Bibi, what’s your game?

Unlike in Gaza, do you have a realistic strategy to win in Iran, or are you just putzing around and playing for yet more time?

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Missiles fired from Iran are pictured in the night sky over Jerusalem on June 14, 2025. (Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP)

There are few people in Israel who don’t feel something positive about the ongoing events in Iran. Relief. Satisfaction. Pride. Awe. Even with the deadly price incurred by incoming Iranian missiles, there’s a sense that this was going to have to happen sooner or later.

But the price could rise – substantially – whether it’s in the rear, where so many citizens still rely on public shelters for protection, or among the brave and highly skilled men and women flying those Israeli jets. (Interestingly, Eitan Ben-Eliyahu, a former air force chief, said the other day that considering the dangers, distances and complexities involved, he was astonished that the laws of statistics had not yet caught up with IAF air crews.)

We know Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared goal: to end Iran’s nuclear program. And if there might be a bonus, it’s to effect regime change, ideally through an uprising by Iranians who have had enough of the mullahs’ rule and are sufficiently galvanized to overthrow them.

But what don’t we know? Netanyahu’s game. Or more specifically, his endgame.

FOR MORE THAN 20 months, the Israeli prime minister and his government have been putzing around in the Gaza Strip. Yes, putzing around. This makes Gaza – and all the other fronts that have opened in its wake – Israel’s longest war. Longer even than the 1947-1949 War of Independence.

People who know a thing or two attribute this not to Netanyahu’s well-known inability to make crucial decisions, but to his simple preference to remain at war. Ending the conflict would bring pressure on him to establish a fully independent commission of inquiry into the reasons behind the October 7 debacle, whose findings probably would, to put it mildly, treat him unkindly.

This hesitancy has left people across the Israeli political spectrum quite unhappy.

Liberals and many centrists will tell you that Netanyahu should stop putzing around and make a deal with Hamas to bring the remaining hostages home, thus embarking on a much-needed national process of catharsis and social healing. Should Hamas act up again, they say, the IDF can always reinvade.

(The leftists around here are so few and far in between that hardly anyone, much less Netanyahu, is interested in what they have to say.)

Moderate right-wingers and many centrists will tell you that Netanyahu should stop putzing around and take out Hamas with a kill shot, in that way allowing the IDF to bring the remaining hostages home (or, more realistically, carry their bodies home).

Those on the extreme right will tell you that Netanyahu should stop putzing around and raze the coastal enclave in its entirety, hostages and local residents be damned. This would pave the way to new Jewish settlements and an end to the “Gaza problem” (and perhaps even bring on the Messiah).

So no matter where you stand on the political spectrum in Israel, you are most likely troubled by the fact that Netanyahu has shown no signs of having a real endgame, a real strategy or a real plan for the day after. That he is just putzing around.

Which begs the question: What is the prime minister’s strategy regarding Iran? We know his stated goals, but does he have a realistic endgame? Does he have a realistic exit plan should he be unable to realize his stated goals?

To begin with, it’s not entirely clear why he chose to go to war against Iran at this specific time. He’s been threatening to do so for years, but the only real development that might have tipped his hand in the wee hours of June 13 came the day before, when the International Atomic Energy Agency stated, according to the UN, that “Iran is not complying with its obligations regarding nuclear non-proliferation.”

Did it mean Iran was literally on the brink of an atomic warhead for use on Israel? Not quite, although coming from a UN-backed organization, the news was troubling. More noteworthy, though, a declaration of this type was ripe for exploitation as an excuse to finally take action.

SO FAR, THE IAF, aided greatly by terrific military intelligence and even Mossad agents on the ground, has done a superb and even astonishing job of wearing down the Iranian threat. Together, these Israeli forces have worked to peel an onion, first neutralizing the mullah’s air defenses to better ensure air superiority, then neutralizing Iran’s top generals and nuclear scientists in pinpoint attacks to keep policymakers helpless and off-balance, and finally by going after the country’s nuclear sites themselves.

The main problem is that much remains to be done, with Iran having moved many of its mobile ballistic missile launchers farther east, meaning even more logistical headaches for IAF planners. And not lost on them is the fact that Iran’s most consequential nuclear sites are deep underground, requiring massive and heavy bunker-busting bombs and specialized aircraft for their delivery. Things Israel lacks.

The United States has these systems in the form of the GBU-57 bunker buster and the B-2 strategic bomber. But the US is currently led by a man who vacillates between extremes, saying one day he loves Netanyahu and the next day “F-ck him,” and declaring one day that “we’ll see” and the next day “this is Israel’s war,” keeping his eye on the growing isolationist sector in his party.

With such fluctuations, Israel might have to go after the underground sites itself through lengthy and repetitive sorties that increase the dangers for Israeli planes and pilots. At the same time, Iran would continue to lob just enough ballistic missiles to keep Israel’s air defenses busy and drawing on dwindling stocks of ordnance, all while keeping Israelis at home, with schools closed indefinitely and the economy coming to a halt.

So what’s the game plan, Bibi? Is there a realistic blueprint that can neuter Iran’s nuclear program without blowing out Israel’s economy and shredding its already tattered social fabric? Is there a realistic exit strategy in case things go south?

After angering so many world leaders with your heavy-handed treatment of Gaza, do you have any real allies left to help bail you out? Or are you just hungry for a break from all the criticism about putzing around in Gaza?

SORRY. I SIMPLY can’t help but feel that your political survival is the true reason for everything going on, with the country and its own interests coming in a distant second (if that).

So give us a sign, sir. Are we in this for the long run? And if so, is it for us or is it for you? It’s long been hard to tell who you care about most.