When Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu launched their military aggression against Iran on February 28, they appeared convinced that the war would be swift. Netanyahu reportedly assured Washington that the campaign would deliver a decisive strategic victory—one capable of reordering the Middle East and restoring Israel’s battered deterrence.
Whether Netanyahu himself believed that promise is another matter.
For many years, key figures in Israel’s strategic elite have favored “creative destruction” over mere stability. The principle is straightforward: break down adversarial regional powers and replace them with fragmented, weakened political entities.
This concept was formulated over time and was explicitly outlined in the 1996 policy document, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, crafted for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by US neoconservatives like Richard Perle.
The paper proposed that Israel abandon the traditional land-for-peace approach, instead promoting efforts to diminish or eliminate hostile governments, notably in Iraq and Syria. The ambition extended beyond mere military success to fundamentally reshaping the Middle East in Israel’s favor.
Subsequent years appeared to affirm this strategy’s validity, from Tel Aviv’s point of view.
The Middle East Reordered
The 2003 US invasion of Iraq is widely regarded as a disastrous episode for Washington. With hundreds of thousands dead and trillions of dollars spent, the US became entangled in a prolonged and destabilizing occupation.
Nonetheless, the conflict toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, dismantled the Baath Party, and destroyed what had been the region’s most formidable Arab military force.
This outcome held strategic importance for Israel.
Iraq was historically among the few Arab nations able to militarily challenge Israel, but the war left it fragmented and politically fragile, struggling to maintain unity.
Syria, another major concern in Israeli security thinking, fell into civil war starting in 2011. Libya likewise collapsed following NATO’s intervention in 2011. Across the Arab world, countries that once held nationalist strength splintered into weaker, divided entities.
From Israel’s viewpoint, this fragmentation appeared to yield tangible benefits.
Without powerful Arab militaries to confront it, some Gulf states reconsidered their refusal to formally normalize ties with Israel.
This shift culminated in the Abraham Accords, signed in September 2020 under the Trump administration, initially bringing formal relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, later joined by Morocco and Sudan.
For a brief period, the geopolitical transformation imagined decades earlier seemed to have come to fruition.
Gaza Changed the Equation
However, history rarely unfolds linearly.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza failed to deliver the clear-cut strategic gain Israeli authorities expected. Instead, it unveiled serious weaknesses in both Israel’s military capabilities and political legitimacy.
Crucially, Palestinian resistance revealed that sheer military dominance does not guarantee political control.
This conflict’s effects spread far beyond Gaza’s borders.
It inspired resistance movements throughout the region, deepened divides between Arab and Muslim regimes allied with Washington and those opposed to Israeli policies, and sparked unprecedented global support for Palestinians.
Israel’s reputation on the world stage plummeted.
Western narratives that once portrayed Israel as a democratic bastion surrounded by threats have gradually crumbled. Increasingly, major international agencies depict Israel as a state perpetrating systematic oppression and genocidal acts in Gaza.
The loss of legitimacy carries heavy strategic implications. Military strength alone is insufficient; legitimacy underpins power, and once forfeited, is extremely difficult to regain.
Netanyahu’s Final Gamble
In this context, Netanyahu’s war against Iran stands as his most decisive bet.
Success could restore Israel’s influence across the region and reinforce its deterrence posture. Defeating or severely crippling Iran would dramatically alter the regional balance.
But failure could be equally catastrophic.
Facing an ICC arrest warrant in 2024 for war crimes related to Gaza, Netanyahu has anchored his political fate on securing a strategic triumph.
In multiple interviews throughout the past year, he framed the conflict with Iran in near-biblical terms. During a televised broadcast in 2025, he proclaimed Israel was on a “historic mission” to safeguard the Jewish state’s future.
Yet such rhetoric suggests more desperation than confidence.
Israel cannot independently wage this war—it never could.
Therefore, Netanyahu has worked intensely to involve the United States directly, reflecting a recurring pattern in recent Middle Eastern conflicts.
The Paradox of Trump’s War
For Americans, a pressing question persists: why did Donald Trump—who repeatedly ran on ending “endless wars”—allow the US to plunge into another Middle East confrontation?
During the 2016 campaign, Trump famously said, “We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.”
Yet nearly ten years later, his administration engaged Washington in a conflict with stakes surpassing prior wars.
For those suffering the bombings, the precise reasons are less relevant.
The region once again confronts scenes of ruined cities, mass fatalities, grieving loved ones, and societies shattered by foreign military intervention.
However, this war is occurring amid a profoundly altered geopolitical context.
The US no longer holds uncontested global supremacy.
China has risen as a formidable economic and strategic player. Russia continues extending its influence. Regional states are increasingly confident in resisting US pressures.
Changes have also transformed the Middle East itself.
A War Already Going Wrong
Early indications suggest the conflict is diverging from the expectations set by both Washington and Tel Aviv.
Reports from US and Israeli outlets reveal that Israeli and some Gulf missile-defense systems are under immense strain from continuous assaults. Meanwhile, Iran and its allies showcase missile capabilities beyond what many analysts forecasted.
What was meant to be a swift campaign increasingly resembles a drawn-out war.
Energy markets also reflect this shift. Rather than consolidating control over global energy supply, the conflict has disrupted flows and enhanced Iran’s sway over critical shipping lanes.
Assumptions grounded in decades of unquestioned US military dominance clash with a far more intricate reality.
Even official statements from Washington have grown visibly defensive, often laced with anger—signaling that events are not progressing as planned.
Within the Trump administration, the lack of strategic insight is glaring. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, known more for television bravado than serious military acumen, frequently describes the conflict using language resembling locker-room bravado rather than coherent doctrine.
His speeches and interviews distill complex geopolitical situations into simplistic tales of dominance, masculinity, and raw power. While this may rally partisan audiences, it exposes a deeper issue: those steering one of the most dangerous wars in recent memory seem profoundly unaware of the forces they have unleashed.
Hegseth’s approach highlights a broader intellectual decline within Washington’s war-making elite—where historical understanding is replaced by slogans, and strategic planning by displays of machismo. In this setting, war is less studied and more performed.
The End of an Era?
Netanyahu aimed for Middle East supremacy. Washington aimed to solidify its status as supreme global power.
Neither goal looks attainable.
Instead, the conflict may quicken trends it sought to halt: diminishing US strategic influence, erosion of Israeli deterrence, and a Middle East increasingly dominated by regional players rather than foreign powers.
Despite the aggressive rhetoric, Trump is effectively a weak president. Rage rarely signals strength; it often conceals insecurity. His administration has overestimated American military power, alienated allies, antagonized foes, and entered a war whose complexity it barely comprehends.
How can leadership so absorbed in narcissism and spectacle fully grasp the scale of the disaster it has helped trigger?
Moments of global crisis typically call for wisdom. Instead, we witness a chorus of slogans, threats, and self-praise from Washington—an administration seemingly blind to the limits of power.
They fail to recognize how drastically the world has changed, how the Middle East now views US military expeditions, and that Israel itself has become a political and moral declining force.
Of course, Trump and his similarly arrogant team will keep hunting for any narrative of ‘victory’ to tout as the ultimate achievement. There will always be zealots eager to believe such tales.
But most Americans—and the vast majority globally—no longer buy them.
Partly because this war on Iran is fundamentally unjust.
And partly because history has little patience for those who lose.
Original article: znetwork.org
About the Author
