Another article on Trump and Netanyahu's victory.
The end of the war in Iran threatens “glorious failure” for Israel
Donald Trump’s deal with Iran leaves America’s ally without any strategic gains
ON FEBRUARY 28TH hundreds of American and Israeli warplanes took off simultaneously to launch the opening salvo of their war on Iran. For 40 days the two allies’ military partnership was intense and close. But with the
agreement by Donald Trump and Iran’s leaders meant to bring their war to an end, the nature of that partnership has shifted. Israel has been shut out of the negotiations with Iran. And the agreement signed between America and Iran on June 17th deals with few, if any, of Israel’s concerns.
The outcome for Israel is, as one of the country’s diplomats in Jerusalem describes it, “a glorious failure”. It is also a personal blow to Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. He has invested enormous political capital in convincing America’s president that a war with Iran could fundamentally change the situation in the Middle East for the better, perhaps even topple the Islamic Republic’s regime.
Despite Mr Netanyahu’s claims, and the serious damage inflicted on Iran, the regime is still standing. Indeed, hardliners have been empowered. The deal does not immediately tackle Iran’s nuclear programme, Israel’s greatest concern. Iran retains the capability to fire ballistic missiles at Israel, the rest of the Middle East and beyond. The agreement with America does not refer to Iran’s missile programme.
Nor does it address one of Israel’s other great worries: Iran’s network of regional proxies. The most powerful of these, Hizbullah, the Shia militia in Lebanon, gains new protection from Israeli attacks in the deal. Israel tried to scupper the truce hours before it was announced when it attacked a target in Beirut, after Hizbullah had launched more drones. But instead of derailing negotiations, as Mr Netanyahu clearly desired, the attack only encouraged Mr Trump to seal the deal.
Israel’s defence minister insisted that troops would remain in the “security zones” that it has captured in southern Lebanon, but the accord between America and Iran stipulates that America’s allies, namely Israel, end the war in Lebanon.
Israel can no longer rely on its ally’s backing over this. The American president gave a series of interviews in which he said he was “so pissed off” with his erstwhile partner for having “no fucking judgment” in launching the strike on Beirut and described him as “a very difficult guy”.
An Israeli official previously stationed in Washington said that “a large part of the problem is that we no longer have the same kind of relationship with America in which officials spoke openly to each other at all levels. Now it has all been subsumed by the connection between Netanyahu and Trump and their personal dramas.”
More fundamentally, Israel’s and America’s goals in Iran have become less aligned. A few in Israel’s defence and intelligence establishment warned their generals of this discrepancy in the first days of the war. But their bosses were swept away by the success of early air strikes and backed Mr Netanyahu through the war. Then Mr Trump called time. He was more interested in dealing with the same regime that Israel wanted to bring down. Since then, Israel has been left out in the cold.
Confronting Iran has been Mr Netanyahu’s
idée fixe for years. He has led Israel twice into wars with that intention. Although these campaigns caused significant damage to Iran’s nuclear and missiles programmes, that could prove temporary. Israel has
damaged its crucial ties with America and its relations with Arab countries that saw it as an ally against Iran.
All this is also likely to hurt Mr Netanyahu’s prospects of re-election in October. It will be hard to sell himself as the guarantor of Israel’s security when he appears to have achieved so little over Iran. Nor can he afford to be seen at loggerheads with Mr Trump. He has made much of his relationship with the president, who has been very popular in Israel.
That said, the main opposition leaders were just as gung-ho when war began. Their criticism is that Mr Netanyahu failed to get results, not that he launched it. “We desperately need a new Iran policy,” says a military planner. For now, Israel has no prospect of one.
