Trump's U-turn on Iran war has ended Israel's Middle East dream

Trump's U-turn on Iran war has ended Israel's Middle East dream David Hearst on Wed, 06/17/2026 - 08:11 The failure to subdue Iran has halted, or shattered, a much larger ambition: a project to change the shape of the Middle East, with a reborn and rejuvenated 'greater Israel' at its head A woman holds an Iranian flag on a street in Tehran, Iran, on 10 June, 2026. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters) On Of all the military failures the US has suffered in the past 25 years in the Middle East, the Iran war is probably the most consequential. Unlike America’s military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Syria, the Islamic Republic did not just survive another US attempt at regime change. The US-Israel war on Iran was never just about the fate of one regime. The failure to subdue Iran has halted, or shattered, a much larger ambition: a project to change the shape of the Middle East, with a reborn and rejuvenated "greater Israel" at its head. This was the strategic goal of the Abraham Accords, and when Saudi Arabia baulked at signing on the dotted line, a war with Iran was manufactured instead. Ironically, it took "the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House" to undo Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest dream. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); A rabbit hole For US President Donald Trump, the decision to climb out of the rabbit hole Netanyahu had invited him to jump into was a no brainer. For Netanyahu, Trump’s U-turn on Iran is a disaster, the consequences of which could be felt for generations to come. US inflation, driven by higher energy costs produced by the war, is at a three-year high; his approval ratings are at a historic low; he is facing widening opposition within his own party; the paralysis of the Gulf economies was hitting the wallet of the Trump clan; and he has mid-term elections looming in which he could easily lose both houses of Congress. Trump wanted a quick Venezuela-style victory, and from the moment it became clear that Iran would not roll over obediently, the 80-year-old president switched off mentally. For Netanyahu, Trump’s U-turn on Iran is a disaster, the consequences of which could be felt for generations to come Israel’s war correspondents were of one mind. Alon Ben David, Channel 13’s military correspondent, said the war had turned the tables. Before it, Israel could have been considered the leading military power in the region with American backing. After it, Iran becomes the most significant power. Amos Harel, Haaretz’s military analyst, wrote that Trump's agreement with Iran was Netanyahu’s biggest security failure since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023. A chorus of right-wing forces began toying with the idea that Israel should now "go it alone", an option that was debated in cabinet. Trump rubbed salt into this wound by telling the New York Times how thankful Netanyahu should be to him. "Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn’t be around for two hours." On Tuesday, he continued the theme in comments to reporters in France at the G7 summit by saying that without the US "there would be no Israel", adding that he did not like that "two hours before signing the agreement, that there was an attack in Lebanon, in Beirut". Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the right-wing secular opposition Yisrael Beiteinu, said Israel should build a ballistic missile force and Mossad should be instructed to focus exclusively on efforts to overthrow the regime in Iran. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich promised to continue the campaign to topple the regime "ourselves and in creative ways". Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who could well be Netanyahu’s successor, told Piers Morgan: "I wanna tell the Iranian regime... I'm gonna be your worst nightmare EVER." A strategic setback The pieces of the jigsaw of Israel’s regional strategy that could survive Netanyahu’s strategic setback - the land that Israel has occupied and cleansed of its inhabitants in Gaza, South Lebanon and Syria, the undeclared security pact with Abu Dhabi, the use of Somaliland as base of forward projection - all these remain. Iran has won the war. Trump and Netanyahu now face a reckoning Read More » The project could be continued at any time. But what Netanyahu has lost is the interest of the current US president in backing this dream. And there is unlikely to be another one coming soon. It will be a long time before another Israeli prime minister will be allowed to sit opposite a serving US president in the situation room under the White House, as Netanyahu did with Trump on 11 February, this year, and spin him a bunch of lies. Does anyone in Israel seriously think Vice President JD Vance would allow that to be done to him, if ever he became president? It took seconds for the Israeli establishment to sense this seismic shift in their closest ally and scream betrayal. Yinon Magal, the Channel 14 journalist widely seen as Netanyahu’s mouthpiece, called US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner "little Jews", in an overt display of antisemitism if ever there was one. He called Trump a loser and Vice President JD Vance "scum". (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); A toxic alliance If the genocide in Gaza killed off the myth lingering in the western world that Israel was a democracy striving for peace but only finding war, the attack on Iran has dealt a similar blow to Israel’s credibility in Washington as a military ally. Israel has become a toxic brand in the US - so its advocates are shifting tactics Read More » There is a clear shift not only in the opinion polls but in the rhetoric of political campaigns. Aipac, the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, is becoming toxic among Democrats. Fewer aspiring politicians want to take Israel’s money and the idea among Republicans that Israel controls US foreign policy has become more than an antisemitic meme. Supremely conscious of the changing tide of US opinion, various legislative attempts are being made to entrench the US-Israeli military and intelligence alliance. A US president must by law guarantee Israel’s "qualitative military edge". Now the Israel lobby is trying to insert two measures into legislation that Congress has to pass that would prioritise Israel in US policymaking. A proposed measure is being inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would create an executive agent responsible for ensuring integration of Israeli and American defence and security cooperation across all departments of the US government. It would also require Israeli technology to be integrated into major US defence purchases. The Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) includes a measure for vast intelligence sharing for Israel and any Arab country that normalises relations with it. A