2 days ago
Israel is making the world a more dangerous place
Iran claims that the Israeli attack is a 'declaration of war'. It is not. It's certainly aggressive, dangerous, destabilising, and at least questionable under international law. But it is not a declaration of total war against Iran in the conventional sense.
If it were, then – armed to the teeth, with the most advanced weaponry in the world, and protected by the formidable Iron Dome – Israel would by now have flattened much of Tehran and obliterated Iran's conventional military capability and economic infrastructure. Taking out all of the deeply buried nuclear bunkers in the Iranian countryside may take a little longer, but the Iranians seem more or less defenceless, and the Israeli assaults will continue.
Unless America acts – and the latest remarks from Donald Trump suggest it won't – the raids will go on until Benjamin Netanyahu is satisfied that he can tell the people of Israel that this existential threat to their state has been neutralised. That's all he wants. He might well welcome it if regime change in Tehran emerges from the chaos.
Not so long ago, Mr Netanyahu made a bizarre televised appeal to the 'Persian' people to depose the ayatollahs, and he has doubled down on the flattery now, offering to 'renew the alliance between our two ancient peoples'. The chances of such a happy ending have probably been reduced by his actions. Ending the nightmare of Iran being armed with a viable nuclear warhead, with a delivery system that could wipe out Israel, will be sufficient for him, for now.
Donald Trump, ever the opportunist, has tried to make the best of these attacks – which he never actively wanted to happen, but was aware that they were going to happen – to try and force the Iranians, currently in talks with US officials, to agree to abandon their nuclear programme.
That is not going to happen – and, when the Israelis have finished their air raids, that will not be the end of the matter. Iran will redouble its efforts to build a big bomb, and it has all the oil money, friends, allies and much of the expertise to start again. Indeed, there is no reason in theory why the Iranian leadership couldn't just buy such a system 'off the shelf' from Moscow or Pyongyang.
Plainly, the Iranians wish to develop their own capabilities, and were close to doing so, so they may eventually succeed, with or without discreet external assistance. But, until now, the endpoint wasn't inevitable: the old Iran nuclear deal, co-sponsored by the Europeans, Chinese and Russians, kept Tehran under tight supervision. When Mr Trump pulled out of the agreement in 2018, that actually speeded up the Iranians' search for enriched uranium.
Now, the logical lesson the Iranians will draw from the Israeli attack, and of the effectiveness of the Iron Dome, is that they need a nuclear deterrent more than ever. Had they actually had one this week, as Israel does, they might not have come under such sustained, devastating attack.
History adds to the impetus to prioritise a deterrent weapon. Nations that have given up their nuclear programmes or arsenals, either voluntarily or by force – such as Ukraine, Libya and Iraq – have suffered consequently. Those that retain theirs or covertly defy the international agencies and ignore the non-proliferation treaties, such as Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea, by contrast, are more immune from mortal threat and humiliating enemy bombardments.
Now, President Trump's bold and laudable attempts to reach a peaceful agreement with Iran on its nuclear ambitions and its wider regional role have been devastated just as much as any secret atomic enrichment lab in Iran has been. The talks in Rome may stagger on, but the Iranians will no longer be able to see the point, especially as their American counterparts have been so responsible for turning Israel into the regional superpower. Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf states, Egypt and Turkey, all crucial partners to America in the region, will similarly ask why, if Israel (and the likes of North Korea and Pakistan) can have the reassurance of a nuclear deterrent, they are deprived of it.
We cannot know how this will develop. It is another chapter in the clash between Israel, usually with America, and Iran that has been going on since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This has taken the form of a cold war, a proxy war via terrorist entities such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthi rebels, hostage-taking, economic sanctions, diplomatic games, espionage and, latterly and most ominously, direct aerial attacks between the two powers, plus targeted assassinations of Iranian and allied commanders.
It has heated up and cooled down, and the tensions may subside again. There is no necessary reason why other regional players would be drawn in, let alone America or Russia. Yet it feels like the drumbeat of war in the Middle East is becoming more insistent, just as it is in Eastern Europe and around Taiwan. As has been remarked about the prospects of a third world war, such a conflagration will occur again when leaders behave as they did before the previous two world wars. It seems so today.
Mr Trump has been tolerant and indulgent towards the Israeli prime minister in recent days, to put it politely, and has even gone so far as to praise Israel's 'excellent' attacks – an odd description for what the president also terms 'slaughter'.
Mr Netanyahu, such an experienced and wily figure, knows exactly how to play him, and how to abuse the historic support America has always offered Israel when it was in extreme peril. However, this time, it is Israel that is making the world a more dangerous place, undermining American diplomacy and its own security.
Rather than praising him and seemingly egging him on, it is time for Mr Trump, for once, to get angry, for all the right reasons, with the right man, and use the leverage Washington undoubtedly possesses to make Mr Netanyahu end his latest reckless adventure.
Similarly, promising Iran's supreme leader that 'there is more to come', and warning him to do a nuclear deal, is unfortunate when the moment calls for skilful diplomacy, not Truth Social whoops, hollers and taunts.
But, knowing what we do about President Trump's approach, he may yet content himself with letting Mr Netanyahu and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei simply get on with it.
