Israel's failure to subdue Iran shows it can no longer dictate the regional order

Middle East Eye

7 hours ago

The Luftwaffe regarded the blitz on Coventry on 14 November 1940 as an astonishing technological achievement. German propaganda broadcasts hailed the raid as 'the most severe in the whole history of the war'.
The chief Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, was so delighted with the raid, that he coined a new term in its honour: 'to Coventrate'. It was not long, however, before the taste of total victory turned sour.
The production of aero engines and aircraft parts was quickly shifted to shadow factories. Capacity had only been dented, not destroyed; within months, factories were back to full production.
We also know now that the Germans were worried by the effect the image of the ruined Coventry Cathedral would have on the Americans who were yet to join the war. Indeed, the Germans underestimated the resilience of the British, who forged instead a resolve to hit back as never before. The Royal Air Force began a forceful bombing campaign of Germany shortly afterwards.
It has taken Israel's high command just 12 days to see the total victory they claimed to have achieved in the first hours of their blitz on Iran turn into something that looks more like a strategic defeat. Hence Israel's massive reluctance to stick to a ceasefire, after promising US President Donald Trump it would abide by it.
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None of Israel's three war aims have been met. There is no evidence yet that Iran's nuclear enrichment programme has been 'completely and fully obliterated' as Trump claimed.
Iran had time to move at least some of its centrifuges out of harm's way, and it's not clear where the existing stockpile of more than 400 kilogrammes of highly enriched uranium is being stored. Meanwhile, the scores of generals and scientists killed in the first hours of the attack were swiftly replaced.
Weathering the storm
If Coventry is anything to go by, uranium enrichment and missile-launcher production will be up and running within months, not years, as the Americans claim. The technology, the know-how, and above all the Iranian national will to restore and rebuild key national assets have all weathered the storm.
Evidently, from the damage Iranian missiles inflicted within hours of Trump's announcement of a ceasefire, its ballistic missile force, the second Israeli war aim, remains a palpable and continuing threat to Israel.
Israel sustained more damage from Iran's missiles in 12 days than it did from two years of Hamas's homegrown rockets, or indeed from months of war with Hezbollah.
In 12 days, Israeli crews have come to grips with the sort of damage to apartment blocks that before only Israeli planes had inflicted on Gaza and Lebanon - and it's been something of a shock. Strategic targets have been hit, including an oil refinery and a power station. Iran has also reported strikes on Israeli military facilities, although Israel's strict censorship regime makes these assertions difficult to verify.
Far from turbocharging Netanyahu's ambitions to grind Iran into a Gaza-grade dust, Trump called time on a war that had only just started
And finally, the Iranian regime is still standing. If anything, the regime has rallied the nation rather than dividing it, if only out of nationalist fury about Israel's unprovoked attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's other great 'achievement' - dragging the US into its war - now looks like a poisoned chalice.
For how much longer will that banner - 'Thank you, Mr President' - be up on a central highway in Tel Aviv, after Trump applied a massive and premature handbrake on Netanyahu's war machine?
Twelve days ago, Trump started by refuting the notion of any US involvement in Israel's surprise attack on Iran. When he saw it was succeeding, Trump attempted to muscle his way in on the project, saying it could only have been achieved with US technology.
As the attack wore on, Trump suggested that he, too, would not be opposed to regime change. But in the final 24 hours, Trump lurched from demanding Iran's unconditional surrender, to thanking Iran for warning the US of its intention to strike al-Udeid air base in Qatar, and declaring peace in our time.
Turning the tables
Far from turbocharging Netanyahu's ambitions to grind Iran into a Gaza-grade dust, Trump called time on a war that had only just started. And unlike in Gaza, Netanyahu is in no position to defy the will of the US president. Trump had serious problems of his own in pursuing a venture that half of his party was vociferously against.
For Netanyahu, these past 12 days have been a steep learning curve. If day one proved that Israeli intelligence could achieve the same success in Iran as it did against Hezbollah in Lebanon, by eliminating the first echelon of its military and scientific command - and that Israel could do all of that on its own, without direct US help - by day 10, it was becoming apparent that Israel could achieve none of its war aims without the US joining in.
But before the ink had dried on all the praise Netanyahu garnered in Israel by getting Washington involved in what had been an Israel-only project, Trump turned the tables on his closest ally once again.
He proved to be a one-hit wonder. Without even pausing to assess whether the nuclear enrichment site buried deep underground at Fordo had indeed been disabled, Trump declared mission accomplished.
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He did it with a speed that was suspicious, as indeed, from Israel's view, was his haste in congratulating Iran for not killing any of his troops. It was very much like the way he came to a deal with the Houthis in Yemen before flying to Riyadh to cash in on the proceeds.