third prong of Israeli strategy is to create a pipeline for weapons and technology that would bypass Congress. All these are attempts to bake in a military relationship that is now under strong bipartisan political scrutiny. A losing ticket Once again, supporting Israel has become an act of force. It's applying the logic of a military campaign to issues which are only really for internal political debate. As the liability of supporting Israel increases, so too does the element of compulsion Israel needs to keep America close. Either way, Israel is on a losing ticket. As the liability of supporting Israel increases, so too does the element of compulsion Israel needs to keep America close. Either way, Israel is on a losing ticket Iran emerges from this deal as a major regional power, its strategic levers enhanced. It retains a nuclear enrichment programme, although it has sacrificed highly enriched uranium. As it never had a bomb programme anyway, according to successive IAEA reports, and it only built its stock of highly enriched uranium after Trump had pulled out of the nuclear accord it had negotiated with Barack Obama, this is not a big sacrifice. Trump will endlessly claim he stopped Tehran getting the bomb. What neither he nor Mossad will ever stop is Iran’s knowhow as a nuclear power. With the number of nuclear graduates it churns out each year, this is not a genie that can ever be put back into its bottle. Iran also retains its missile fleet, which has proven its worth as a deterrent. Its fleet has also survived the heaviest and most accurate bombs in the US military. Iran’s links to its regional non-state allies are arguably stronger now than they were when it was first attacked. If anything, the war has strengthened this alliance as a functional fighting unit, launching co-ordinated attacks on Israel and the Gulf states. Disarmament is still a US dream, but in Lebanon it is as far removed from reality as Trump’s ideas about Iran were. Instead, Iran has shown that its allies are not merely a tool of its power projection, to be turned on or off, at Tehran’s bidding, but that Iran is serious about defending them. The bond between Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah is mutual. This week, posters of Khamenei, father and son, have emerged at the entrance of Dahia, the Hezbollah heartland in southern Beirut, with a big "Thank You". All of which plunges the post-war Gulf states into a torrent of uncertainty. The bubble of their wealth and invincibility has burst. The Gulf Cooperation Council is meaningless. War on Iran: How the Gulf stepped in to clean up America's mess Read More » The Gulf’s security formula, in which the US presented itself as the guarantor of Gulf security, with its network of military bases, early warning systems and missile defence batteries, has provided - at best - a patchy defence against Iranian drones. US bases are now seen as more trouble than they are worth. If the debate in Qatar lurched during the war between two poles - chucking out the United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US military operations across the Middle East, to chucking out Hamas - the services Qatar provided to Trump as a mediator has for the moment calmed fears of having to make this Hobbesian choice. It turned out to be much easier to pay Iran not to attack it, as the United Arab Emirates have chosen to do. They denied paying billions of dollars, when the UAE hosted members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for a meeting with Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser and deputy ruler of Abu Dhabi. But there again, the UAE denied hosting Netanyahu, which also undoubtedly happened. Like it or not, all Gulf states have been brought back down to earth by Iran’s response to being attacked. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Both Bahrain and Kuwait have Arab Spring era problems of legitimacy with their own Shia populations. Iran’s re-emergence as a regional power makes these questions fraught with potential problems. Some states like Oman and Qatar, who negotiated the deal, have fared better than others, but all suffer from the same strategic angst. To whom now should they be turning? To China, India or Pakistan? Their enormous economic power is from now on dependent on Iran’s wish to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. All eyes on Gaza If Trump breaks his side of the bargain, or if Israel unleashes another attack, Iran can close Hormuz as quickly and as easily as it opened it. Accordingly, one way or another, Iran will extract a price for the privilege of being the gatekeeper of these enormous flows of petrol, gas and oil products. If Netanyahu renews his attack on Gaza, world opinion will once again erupt in flames and Israel will find its economy is in no condition to weather a global business boycott Much will depend on how Iran exercises its power over its neighbours. It would be wise not to follow Israel’s example of "winner takes all". A wounded Netanyahu will be tempted to accelerate his war against Palestinians to compensate for his loss of regional power. Already the subject of unbelievable levels of racism, wherever they encounter their armed Israeli overlords, targeted and killed at will at any check point, the Palestinians can only expect Netanyahu to pursue his land clearing project with a vengeance. Israel has become a serial killer of Palestinians, and the more they murder, the more they have to murder. Neither Trump nor the ludicrously misnamed Board of Peace will stop Netanyahu from taking control of ever bigger chucks of Gaza. Hamas will not disarm any more than Hezbollah or Iran will. Even if Israel reoccupies the whole of Gaza, the problem for it will remain the same. Gaza has shown that its social fabric is strong enough to withstand the unprecedented level of oppression applied to it. Gaza will not crack. Every family is standing on the graves of their unburied friends and relatives. And they will not leave that land now. If Netanyahu renews his attack on Gaza, world opinion will once again erupt in flames and Israel will find its economy is in no condition to weather a global business boycott. The Middle East has indeed changed but not as Netanyahu wished it to. His attack on Iran resulted in the first major strategic rift between Israel and its major ally for over a quarter of a century. Iran has more soft power as a result and the spirit of resistance in Palestine, Lebanon and the region is stronger than it has ever been, even with Syria out of Iran’s orbit. With its never-ending wars and expansionist ideology, Israel - on its own - will soon find it has reached the limit of its military power, and retreat will be inevitable. This will apply to Syria as it will ultimately to Lebanon. To have ever embarked on such a project may yet prove to have been Israel’s biggest blunder. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. War on Iran Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0