No Current Reason to Bomb Iran Beyond Netanyahu’s Personal Interests

Here we go again. As expected, the United States is bombing Iran, the Israeli government wants to join the bombing party, and everyone is talking about it happening sometime this weekend.

When everyone knows it is coming, it can only be a theatrical act, as it was in the past. Israel joins in, again; Iran fires missiles, again; and within a few days, it is over. People will die, houses will be destroyed. Nothing positive will be achieved. 

The only reason for Israel to bomb Iran now is Netanyahu’s personal interests. Nothing has changed regarding the Iranian threat to Israel or its nuclear program.

Netanyahu does not like the polls he is seeing. He wants to control the Likud party’s nominee list, as he believes new names will get him more votes than the current members of the party members. A war serves him well: it provides a reason not to hold the Likud primaries, while ensuring that the news focuses entirely on the war with Iran. He controls the narrative during elections.

There is a reason Israel and the United States are pushing a story that Iran moved centrifuges into Pickaxe Mountain, and why most reporters are so readily helping to spread it. My assumption is that the United States and Israel will bomb that location, allowing them to claim, once again, that they have set back the Iranian nuclear program by years.

Netanyahu knows he cannot sustain a war with Iran for three months. Israel does not have sufficient defensive capabilities against the roughly 1,000 to 1,500 ballistic missiles that Iran probably still possess. He needs a war closer to the elections, one that allows him to control the narrative in the days before voting and perhaps even to postpone the election date. That means he would prefer a war around the end of September, during Sukkot, or at the beginning of October.

Trump has no real interest in waging this war, apart from saving face by claiming that he “defeated” or “destroyed” something in Iran. The midterm elections are approaching, and high fuel and food prices are bad politics. The Democrats, of course, are doing their best to lose these midterms even under such circumstances.

Another possible reason, as I wrote before, is that the Gulf states would like to finish the job with Iran, or else be bullied by it for years – and now they are willing to pay for it. Trump hinted at this a few days ago.

So we have three paper tigers confronting one another.

Iran probably has no more than 1,00 to 1,500 ballistic missiles left (perhaps fewer). This is its main weapon. It has been rationing them for months. In March, it fired no more than 10 per day, allowing it to continue fighting for months.

Then there is the United States, which everyone knows will not put boots on the ground and which has so far failed to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

And there is Israel, which bombed hundreds of targets in Iran in March but cannot overthrow the Iranian regime and does not have enough interceptor missiles.

Rational actors in this situation would avoid war. But Trump and Netanyahu are not rational actors. Unfortunately, Iran is the only side acting reasonably, like rationing their missiles, focusing on the economic pain they are causing the US and the world.

Netanyahu will use the last Israeli soldier to save his own skin. He cares only about himself, and Israel will go to war whenever it serves his personal interests.

Nothing good will come from this new escalation.

Until Netanyahu leaves office, this is how things will continue. Unfortunately, given the current campaigns of the different parties, it does not appear that anyone will be able to form a new government capable of removing him.

So these useless wars will continue until leaders themselves pay the price for taking their nations to war. ‘Not my children, not my money’—so they do not care.