Mick Hartley

It’s not just back to square one. The results of Trump’s Iranian efforts – all-out war, followed by meek surrender – appear to have left Israel in a weaker position, while Iran is strengthened and already starting to rebuild its Shia proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon. Benny Morris at Quillette:

Trump and Netanyahu continue to declare that they will not allow Iran to obtain or construct nuclear weapons. The problem is that Trump has no leverage because nobody—including Iran—believes that he is serious about renewing the war (unless Iran were to suddenly kill large numbers of US personnel).

Clause 8 of the MoU states that Iran “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons,” a commitment it had already agreed to in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed between the international community and Tehran. But after Trump pulled out of that agreement in 2018 at Netanyahu’s urging, Iran went on to substantially violate it by enriching large quantities of uranium to sixty percent—close to the ninety percent or so needed for a nuclear weapon. (The JCPOA allowed Iran to enrich to 3.67 percent, which is sufficient for energy production and medical uses.)

The problem with Iran’s reaffirmation is that no one believes a word that Iran says. Shi’ite Muslim doctrine specifically sanctions deception, dissimulation, and trickery (Taqqiyya, khodeh and kitman) in the interests of the tribe or nation. What Trump either ignores or fails to understand is that the Islamic Republic and its proxies are run by religious fanatics who act in accordance with their messianic doctrines. These men are not nearly as motivated by the kind of practical geopolitical considerations that guide Western policymakers….

Israel’s anti-missile shield is not infallible—during the June 2025 and February–April 2026 wars, some ten percent of Iran’s missiles got past Israeli defences. If a single missile armed with a nuclear warhead got through, Israel would likely collapse. As former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani once said (and as Trump recently repeated), Israel is a “one-bomb country”—a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv would likely put an end to Israel’s existence.

Trump recently observed that while the US and Israel are “partners,” Israel is the “very small partner.” During the past year, Netanyahu has repeatedly bowed to Trump’s diktats, and the US administration has repeatedly halted Israeli air assaults on Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. Netanyahu is keenly aware that Israel is fully dependent on the US for political cover (particularly at the UN where the US protects Israel from Security Council sanction with its veto), air-refuelling tankers, and munitions to wage its protracted wars of defence.

Netanyahu or his successor (probably either Naftali Bennett or Gadi Eisenkot after the forthcoming general elections) may feel bound to strike Iran to prevent its acquisition of a nuclear capability, no matter what Trump says or does. Israel, unlike the United States, is existentially threatened by the Iranian nuclear project. This is a problem that Israel faces but that the US and its people do not. Many Americans and Europeans may not care whether or not Israel continues to exist, but ten million Israelis do not have the luxury of their indifference….

A more immediate problem for Israel than a nuclear-weaponised Iran is Lebanon, where Iran’s proxy Hezbollah, which also seeks Israel’s demise, is still harassing and threatening the civilian population in northern Israel with its rockets and drones. Many Galilee civilians abandoned their homes after Hezbollah began its rocket and missile attacks on 8 October 2023. Two-thirds of the inhabitants of northern Galilee’s main town are still in “exile,” currently living in central Israel.

One of Netanyahu’s stated objectives since the war began on 7 October 2023 was to break the Islamist “circle of fire” (or “circle of resistance”) that Iran had constructed around Israel, and to sever the links between Iran and its proxies. This appeared to have been achieved by the pounding administered to Hamas in Gaza, the mauling of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, which served as a conduit for Iranian control and supply of Hezbollah.

But in the wake of Iran’s humiliation of the US and Israel, the ayatollahs are busy re-establishing this ring of fire, starting in Lebanon. They want to protect Hezbollah from further savaging by Israel, and last week they even rocketed Israel with some two-dozen ballistic missiles in response to a small Israeli strike in Beirut’s Dahiyeh Quarter, a Hezbollah stronghold. The IDF prepared a massive aerial strike on Tehran in response but Trump ordered Netanyahu to stand down, fearing that a renewal of Israeli-Hezbollah clashes could drag in Iran and upend the fragile US-Iranian ceasefire.

In his panic-stricken effort to disentangle America from the Middle Eastern mess he helped to create, Trump now appears to be falling into line with Tehran’s wishes. Disastrously for Israel, the first clause of the MoU explicitly links an end to fighting in the Gulf with an end to fighting in Lebanon at Tehran’s behest….

Israel appears to have no choice but to bow to Trump’s demands – but feckless Trump is the partner from hell.

But overall, the war and Trump’s withdrawal from the battlefield have permanently shaken US-Gulf states’ relations. This augurs Iranian hegemony in the region—precisely what the US-Israeli campaigns were fought to prevent. More broadly, the American failure to deter Tehran has highlighted American fecklessness, which may incentivise other powers to go on the offensive in their neighbourhoods. China, for instance, may be encouraged to attack Taiwan given the likelihood that Trump will refrain from intervening. Perceptions of American weakness have only been reinforced by reports that the war has severely depleted America’s reserves of critical munitions. 

The world now waits to see what will or will not emerge from US-Iranian negotiations in the coming sixty days. Secure in the knowledge that Trump has no stomach for further fighting, the generals and clerics controlling Tehran will no doubt be emboldened to make maximalist demands on the nuclear issue, Lebanon, and everything else.