Though a peace deal has been struck between Israel and Iran, the ceasefire still hangs precariously in the balance.
Worse for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally, the war his government decided to start with Iran has proven to be a grave miscalculation that will linger in the memories of Israelis and Americans for years to come. First, the attack gave Iran the opportunity to show its retaliatory strength to the world. Second, it revealed Israel’s vulnerability and utter dependence on the United States.
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington in January 2020.Credit: AP
Initially, the US and Israel appeared to be in lockstep, with the president and the prime minister showering respective praise on each other following the US airstrikes on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
If the US had joined Israel’s campaign against Iran in full, it would have been a major victory for Netanyahu. But within days, Donald Trump was telling global media that the US had entered the war to “save Israel”, and was savaging the Israeli Defence Forces for breaking the ceasefire, telling reporters that neither Iran nor Israel “know what the f— they’re doing”.
Any embarrassment caused to Netanyahu by Trump’s total claims of victory in Iran will now have been balanced by him declaring Netanyahu a great wartime leader, and calling on the Israeli judiciary to drop their bribery and fraud charges against the prime minister.
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For much of his political career, Netanyahu has relentlessly viewed his personal ambitions and Israel’s security through the prism of conflict rather than peace. Historically, Netanyahu’s idea of “peace through strength” has meant an ability to hit opponents hard, and force them to make peace on his terms.
And while Netanyahu would have always expected the US to enter the conflict because Israel is unable to do the heavy lifting alone, dragging into the fray a president whose aversion to international conflict was a selling point to many American voters has placed Trump in a quandary: whether to keep his election promise of not involving the United States in another endless Middle East war, given America’s Iraq and Afghanistan fiascos, or to back Israel in its moment of need.
But where Netanyahu expected a relatively sharp and swift victory, to which Israel has been accustomed, Tehran was able to make maximum use of its missile and drone arsenals, and to rely on the Iranian people’s historical love of their country, to rally behind the government of the day – no matter whether popular or not – in the face of foreign aggression.
