Israel’s unprecedented aerial assault on Iran has brought the Middle East once again to the brink of conflagration. The scale and precision of the attack – striking uranium enrichment facilities and missile factories, and eliminating key figures in Iran’s military command – mark this as one of the most consequential military actions in the region in years. What happens next may determine not just the future of Israeli-Iranian relations, but the stability of the wider Middle East.
That Israel acted without the support or participation of its closest ally, the United States, is telling. Despite appeals from Donald Trump not to proceed, Binyamin Netanyahu pressed ahead. The White House, clearly forewarned, evacuated personnel from vulnerable positions across the region but distanced itself from the operation. Secretary of state Marco Rubio’s declaration that the US was not involved in the strikes and that its priority is “protecting American forces in the region” is as much a disclaimer as it is a warning – to both allies and adversaries – that America’s patience and appetite for regional war is limited.
Tehran’s response remains uncertain, though its options are narrow. Iran has already endured a series of strategic setbacks in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and Yemen. Its attempted missile barrage on Israel last year was decisively neutralised by Israel’s Iron Dome, with US and UK assistance. But while its military may be bruised, Iran’s capacity for asymmetric retaliation through proxies or cyber warfare cannot be discounted.
However it is Netanyahu’s willingness to escalate that should concern the international community most. Not for the first time, his recklessness heightens the risk of a regional war in a landscape already riddled with conflict. Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon remain fragile, while the Gulf states watch anxiously from the sidelines.
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It is worth remembering how we got here. In 2018, it was Netanyahu who successfully urged Trump to walk away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the international agreement that curtailed Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic relief. That deal, for all its imperfections, created space for diplomacy and reduced the danger of nuclear proliferation. Its collapse re-ignited the Iranian nuclear programme which Israel regards as an existential threat, setting the stage for this crisis.
Israel’s air strikes have put an end, for the foreseeable future, to the Trump administration’s attempts to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran, one which would probably have borne a more than passing resemblance to the JCPOA. That may well have been Netanyahu’s intention. But if the result of his latest gamble is the outbreak of a new war, that will only lead to yet more bloodshed and misery in the region and make the world a more dangerous place
