How Netanyahu's demented hubris could shatter the region

Middle East Eye

8 hours ago

Despite an uneasy ceasefire in the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, there's no telling what will come next, particularly from a volatile US administration led by Donald Trump that has elevated self-contradiction, confusion and policy U-turns to an art of geostrategic chaos.
Much will depend on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's next moves and Iran's reactions; less will hinge on the US itself.
Since his re-election, President Trump has taken a back seat to Netanyahu. He has been largely reacting, often appearing unpleasantly surprised, to the latter's strategic moves and cynical manipulations - just as Russian President Vladimir Putin has for a long time been playing the US president.
His recent bombing of Iran only aggravated the West's "Israel problem", by surrendering and sacrificing Washington's own national interests and professed values to an untrustworthy and purely self-interested Israeli "ally".
Trump, who has portrayed himself as an anti-war president, proclaimed in 2019 that great nations do not start forever wars. He is uninterested in exporting liberalism or democracy abroad.
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But Netanyahu deliberately defeated Trump's stated non-interventionism by cornering him on Iran - a situation where he felt he had no choice but to intervene, if only to save face, at personal political risk.
Relentlessly pushed by Netanyahu, Trump opted for limited "surgical" strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. He was careful to quickly declare that the bombing marked the end of the episode, and that he had no desire or intention to engage in further military actions against Iran.
But will Netanyahu let him retreat in the longer term? Though still a decisive player in the Middle East, Trump's US is no longer the driving force of the bloody regional mutations under way. Israel, unfortunately, plays that role.
Counterproductive war
Despite the chaos that unfolded last month, it appears that few if any of the proclaimed objectives were reached with regards to removing the Iranian nuclear threat. And what unfolded will likely backfire against both Israel and the US in the long run, for several reasons.
Firstly, it may indirectly solidify the Iranian regime by unifying the population around national defence in the face of Israeli-US aggression. Secondly, it may push Iran to accelerate its nuclear programme and ultimately develop the bomb as a means of self-protection. Finally, it may convince Iran to abandon the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which, unlike Israel, it has signed. Iran has now suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and banned its inspectors.
All of that being said, there is no denying that with his war on Iran, Netanyahu masterfully killed several birds with one stone.
The new world order sought by Netanyahu far exceeds the geographic limits of the Middle East. It includes domination over the US and Europe
He at the very least delayed Iran's nuclear programme, if only for a limited period of time. He sabotaged both US-Iran diplomatic talks and a planned French-Saudi summit where European states might have formally recognised a Palestinian state.
He also diverted international attention away from Gaza, thus making it easier for Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Additionally, as most EU states were criticising Netanyahu harshly on Gaza and several, including Britain and Spain, had suspended commercial deals or trade talks with Israel, he silenced those critiques, recreating overnight a western consensus around Israel.
Most importantly for Netanyahu, his approval rating soared thanks to the war on Iran, thus ameliorating his extremely precarious political standing within Israel.
Last but not least, he finally managed to reach a major goal he had been working towards for decades: getting the US to bomb Iran. That in itself was a major foreign policy victory for Netanyahu.
Larger goals
From a broader geostrategic perspective, Netanyahu's war on Iran was just the latest development in his multi-fronted attacks on Tehran's allies. After targeting Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen - the tentacles of the octopus - he went after the head of the "axis of resistance": Iran itself.
While systematically presenting these operations as defensive, Netanyahu's real goal is to keep the entire region in a state of vulnerability, by destabilising regimes and spreading chaos. The evidence that Israel's predatory aggression is typically not motivated by self-defence was underscored by Netanyahu's attacks on post-Assad Syria.
Through territorial incursions, strikes on Syrian military assets and land conquest, in addition to pitting minorities against the regime in classic divide-and-conquer tactics, Netanyahu aims to further weaken Syria - even though the new regime has displayed no intention to target Israel.
After ceasefire, Iran is preparing for the long war with Israel Read More »
Ultimately, Netanyahu's goal is to install a new regional order centred on unchallenged Israeli supremacy and domination. He is open about his "new Middle East" project, which - while sold as a pacification strategy - actually involves crushing all adversaries, especially the Palestinian people.
On the map he brandished at the United Nations in September 2023, Palestine had disappeared, with both Gaza and the occupied West Bank displayed as part of Israel. Tel Aviv was portrayed as the new centre of gravity in a region reduced to a few Gulf states, along with Sudan, Jordan and Egypt; the rest of the neighbouring countries were not even labelled.
This demented hubris is reminiscent of the ancient Pax Romana. And just like the fate of the recalcitrant populations who resisted then, it is not hard to figure out what could happen to any who reject this new hegemon.
The new world order sought by Netanyahu far exceeds the geographic limits of the Middle East. It includes domination over the US and Europe, whose racist neocolonial states have themselves long used Israel as an attack dog to keep the Arab and Muslim populations of the region weak, divided and vulnerable.
That fact, too, was admitted in a remarkable moment of candour and truth by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, when during the latest G7 summit, he thanked Israel for "doing the dirty work for all of us".
If anyone wants to know what the new face of a world dominated by Israel would look like, that's easy: just look at Gaza.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.