Netanyahu is good at starting wars, but it’s ending them that matters

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The writer is author of ‘Black Wave’ and an FT contributing editor

In the hours after October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu promised a war that would “change the Middle East.” Almost two years later, the region does indeed look very different. Admittedly, Netanyahu can claim victory in Lebanon, where Hizbollah has been decimated. As a byproduct, the fall of Bashar al-Assad next door was a great relief to Syrians. But Gaza is a pile of rubble, with more than 50,000 Palestinian dead and 53 Israelis still in captivity.

Now he is on to his next target: Iran. Since Friday, it has become clear the Israeli military campaign extends well beyond the nuclear programme and military targets. Netanyahu is no doubt working to convince Donald Trump to get involved and help deliver a knockout blow to the country’s theocratic regime.

But the Israeli prime minister has a dismal record when it comes to turning military victories into long-term diplomatic successes and an even worse record of understanding the region around him. Over the past 20 months, Netanyahu has consistently refused to take the win — whether the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the ceasefire in Lebanon, or overtures from Syria’s new leaders. Instead he has continued to strike Lebanon at will and hit Syria, while the rest of the region is actively helping both governments to stabilise and rebuild their nations. Israel has also seized a 400 sq km demilitarised buffer zone inside Syria, indefinitely.

The cruelest irony of the current moment is that 40 years ago, at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, Netanyahu was an Israeli diplomat in the US where he advocated selling weapons to Iran to avoid an all-out Iraqi victory. That war ended in a stalemate and the Islamic Republic survived.

Netanyahu did not play a central role in what became the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, but his stance demonstrates a consistent policy of building up enemies he can later destroy. Israel helped build up Hamas to weaken the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1980s and, more recently, to undercut the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu helped channel millions of dollars to Hamas until just before October 7. Now Israel is providing arms and cash to gangs in Gaza to weaken Hamas. This helps ensure no viable Palestinian state ever emerges. 

Netanyahu has also consistently misread the region, from his inability to grasp the real nature of the Iranian theocracy in the 1980s to his advocacy for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. He predicted that ousting Saddam Hussein would bring “enormous positive reverberations” to the Middle East and prompt Iranians to rise up against their leaders. The opposite happened: it was a costly strategic disaster that empowered Tehran and unleashed years of sectarian bloodshed.

Today, few would shed tears for an Iranian regime that has made life miserable for millions and is responsible for the death of tens of thousands across the region — but Iranians are not waiting to be liberated by Israel’s bombs. In a strange way, Israel now appears to be mimicking Iran’s role — staying on a war footing, building forward bases and sowing chaos fuelled by hubris and a sense of impunity. 

Alan Eyre, a former US diplomat who participated in past nuclear negotiations with Iran, summed it up best: “This is Israel’s world and we’re just watching it right now.” But this isn’t the world Israel’s neighbours — or indeed many Israelis — want. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have pursued détente with Tehran. They’re anxious about chaos and the economic fallout and frustrated by Israel’s continuing attempts to violently reshape the region.

It may not even be what Washington wants. Trump campaigned on a promise not to engage in more wars and wanted his “Nixon to China moment” with Iran. He may have engaged in a clever campaign of deception, distracting Iran with talks while Israel prepared to strike, but Trump doesn’t seem to have the discipline required for such a move. It’s more likely he rallied behind Netanyahu’s fait accompli, hoping this could cow Iran into difficult concessions.

This is where the two men are likely to diverge: where Netanyahu wants Iranian capitulation and even regime change, Trump has said he wants a nuclear deal with Iran. The US president should be extremely wary of heeding Netanyahu’s siren call to make Iran and the Middle East great again, with just a few more strikes, and then a few more. 

There has been a lot of awe about Israel’s spectacular opening blows against Iran and Mossad may have more tricks up its sleeve. But wars are judged by how they conclude — and Netanyahu has shown he doesn’t know how to bring war to a close.