Iran, on the other hand, is emerging from this conflict with strategic gains - although the immediate battering it has sustained, and the hundreds of casualties it has suffered, should not be ignored.
Its air defences failed to bring down a single Israeli warplane, although they appeared to have downed drones. Israeli warplanes were free to roam the skies of Iran, and Israeli intelligence once again showed that it had penetrated deep into the Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian scientific community.
These were all clear failings. But none proved decisive. In the end, all Iran had to do was, in the words of 1940s-era Britain, 'keep calm and carry on'.
That meant sending a steady stream of missiles towards Israel, knowing that even if all were knocked out of the sky, the entire population was penned up in shelters, and Israel's precious and expensive supply of Arrow missiles was being consumed.
What Iran thus established was exactly what the Israeli economy could not handle after 20 months of war: a war of attrition on a second front. Netanyahu needed a quick knockout blow, and despite the first day of success, it never came.
Even so, Israel could not stop itself from bombing, after being told not to by Trump. So another not-so-subtle message had to be delivered over the megaphone: 'Israel. Do not drop those bombs. If you do it it is a major violation,' Trump boomed in capital letters.
War of narratives
For in the end, this conflict was never about ending a nuclear-bomb programme that never existed (if it had, Iran would have long ago been able to build a bomb).
This conflict was essentially a war between two narratives.
The first is well known. It goes like this.
The Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 was a strategic mistake. No force that Arabs or Iranians can muster can ever match the power of Israel and the US combined, or even Israel armed with the latest generation of weapons.
Israel will always defeat its enemies on the battlefield, as it did in 1948, 1967, 1973, 1978 and 1982. The only option for Arabs is to recognise Israel on its terms, which means to trade with it, and leave Palestinian statehood for another day.
This view is held with variations, and unofficially, by all Arab leaders and their military and security chiefs.
The alternative narrative is that while the state of Israel exists in its current form, there can be no peace. This is the source of the conflict, as opposed to the presence of Jews in Palestine. Resistance to occupation will always exist, no matter who takes up or puts down the cudgel, as long as that occupation continues.
Iran's existence as a regime that defies the Israeli will to dominate and conquer is more important than its strategic rocket force. Its ability to stand up to Israel and the US, and to keep fighting, shows the same spirit that Palestinians in Gaza have shown in refusing to be starved into surrender.
If the ceasefire holds, Iran has a number of options. It should be in no rush to return to a negotiating table abandoned twice by Trump himself - once when he withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, and again this month, when his envoy Steve Witkoff was engaged in direct talks.
Trump boasted that he had deceived the Iranians by engaging them in talks and allowing Israel to prepare its strikes at the same time. Well, he won't be able to pull that trick again.
Tehran's options
To return to talks, Iran would need guarantees that Israel will not attack again - guarantees that Israel itself will never give.
As I and others have argued, being part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty has served Iran's interests poorly. It could walk away from the treaty, having every incentive now to develop a nuclear bomb to stop Israel from ever doing this again.
In reality, Iran does not have to do anything. It has weathered maximum-pressure sanctions and a 12-day armageddon with the latest American weaponry in use.
It does not need an agreement. It can rebuild and repair the damage it has sustained in these attacks, and if past experience is anything to go by, it will emerge stronger than before.
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Netanyahu and Trump have some accounting to do to an increasingly hostile and sceptical domestic audience.
Israel's former defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is worth quoting in this regard. He noted after the ceasefire announcement: 'Despite Israel's military and intelligence successes, the ending is bitter. Instead of unconditional surrender, we're entering tough talks with a regime that won't stop enriching uranium, building missiles, or funding terror.
'From the start, I warned: there's nothing more dangerous than a wounded lion. A ceasefire without a clear deal will only bring another war in 2-3 years - under worse conditions.'
Israel has swapped Gaza's homemade rockets for Iran's ballistic missiles. It has swapped an indirect enemy and sponsor of proxy militias, for a direct enemy - one that has no hesitation in sending the entire population of Israel into bunkers.
That is some achievement, but not the one Netanyahu was thinking 12 days ago.
The major European states - all signatories to the Iran nuclear deal - have absolutely nothing to say to Iran. They have abdicated all ability to mediate in their spinelessness and acquiescence to an attack on Iran that had absolutely no legality in international law.
Once again, they have undermined the international order they claim to be upholding.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.