Even in the fourth week of the military campaign against Iran, its end is still not in sight, despite the impressive military achievements and the severe damage inflicted on military, governmental, and infrastructural assets in Iran. The Israeli home front, like that of the Gulf states, continues to operate under an emergency routine and defensive posture. The Iranian regime, battered and bruised, nevertheless continues to demonstrate determination and persistence in its effort to draw additional countries into the war and to allocate the bulk of its resources to it, under the assumption that disrupting the oil production and supply chain will generate pressure on the United States and the world to halt the war.
According to the Iranian regime’s perception, which fears an uprising by its own subjects even more than its direct enemies, if it manages to survive until the end of the war, that in itself will constitute victory. Such a victory would allow the regime to return to suppressing, with tyranny and murderous brutality, anyone who attempts to exploit the opportunity to rise against it from within. The regime is keenly aware of the inherent weaknesses of the West, its aversion to wars, and above all its economic dependence on a steady supply of oil at the prices to which it has become accustomed. The Gulf states are identified by the Iranian regime as another point of vulnerability for the United States and the West. The Iranian leadership, with its highly developed regional instincts, senses the weakness of the Gulf states and their genuine fear of joining a war against it. In doing so, it seeks to weaken Israel by portraying it as aspiring to establish hegemony in the Middle East and in the Gulf states, while enlisting the United States to achieve its aims – precisely in line with the narrative it echoes in the spirit of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” that literary forgery first published in the early 20th century by the secret police of Imperial Russia and later adopted by the Nazis and anyone seeking to promote an antisemitic theory.
A Regional Power with an Imperialist Past
It cannot be said that the Iranian effort is an outright failure. In the United States and in Israel as well, voices critical of the war and its objectives are growing stronger. The criticism stems from different motivations and is articulated in various ways. In the United States, criticism is focused on opposition to a war that is ostensibly not its own, as right-wing isolationists and left-wing progressives call for ending the war and direct their criticism at President Donald Trump and his close circle of advisors – who, for their part, support the continuation of what they view as a justified and necessary war. In contrast, criticism in Israel centers on questions regarding the objectives of the war and the likelihood of achieving them, in the absence of a clear strategy and, in particular, the lack of an “exit strategy.” Some critics in Israel interpret the Prime Minister’s determination to continue the military campaign until its objectives are realized as a diversion, intended to obscure the magnitude of the searing failure of October 7 and to create the political conditions for victory in the next elections, and even to evade the threat of legal judgment – the cancellation of the Prime Minister’s trial.
However, Iran is not just another country in the Middle East. It is a vast state in terms of both territory and population, a regional power with an imperialist history, led by an extreme and revolutionary religious regime. This regime seeks to establish regional hegemony, driven in part by a profound hatred of the West in general, and of the United States and Israel in particular, and aims to restore to Shiism the honor it believes was trampled and stolen by Sunni Islam. The value system and considerations of the Iranian leadership, including those who replace those who have been eliminated and their successors, do not align with Western logic. It is difficult to envision a scenario in which the current leadership, or one that emerges from the same ideological mold, would at any stage comply with American demands. Beyond the unbearable sense of insult and humiliation from the perspective of this leadership, the issue concerns its very survival. In its view, any significant concession marks the beginning of the regime’s end. Any concession would amplify American assertiveness, strengthen Israel’s self-confidence, and above all instill confidence in the hearts of millions of citizens who have grown weary of the regime and seek to overthrow it.
Accordingly, the necessary working assumption is that ending the war successfully means regime change. It is entirely possible, and even reasonable to assume, that such change will begin with a transformation within the current regime itself. This transformation would manifest in the weakening of the regime to the point where it is unable to recover and rebuild its capabilities, thereby creating the conditions for an internal uprising and its eventual overthrow. Hence, this is essentially a game of time – on the one hand, democratic states whose leaders are bound by limited terms and subject to pressure from their opponents, and on the other, a regime that is indifferent to time and not constrained by it. However, deepening the damage to the regime and its capacity to endure and function, as well as establishing and consolidating an operational mechanism for the post-war period – one that can preserve the achievements and ensure the desired outcome for the future – will take time. The effective mechanism required for a radical transformation of the situation demands robust monitoring that will enable the immediate exposure of any attempt to rebuild capabilities, alongside a rapid, efficient, and lethal response mechanism that will suppress any such attempt at its inception, and, if necessary, at the cost of imposing an additional price on the regime and its assets. The Iranian regime is well aware of this and is attempting to play to its strongest tool – time.
