WHERE WILL THE IRAN-ISRAEL WAR END? / THE ECONOMIST

Conflict in the Middle East

Where will the Iran-Israel war end?

In a worse place if Donald Trump rushes in

IN THE 20 months since Hamas massacred almost 1,200 people, Israel has fought in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. 

On June 13th, when Israeli aircraft struck Iran, it became clear that these campaigns waged against Iranian clients and proxies have all been leading to today’s momentous confrontation between the Jewish state and the Islamic Republic.

The Iran-Israel war will reshape the Middle East, just as Arab-Israeli wars did between 1948 and 1973. 

As President Donald Trump teeters between talking to Iran and sending American aircraft and missiles to bomb it, the question is whether this first Iran-Israel war will also be the last, thereby creating space for a new regional realignment built on economic development. 

Or will it lead to a series of Iran-Israel wars that mire the Middle East in years, if not decades, of further violence?

Israeli minds are focused on the looming threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. 

Israel claims that it acted now because Iran has been racing towards a bomb, under the cover of arms talks with America. 

Western intelligence agencies are less sure. 

Either way, a nuclear Iran could abuse its neighbours with impunity, much as Vladimir Putin has Ukraine. 

It could also spark an atomic arms race in the Middle East and beyond.

A nuclear-armed Iran would therefore be a disaster for Israel and the world. 

Mr Trump’s desire to stop it is a welcome signal to would-be proliferators across the planet that they should abandon their ambitions.

However, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, faces a grave problem. 

To remove the threat, he must destroy Iran’s wherewithal to make a bomb or he must eliminate its desire to acquire one. 

War with Iran is unlikely to achieve either of those things. 

Even if Israel wrecks Iran’s infrastructure, thereby postponing the day when it might complete a weapon, it cannot eradicate the know-how accumulated over decades. 

And far from eliminating the Iranian regime’s desire to go nuclear, Israeli strikes are likely to redouble it.

Mr Netanyahu’s solution is to encourage Iranians to rise up and topple the Islamic Republic. 

He calculates that a new regime is likely to be less tyrannical, less bellicose and less wedded to a nuclear programme. 

But Israel can only create conditions that favour a change of regime; it cannot impose a coup from the skies. 

Besides, nobody knows how willing a new government would actually be to make peace with Israel or to abandon nuclear dreams which, after all, began with the shah.

The conclusion is that the only thing under Israel’s direct control is to buy time, by setting back Iran’s technical capacity to get a bomb. 

If, in a few years, Iran renewed its nuclear programme, Israel would have to mount another operation all over again. 

The barriers to success would surely grow.

What is to be done? 

The G7, meeting in Canada, called for de-escalation and there are reports that Iran wants to negotiate. 

Diplomacy, if it worked, would indeed be the best way to solve this problem. 

In contrast to war, it could both lead to the dismantling of the programme and also, by building confidence, reduce Iran’s incentive to dash for a bomb. 

That is why Mr Trump’s decision in 2018 to walk out of an imperfect arms agreement with Iran was a terrible blunder.

In practice, however, a deal will be very hard to reach. 

For it to be credible, Iran must agree to give up every ounce of highly enriched uranium, submit to intrusive inspections and forgo all but a token enrichment capacity. 

Would the regime in Tehran ever accept such humiliating terms as a precondition? 

Only, if at all, if it fears for its survival. 

Perhaps sensing that, Mr Trump has demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, issuing threats that have caused residents to flee Tehran.

The best way to apply pressure to Iran, hawks suggest, would be to leave negotiations for later—and for America instead to shift from merely defending Israel and deterring Iran to joining the attack on Iran’s programme. 

This has advantages, too. 

America’s bunker-busting bombs are much more likely than Israel’s to penetrate key nuclear facilities such as Fordow, in central Iran. 

Iran might talk sooner, because it would know that America has the resources to strike it long after Israel’s stocks of guided munitions start to run out.

Yet for Mr Trump to enter the fray would be a huge gamble. 

He was elected to keep America out of wars in the Middle East. 

Even if he intends to hit nuclear targets and nothing else, America could be sucked in. 

So far Iran has focused all its strike-power on Israel, but it may be saving missiles for a regional assault. 

It may also have terror cells around the world. 

Imagine that it now starts to kill American troops and civilians, or that it sends energy prices soaring by blasting Saudi Arabia’s oil industry or blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas tankers. 

Or perhaps it will hit tower blocks in Dubai or Qatar, beginning a stampede of the expatriates who power their economies. 

Mr Trump would have to retaliate.

Where does that leave America? 

Fordow is important, but even if it is destroyed Mr Trump cannot be sure of eradicating Iran’s programme once and for all. 

Secret facilities and stocks of uranium might survive; know-how definitely would. 

If Iran is not to go nuclear, America might therefore have to go to war in the Middle East repeatedly—forcing it to choose between non-proliferation and giving full attention to its rivalry with China. 

Sooner or later, America will come to realise that talks offer the least bad path and that the refusal of Mr Netanyahu to countenance them is an obstacle.

Centrifugal forces

So Mr Trump faces a trade-off. 

By doing more damage than Israel could alone, America could set the clock back further. 

Its participation might also increase the chances that the regime enters talks in earnest or collapses. 

But those gains are uncertain and must be weighed against the risk of a regional conflagration. 

In a shifting landscape, better for the king of ambiguity to wait to see how far Israel’s campaign gets, whether the Iranian regime is willing to talk and to gauge whether American intervention could tip the balance.