Don't count on the Iran-Israel ceasefire lasting. What Netanyahu really wants is a forever war

The Guardian

7 hours ago

The war is over! Except it's not, not by a long chalk. The verbally agreed Iran-Israel ceasefire could be ripped to shreds at any moment. An aggressive theocratic regime still holds power in Tehran. The same is true of Jerusalem. In Washington, a president whose stupidity is matched only by his vanity prattles about making peace, but the angry old men in charge have learned nothing. Meanwhile, hundreds of civilians lie dead, thousands are wounded and millions have been terrorised.
The war is over! Except only the naive believe that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister and prime warmonger, is done fighting. Even if Donald Trump is right and Iran's nuclear facilities have been 'obliterated' ('severely damaged' appears more accurate), its nuclear knowhow and elusive stockpile of enriched uranium have not. At the first sign, real or imagined, of rebuilding, Netanyahu and his cronies will surely attack again. Trump called them off last week. But this is a man who can change his mind three times before he's even had breakfast.
Who seriously believes Netanyahu will readily relinquish the dominance over Iran's airspace that his forces have established with unexpected ease? It's unlikely he will be able to resist the temptation to target Iran again, if fresh attacks are politically advantageous. Netanyahu is now reportedly weighing up the possibility of a snap election. Perhaps he hopes his Iran exploits will obscure his 7 October 2023 failures and abandonment of hostages held by Hamas.
There is a pattern here. Since March, when he unilaterally wrecked the Gaza ceasefire, Netanyahu has sought to subjugate the territory. Palestinian civilians have been gunned down in repeated Israeli army and settler atrocities around Gaza food centres and in towns in the West Bank. In places such as Rafah, Bloody Sunday takes place almost every day. In Lebanon and Syria, Israel has dropped bombs with impunity. Netanyahu's military grinder never stops. Why imagine that he will be any different with Iran?
Most people deplore 'forever wars', typified by dismal, multi-year western entanglements in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not Netanyahu. Peace is his enemy. Forever war keeps him in power, in the limelight and out of jail. Like Vladimir Putin, he sees continuing war as an opportunity to boost domestic support and outflank his opponents. Unending state violence is deadly for democracy, legality and good governance (and on this note, Americans should worry, too: Trump's presidency is on a similar trajectory, except his forever war is against the 'enemy within').
Despite Netanyahu's video appeal to the Iranian public in which he encouraged them to 'stand up' against an 'evil and oppressive regime', he cares little for their freedom. What he wants is what imperialist powers always want: a permanently weakened, divided, degraded country that poses no challenge to Israel's strategic interests and can be punished at will. By controlling Iranian skies and pursuing covert cyber-attacks, sabotage and assassinations, Israel could ensure an enfeebled Iran is held in check indefinitely – or so Netanyahu may calculate.
The war is over … except it's not in Tehran, either. Rattled by talk of regime change and Israel's killing of prominent allies, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has emerged from his bunker to wage another war, on his own people. Hundreds have been arrested in a security crackdown. Alleged spies have been executed. In order to survive, the mullahs may now do what they have never done before: secretly race to build a nuclear weapon, or buy one off the shelf from North Korea.
In truth, Iran's loathsome regime didn't even come close to falling. If anything, Israel's bombs rallied public support and patriotic sentiment. Iran was attacked on the basis of a lie (neither US intelligence nor the UN backed Netanyahu's claim that it was weaponising) and European governments failed to condemn the bombing. These facts will only deepen distrust of the west. Iran wants relief from US sanctions, and may agree to discuss this, but not its future nuclear activities. It is suspending cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Rejecting Israeli containment, Tehran may in time resume asymmetrical conflict and revive regional proxy wars.
The war isn't over for Trump either (though, beguiled by delusions of a Nobel peace prize, he may think it is). He has demonstrated, as in Ukraine and Gaza, that his impulsive, unthinking, uninformed interventions only make the world more dangerous. He's made it harder for the US to walk away if war flares up again. His sneak attack on Iran, reminiscent of Pearl Harbor, breached the UN charter and will help rogue states justify illegal aggression. By continuing to aid and abet Netanyahu, an alleged war criminal, Trump is opening himself up to prosecution by the international criminal court.
Trump has trashed multilateral diplomacy, sidelined and insulted European allies, relied on rookie envoys and rejected expert advice. His manifest untrustworthiness and monstrous egotism are all additional reasons why the US cannot be counted on. War across the Middle East is barely on hold. Trump took a shot at instant glory – and missed.
The utter futility and pointlessness of this war is breathtaking. It achieved almost nothing positive. It caused misery, destruction and insecurity. Only rarely does brute force advance peaceful ends. Typically it inflames existing problems – and that's what happened here. When will these angry old men get it? Probably never, unless and until democrats summon the courage to defy them.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian columnist