Iran’s Neighbors Will Require Security for Generations
It will be important to assist the Iranian opposition in organizing and strengthening itself through the provision of funding, weapons, communication means, guidance, and training, as well as by preparing a supportive military envelope for the day of command, enabling it to withstand attempts to suppress an uprising against the regime.
The United States will need to instill in the Gulf states absolute confidence that it will continue to stand by them even after a change of regime in Iran, and allow them to revise their traditional hedging strategy. They will need to gain a sense of security and alleviate their deep fear of Iran and its far-reaching proxies. A critical component of such a response is encouraging them to advance a new and dynamic regional architecture, with Israel as a significant part of it, that would establish a regional defensive belt and a highly effective and threatening axis vis-à-vis Iran. This new regional architecture should include the Eastern Mediterranean basin – Greece and Cyprus – connect India to Europe, and at the same time curb Turkey’s hegemonic ambitions, which could disrupt such a move. Within this regional architecture, a creative solution to the Palestinian issue must also be developed, beginning with the preparation of conditions for implementing the Twenty-Point Plan in the Gaza Strip, which entails, among other things, the dismantling of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Strip, as well as the expansion of the mandate of the Board of Peace (BoP) to the territories of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
A form of trusteeship regime that would prepare the conditions for a responsible, functioning, and above all reformed Palestinian state entity (Revitalized PA), integrated into a regional framework in the form of a loose Palestinian federation, open to the entire Arab space.
To this end, it would be appropriate to consider the possibility of extending the mandate of the Board of Peace to Iran as well. The monitoring and enforcement mechanism designed to suppress attempts by the current regime to rebuild its capabilities, assuming it remains in place, would operate under the guidance of the Board of Peace, similar to the International Stabilization Force (ISF) planned to operate in the Gaza Strip.
At present, Iran has not yet been defeated, nor has Hamas. The achievements are impressive and lay the groundwork for the required decisive outcome. In the case of Iran, such a decision would mean suppressing the regime and weakening it, denying it any capacity or opportunity to recover, and creating the conditions for its overthrow. In the case of Hamas, it would mean dismantling the organization as an organized governing and military entity in the territory that remains under its control in western Gaza, and preparing the conditions for the implementation of the Twenty-Point Plan. At this stage, however, the effort should be focused on Iran. Fully exploiting the achievements in Iran will inevitably affect Hamas and Hezbollah and will ease the task against both terrorist organizations, which will lose their Iranian patron. To maximize the gains against Iran, Israel will need to keep the United States by its side and always remember that it is the United States that is leading the campaign, not Israel. At the same time, within the framework of the intimate dialogue with the United States, Israel must frame the concept of decisive victory by presenting the military actions within the context of a political horizon.
Bottom Line
At this time, patience is the preferred strategy. This, of course, must be accompanied by military, civilian, and diplomatic resilience, and the determination of the strategy must be clear and consistent. So far, it appears that Israel and the United States have succeeded, and continue to succeed, in demonstrating patience, determination, and clarity, even if these are not agreed upon by the entire public or fully understood by it. It is important to understand at this time, and in general, that any course of action – even one planned in meticulous detail on the military and political drawing boards – whose essence is intervention in an existing reality with the aim of changing it, generates a dynamic of friction that in turn produces situations not accounted for in the detailed planning, or whose intensity and impact exceed what was assessed at the planning stage.
The essence of strategy is a continuous learning process, identifying changes and opportunities, the outcome of which is relevant adaptation – a maneuvering alignment between means and objectives, and the updating of objectives in accordance with evolving circumstances. Strategic leadership must instill in both the fighting forces and the civilian population determination and confidence in the justice of the cause. The duration of the military campaign against Iran thus far is only the beginning of a long journey, one that requires the leadership in the United States and Israel to maintain strategic clarity and a firm grip on this compass in order to ensure victory.
