Another View: The War’s Solid Achievements
ToI’s choice of stories to cover, its reporting angle and its editorial opinion are relentlessly progressive. Here I will try to provide an alternative view for readers who would find a conservative counterpoint refreshing. I will try to select and respond to materials weekly, as well as addressing topics of my own. Look for my comments in the talkbacks, which will direct you to more comprehensive treatments in this blog.
Along with most of Israel’s mainstream media, ToI leads with cavils about Israel’s latest war with Iran and its achievements. To believe the leaders of the government’s opposition, the outcome of the war was disastrous. Such views – the media’s and the politicians’ – are myopic. They owe more to mood than to dispassionate analysis. The war has resulted in achievements far greater than the price Israeli society had to pay, even if the most optimistic goals – that bombing would lead to regime change – have proven unrealistic. Actually, the book is not closed on regime change. The Islamic Republic is far more vulnerable to overthrow today than it was six weeks ago.
We’ll discuss the unrealistic expectations raised at the start of this war further on. But the best way to think of this war from Israel’s perspective is by comparing it to Rome’s three Punic wars, in which Rome progressively ground Carthage’s empire down to nothing, even though it came close to defeat – as Israel has not – in each of the first two. One can’t know in advance that a third war against Iran will do the trick, but there’s no question that the balance of power since October 7 2023 has shifted dramatically in Israel’s favor.
The hard fact is that even without political goals such as regime overthrow, Israel had no choice but to fight this war. As expected, Iran did not take Israel’s assault in June last year lying down. That assault left the restoration of Iran’s nuclear weapons project a long-term project at best. But the regime doubled down on its attempt to rebuild its ballistic-missile arsenal and was making substantial progress. It may retain perhaps half the missiles capable of reaching Israel with which it started the war, but rebuilding that arsenal is now, at best, a long-term project like the nuclear project.
The Iranian regime is now enjoying the afterglow of its proven ability – for now – to block the straits of Hormuz and hold the exports of the Arab Gulf states hostage. Over the longer term Iran’s ambitions in the straits are a fool’s errand. The regime is more isolated diplomatically and militarily than ever. For the Arab states of the Gulf this war was their October 7, smashing their naive dream, once shared by Israel, that one can live next to a terrorist regime and go on making money and enjoying life as usual. For these states the lesson of this war is threefold: 1. No, one can’t live in peace next to the Shiite Republic of Iran and as a result of the war their choice is either to submit to Iranian domination of their economies and societies – or refuse to. Iran is Public Enemy #1. 2. The support of the United States, even at its most belligerent under Trump, cannot be relied on. 3. Ergo, if they wish to safeguard their vision of their societies as wealthy entrepots and financial centers, they have to acquire their own, autonomous ability to defeat Iran’s threats to their civilian population and to the straits. This will take several years, a lot of money – which they have – and the most advanced military technology they can lay their hands on.
Fortunately for them, their interests and Israel’s interests vis-à-vis Iran are congruent. And about that advanced military technology . . .
It is also the case that Trump agreed to a ceasefire in order to get the straits opened. If Iran continues to keep it closed it gives Trump the greatest incentive possible to go ahead and open the straits himself, despite the cost.
The Ayatollahs’ regime has survived the war but may not be able to survive the peace. Its domestic political vulnerabilities will become more evident and important as time goes on. Its policies have brought disaster to the Iranian people and threaten more. As long as sanctions are in place the regime is on the skids, even if its fall will take time. As long as it insists on keeping its uranium in the hopes of resuming its nuclear weapons project someday, it will remain under sanction and the economy will go from bad to worse. The war hasn’t changed the fact that the regime is its own worst enemy (not to mention the Iranians’). What is needed is a carefully thought out and executed plan by the United States and Israel – or if necessary just Israel – to form a broad opposition coalition, spread propaganda against the regime focused on convincing junior members of the regime that the regime is destroying Iran, arm insurgents, and prepare the internal political ground for an uprising.
As for Hezbollah, like many people I have problems with the a-g-o-n-i-z-i-n-g-l-y s-l-o-w p-a-c-e at which the IDF is taking over southern Lebanon. One of the drawbacks of the present government is its failure to change the IDF’s operational doctrine to one of deep, rapid operational maneuver. Yet 2026 is not 2024. The IDF is proceeding to surround Hezbollah’s positions in southern Lebanon in preparation for the kill. One result of its caution is that Hezbollah’s casualty rate in this fight is literally 100 times Israel’s. That matters because inflicting mortal damage on Hezbollah means, literally, rubbing out thousands of its fighters, and that very low exchange rate means a lot to a lot of families with loved ones at the front. The present government is committed to inflicting that mortal damage on Hezbollah, and if it is reelected this year that’s what it will do. I have no confidence that its opponents, despite their carping, will do the same.
Oh, I almost forgot – Britain, France, Spain, Italy and the Vatican disapprove of our war against Iran and Hezbollah. They have scolded us in their severest tones. OK, now you can go ahead and forget it.
Now a few words about Israeli politics.
Nothing I write here is meant as an endorsement of Netanyahu. Many people cannot forgive him for letting the threat of Hezbollah and Hamas grow on his watch, or for tolerating people in his office who were moonlighting for Qatar, or for letting the Haredim get away with draft-dodging. These are legitimate views. Netanyahu likes to compare himself to Winston Churchill. One of the keys to Churchill’s popularity with the British public during World War II was that he refused to sugar-coat his description of the course of the war and its prospects; he always insisted that it was a long, hard haul, that the British would have to undergo a lot of suffering before it ended and that nobody could know how long that would take. Netanyahu conducts his public relations as if he were selling a new, revolutionary brand of toothpaste. His mendacity is a standing joke. He refuses to treat the Israeli public as adults. In the field of public relations he is his own worst enemy, always promising more than he is likely to deliver.
That said, Netanyahu’s conduct of Israel’s military and diplomatic affairs since September of 2024 has been brilliant. Not flawless, but brilliant. The balance of power in the Middle East has shifted enormously. The congruence of interests between Israel and the conservative Sunni Arab world is patent. Unbelievably, the United States and Israel have fought shoulder to shoulder for five weeks, proving Israel’s value as an ally to our neighbors, to the United States – and to our foes. All this has taken world-class daring and imagination.
The people who want to replace Netanyahu were no better at assessing the danger from Hamas and Hezbullah – the most one can accuse Netanyahu of is that he bought what Gantz and Eisenkot were selling when they were chiefs of staff – and their attitude to the public they expect to vote for them is identical. In 2022 Lapid was the author of the attempt to appease Hezbollah by yielding Israel’s economic waters to Lebanon. When Yair Lapid describes the outcome of the war as an unmitigated disaster and Gadi Eisenkot, Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennet take Netanyahu to task for not realizing his most extravagant promises they are proving to the Israeli public either that their view of the situation is hopelessly narrow or that that they prefer petty politicking to speaking soberly and intelligently to the public.
Their attempt to blame Netanyahu for Trump’s decision to accept a ceasefire is not serious; if they were in Netanyahu’s place they would have to accept Trump’s decision in exactly the same way, and the ceasefire does not negate the war’s actual achievements. One cannot imagine any of the pygmies who now seek to replace Netanyahu coming close to his performance. They are simply not serious people, and nobody who takes public affairs seriously could be tempted to vote for them.
