Ruthless and brilliant Israel has de-fanged, but not destroyed, Iran
Donald Trump vindicated. Benjamin Netanyahu rehabilitated. Iran humbled. The Middle East becalmed.
That, at least, is one way of interpreting the past 13 days of war and the ceasefire that has possibly just ended it. The Israeli prime minister made the right call, the US president gambled correctly – and the ayatollahs folded.
Arab leaders may not have liked how Israel did it, expressing outrage to pacify their domestic populations, but they will nonetheless feel immense relief.
Iran, the great menace for so much of the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, has been de-fanged – if not defeated – in a ruthlessly executed campaign that really began with the decapitation of Hezbollah last year. The Saudis were wrong: you don't start with the head of the snake, as they termed Iran, but with the arms of the octopus, its proxies.
The Israelis demonstrated how to fight an asymmetric war – a campaign that will be studied for generations and one that stands in contrast to the struggles faced by the British in Kenya, Malaya and Aden, or the Americans in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some former US officials have already suggested broader implications: China might think twice about invading Taiwan, having seen how decisively Mr Trump can act.
It's a compelling argument. But there are caveats.
A formal assessment of battlefield damage is still pending. If Iran has salvaged enough of its nuclear programme to sprint for a bomb, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump risk turning a tactical victory into a strategic defeat.
Tehran may yet rise from the ashes. The Islamic regime has retreated to lick its wounds – but it has not been destroyed.
It may be that the Iranian people rise in anger to overthrow a system that turned one of the region's most socially liberal, if corrupt and authoritarian, countries into a joyless theocracy. But opposition is weak and divided, and the regime still controls all the levers of power.
Dictatorships often rot from within and will sometimes collapse with a small push. But experts remain divided over just how brittle Iran's regime is. Unlike in Syria, there is no rebel army waiting in the wings to march on Tehran, meaning it might yet re-emerge as a threat.
Mr Netanyahu's reputation, which has been battered over the past 18 months, may be partially redeemed among some Israelis, but he remains a pariah for much of the world. The war in Gaza has severely damaged his image, and that is unlikely to change unless he now moves decisively to end it.
The success of the Iranian campaign arguably gives him an opportunity to do just that – a case the Trump administration will probably make – but whether the Israeli prime minister will take the win is another matter.
Gaza also demonstrates the limits of Israel's approach to asymmetric warfare. Militant groups can be degraded and deterred by overwhelming force, incisive intelligence and technological innovation, but attempting to eliminate them on their home soil is a different matter, as Israel has found in its war with Hamas. This helps explain why Israel only mounted a limited operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The terror group has been stuffed back into its box and is struggling to rearm; its traditional supply route through Syria has been severed since the fall of the Assad regime in December. But it too has not been defeated. The Gaza campaign, despite the severe degradation of Hamas, has revealed the limits of fighting asymmetric wars.
And as for China, it is far from clear that Beijing will draw the conclusions hoped for by some of Mr Trump's supporters.
By striking Iran while appeasing Russia, Mr Trump may have sent a different signal: that he is willing to confront lesser powers in a limited fashion, but content to let larger ones do as they please.
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