanced weaponry will be cheap for Russia and China to stymy with the US in such scenarios. A US/Israeli dominated Middle East is not in their interest after all.
A Pyrrhic Victory Awaits
But even if the axis of resistance or Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is severely damaged, Israel and the US are likely to achieve a Pyrrhic victory. War-related damage to Israeli civilian and military infrastructures and lives might be substantial. But the real problem lies in Palestine. What we are witnessing today is how Israel transmits the negative and violent effects of the unrelenting and illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories to the region by reversing the transmission chain of violence that used to run from Iran via Hezbollah to Hamas.
Otherwise put, it is destroying Hamas to get to Hezbollah to get to Iran by leveraging Nasrallah’s decision to make a ceasefire in Gaza a condition for quiet in northern Israel. In doing so, Israel has turned a major Iranian strength – a network of armed groups across the region – into a major weakness by force of arms.
This could have been a major strategic achievement, yet Israel has achieved it by means of total and indiscriminate destruction. It flattened Gaza and killed off scores and scores of Palestinians, journalists, aid workers and UN staff in response to Hamas’ massacre of October 7.
Israel created a humanitarian catastrophe by blocking aid and forcing displacement along a north-south axis on multiple occasions. Both actions add substance to the genocide case against Israel, but will also fuel the fires of future violent extremism. To make a bad situation intolerable, Slaughterhouse Gaza took place in the context of fifty-seven years of occupation of the Palestinian territories that the international community has condemned dozens of times through the United Nations and beyond.
Yet only South Africa, Turkey, the Houthi and Hezbollah have offered tangible protests that put (some) pressure on Israel. Extrapolating earlier casualty estimates in The Lancet, the death count in Gaza at Israel’s hands could approach a quarter of a million when the guns finally fall silent. Worse yet, the brutality of Israel’s campaign in Gaza is being replicated in lighter versions of the same that play out on the West Bank and in Lebanon.
It is understandable that Israel wanted to punish those responsible for October 7, re-establish safety in its north, make Hezbollah comply with UNRES 1701 and reduce the threat that Iran poses to it. Its strategic mistake has been that it views and uses the indiscriminate application of military might as a cure-all. By excluding from its statecraft, the undoing of its occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Sheeba farms in Lebanon, meaningful negotiation, respecting Lebanon’s sovereignty (also a condition of UNRES 1701) and a basic respect for the laws of war, Israel is re-creating future versions of the threats that it is defeating today. It is worth recalling that Hamas is a product of occupation and Hezbollah is largely the product of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
What About Costs to the US?
Together with its European and Arab allies, the US has dealt a heavy blow to the international conflict management standards that were painstakingly developed since the early 20th century. It has made clear to the world that international law applies to everyone except Israel and itself.
Secretary of State Blinken even publicly rejected a USAID conclusion that Israel is blocking US-funded humanitarian aid to steer clear of its logical corollary that weapon deliveries must therefore stop under US law. The result of discarding international law so blatantly is that future episodes of violence will have zero regard for it either when they involve the US or its allies.
A precious restraint on violence has been shattered. The price will be paid in the rougher competition of a multipolar world in which the US no longer enjoys a competitive ‘soft power’ advantage.
It is also doubtful whether US allies in the region – Jordan and Egypt in particular – will be able to play ball in the new regional order that Israel and Washington envisage. The cooptation of their regimes is a fact, but even in authoritarian countries ruling elites can only neglect popular dissatisfaction up to a point. And the region seethes with resentment against Israel’s brutal campaigns as its leaders celebrate the downfall of Hamas and Hezbollah. At best, a cold peace continues.
Most problematically, President Biden might still do grave damage to his own country if his unconditional protection of Israel enables a descent into a regional war that facilitates the re-election of Trump, erasing the effect of his ‘abdication’ in the contest for the Democratic nomination.
Paint it Black?
Neither commonsense nor peacemaking will prevail in Israel or the US. If cornered, Iran will wage war to the bitter end to ensure regime survival. Assad has shown the world how it is done domestically and Iran will elevate this to a regional level.
Misery and nuclear proliferation will result. It is beyond time for a coalition of European and Arab countries to unite and put tangible pressure on the Israeli government to halt its campaigns of destruction.
There is an opportunity to reconfigure the governance of Gaza and Lebanon so that Israelis can be safe, Palestinians enjoy statehood and Lebanese have sovereignty, but it is fleeting.
About the writer
Erwin van Veen is a senior research fellow at Clingendael’s Conflict Research Unit, and head of its Middle East programme