As Israel strikes Iran, Netanyahu gambles future of West Asia

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally put into motion a plan that he has held close to his heart for more than a decade, he has played the gamble of his life as even though he has started the war, he needs active US involvement to win it.

Even though Israel has wiped out the Iranian military’s chain of command, established air superiority, and battered scores of missile launchers and production sites, the damage to most important nuclear sites at Natanz and Fordow has been limited.

The outcome of this conflict depends heavily on the extent of US involvement and Prime Minister Netanyahu will do everything possible to draw the United States into the war with Iran, says Alvite Ningthoujam, a scholar of West Asia at the School of International Studies (SIS) at Symbiosis International University (SIU), Pune.

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Anything short of the complete destruction of Iranian nuclear capabilities, which would require US help, if not involvement, would mean the failure of Netanyahu’s gamble and severe consequences for Israel and the region.

Netanyahu’s ambition rests on Trump’s action

Israel has set Tehran ablaze, assassinated the Iranian military brass, struck missile bases, hit missile production sites, and essentially destroyed all Iranian air defences, but has not been able to breach through mountains and hundreds of metres of earth to reach underground nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow.

Herein lies Netanyahu’s gamble. He wants the United States to join the war on Iran because the success of ‘Operation Rising Lion’ rests on it. He needs the United States to join the war either directly by participating in bombardment or indirectly by supplying ‘bunker buster’ munitions that can reach Iran’s underground nuclear plants — the Fordow nuclear site is located half a mile underground and has been built inside a mountain.

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As long as Natanz and Fordow remain standing, Netanyahu’s main objective of the war of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon remains unfulfilled.

Whether US President Donald Trump takes the bait and joins the war remains to be seen.

Despite Trump’s disdain for Iran, one of the core commitments of his ‘Make America Great Again’ platform is distancing the United States from wars in faraway lands.

As recently as a day before the Israeli offensive, Trump had asked Israel to not go ahead with an attack as talks were going on with Iran regarding the regime’s nuclear programme. However, once Israel began the offensive, he claimed that he was aware of it but ruled out any active involvement. Iran has not bought the denial.

Iran has blamed the United States for the Israeli assault. Whether Iran strikes US interests in the region would shape the scope of US involvement in the war.

Ningthoujam says that one of Netanyahu’s objectives from the war appears to have been to kill US-Iran talks.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has never favoured talks or a nuclear deal with Iran. He has always preferred military action. Attacking Iran’s nuclear sites even as talks were going on suggests he wanted to scuttle the US-Iran negotiations and leave President Trump with no choice other than to join the war if he would want to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” says Ningthoujam, the Deputy Director of SIS, Pune.

Netanyahu needs US & Arab partners for defence too

For defensive purposes as well, the US involvement is key — as it was last year.

In two exchanges of missiles and drones last year, the defensive coalition propped by the previous Joe Biden administration of the United States was critical in the defence of Israel. It will be very difficult to put together the coalition — also comprising the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — again over the outrage over the war in Gaza that has killed hundreds in recent weeks and caused famine-like conditions.

Netanyahu has put these Western and Arab partners in a bind: realpolitik dictates that they stand with Israel, but domestic compulsions dictate otherwise.

“Even moderate Arab rulers, such as Jordanian King Abdullah, will find it difficult to join such a coalition openly because of the public anger against Israel. Even if ruling elites have compulsions, no Arab ruler, not even someone as powerful as Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, can alienate their people. They have to walk a tightrope between realpolitik and Arab steet’s sensibilities,” says Ningthoujam.

Even as the ongoing conflict’s scale is unprecedented in West Asia, the support so far is muted. Unlike the last time when Western and Arab partners went all-in to help Israel, only US ground-based air defence systems have been pressed into action this time in addition to Jordan shooting down missiles and drones that entered its airspace. This is a telltale of how isolated Israel stands as a result of Netanyahu’s policies.

What if Netanyahu’s gamble fails?

Trump and Netanyahu have opposite approaches to contentious issues. While Trump prefers to make a deal even though he has a poor record, Netanyahu prefers military action.

If Trump does not join Netanyahu in his war, the main aim of the war —the destruction of Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon— remains unfulfilled. That would be catastrophic for Israel.

Even before the Israeli decapitation of the Iranian military in the ongoing offensive, the US intelligence agencies had assessed that Iran could finally decide to develop a nuclear weapon as its conventional deterrence through regional proxies had been battered as Israel degraded Hamas and Hezbollah after the October 7 attack and opposition groups ousted the Assad dynasty in Syria. The agencies had also assessed that Iran had reduced the timeline to develop a ‘crude’ nuclear weapon from 12-18 months to just a few months.

Now that Iran has its back completely to the wall, the failure of the destruction of Iranian nuclear capabilities would leave Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei with just two choices: either go full-throttle to develop a nuclear weapon to restore deterrence or reach a deal with Trump such that he pressures Netanyahu to stand down.

In either case, Netanyahu would have lost and served Khamenei either a nuclear weapon or a face-saving deal on a platter.

The Jerusalem Post has reported that Iran has reached out to Trump via Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman with the offer of a deal — the contents of the proposal are not known. Whether Trump accepts that and asks Netanyahu to stand down or joins him in attacking Iranian nuclear sites remains to be seen. At the stakes is the future of West Asia.