By Tom Fowdy
In the early hours of Friday, 13th, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his forces were pursuing the "first stage" of a number of unilateral strikes against targets related to Iran's nuclear program, striking "at the heart" of Tehran's determination to gradually make nuclear weapons. As of the time of writing a number of key Iranian officials have been reportedly killed. The strikes come amidst a breakdown in talks between the US and Iran over the future of this program, a dramatic increase in Tehran's uranium enrichment, and, of course, overwhelming domestic pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu himself amidst the war in Gaza.
Let's dissect this bit by bit: First of all, Benjamin Netanyahu has a proven trend of deliberately escalating war and conflict in order to shield himself domestically when he is facing growing scrutiny. Outside of its traditional unconditional support from the United States, Tel Aviv has never been more isolated. Earlier this week the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand took the unprecedented step of blacklisting two far right members of his cabinet over their explicit desires to destroy Palestinian statehood, a move which drew condemnation from the United States. This comes amidst Israel being accused of crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza due to a total embargo on the territory, severely limiting the intake of humanitarian aid and a mounting civilian death toll.
So when faced with this, Netanyahu returns to a familiar playbook: War. He calculates that Iran is a perfect bogeyman and that if Tehran can be goaded into attacking Israel, not only can he shore up domestic support to shield his faltering popularity, but also he can force the hand of the West to militarily back him. Thus, as we have seen since 2023, he creates conflict again and again, and the underlying goal is simply to sustain power. Having just killed senior Iranian leaders (yet again), it becomes inevitable that Iran will, as it did in 2024 on two occasions, respond with an overwhelming strike against Israel in the form of ballistic missiles and drones.
But not only that, Iran is also increasingly geopolitically cornered. From a national interest perspective, what do you do? Attempts to negotiate with the United States are simply impossible because not only has the US re-engaged on previous commitments it made, but the Trump administration is filled with extreme Iran hawks who see Tehran as an easy target for aggressive measures precisely as such geopolitical confrontation serves American objectives in the US as a security provider for the Arab States. Seeing this, Netanyahu recognises that he can escalate with impunity because doing so effectively serves American foreign policy interests in the containment of Tehran, even if paradoxically Israel's actions are undermining US soft power all over the world, consider that Anti-US sentiment has grown considerably in Indonesia and Malaysia in Israel precisely because of the Israel factor.
Considering such, there is a serious risk that Iran has nothing left to lose strategically by going nuclear. Israel keeps bombing it, the US keeps backing it, and it has been pushed into a corner by the weakening of Hezbollah, Russia distracted in Ukraine, and thus the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria. Iran can, of course, engage in a direct retaliation against Israel following this, but this is symbolic at best; it does not change the structure or paradigm, and if it fails to take decisive action, it risks appearing weak. This means, as Tel Aviv hopes, Middle East tensions are being elevated to a new climax, bringing new uncertainty and risk of war. My take on it personally is that Iran either finally nukes up, given it is already under heavy US sanctions and Russia and China will protect it at the UN, or it faces increasing military strangulation and checkmating by Washington and its partners in Tel-Aviv.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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