Who benefits from a US strategic defeat in Iran? There is only one winner: Israel.
Does Netanyahu seek a strategic defeat of the US in Iran?
Netanyahu knows that Israel cannot survive without the US and has done everything in his (as have other Israeli politicians) to ensure that the US is effectively a subsidiary of Israel in international affairs and the UN. But that sentiment has been under threat caused by the very well-publicised genocide in Gaza (I’m not discussing the use of that word, I’m calling it what it is).
Netanyahu needs to cement American subservience to Israeli political needs, and with Iran he has found the way to do exactly that; handcuff the US to Israel.
In addition, Arab states, and the world for that matter, recognise the transactional, no real allies, all-about-the-money nature of Trump. They bribe him, they flatter him, and they use that influence to remind his minions that they can buy his opinions and policies. They know that when the time comes, they will determine Trump’s Israel policy, not the other way around.
Yes, last week Saudi Arabia and the US announced, and signed, a nuclear technology transfer agreement. Then within a day, Trump (at the urging of Netanyahu) declared that one of the conditions for fulfilment of that agreement would be Saudi Arabia joining the ‘Abrahan Accords’, Trump’s pseudo-peace plan for the Middle East. Saudi Arabia said, “That wasn’t part of the deal”. So nothing is solved, yet.
Given enough time and cunning, Saudi Arabia and other Arab/Muslim countries will find ways to weaken the Israeli hold on the American system, and with Trump they have just the tool to accomplish that, if Israel gives them the time to accomplish their goals.
And here we come to the Israeli/American War with Iran.
Parity will never be Israel’s friend, and Israel has pursued policies to ensure that no Arab state or combination of Arab states will, in a coordinated way, gain a level of military parity last seen at the start of the Yom Kippur/October War in 1973. Thus, Israel developed their nuclear weapons and has non-subtly indicated their ‘red lines’ for the use of those weapons. Israel has also ensured that no ‘frontline’ Arab state could develop a nuclear program that could lead to a bomb.
But what if an Arab and/or Muslim ‘frontline’ state were to develop a nuclear program to the point of nuclear weapons ambiguity? A simple red line might not be adequate. And as Israel continues to push the residual Palestinians into smaller and smaller ghettos, further from anything that might be considered core-Israel, another deterrence will be required.
Netanyahu knew from the beginning that Trump could not win the war against Iran. The most he (Trump or Netanyahu) could hope for was the setting back of the Iranian nuclear programme by a few more years, and the continued isolation of Iran for the coming decade.
But I suspect that Netanyahu also knew that the US would suffer a strategic defeat against Iran, and that the entire balance of power in the Middle East would be under threat.
And here is how Israel could be the single biggest winner. Get the US thrown out of the GCC countries, and Washington will have no option but to find new places to base their forward assets in the Middle East: Israel.
Currently, there are in the hundreds to low thousands of US troops in Israel. That is not enough to create the tripwire required. Israel needs many thousands of US troops, stationed permanently in Israel, as the ultimate guarantors of Israeli safety from anyone’s bomb. Thousands of US troops stationed in Israel because there are no other countries in the Middle East who will host them will allow Israel to continue its genocide, knowing that the US will not abandon Israel, no matter how egregious the violations of human rights or war crimes committed by the IDF.
By the time this is done, there will be huge US military installations in Israel, probably in the Negev but also up north in southern Golan. Both places that will allow bases to be built, and create the biggest repository of American human shields to protect Israel.
Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania host US forces, in small numbers, specifically to act as tripwires. Netanyahu and those around him see exactly how that works, and the deterrence it places on Russia. How nice to have exactly that same deterrence against any Arab/Muslim state that wished Israel harm.
