Editor’s Note: Prof. Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security advisor in Israel, is the author of several books on Israel’s national security, including Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change (Oxford University Press, 2018.) He is an adjunct professor at Tel Aviv and Columbia universities and the senior editor of the Israel Journal on Foreign Affairs.
By Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Perspectives Project
American critics of the war against Iran have argued that the threat Iran poses was not imminent, that diplomacy was not given a sufficient chance, and that the war did not enjoy the international legitimacy afforded by a supporting UN Security Council resolution. For Israelis, many of whose leaders – most notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – dreamed for three decades of a scenario in which the U.S. might join it in a war to topple the Iranian regime, end the existential threat posed by its nuclear program and, more recently, downgrade Iran’s missile arsenal, matters were far more straightforward.
Imminence, of course, is a relative term. On the eve of the war, Iran was building new and deeper nuclear facilities both at Natanz and Isfahan and could have soon unearthed the 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) – sufficient for more than 10 bombs – buried underneath the rubble of the June 2025 war. Iran’s missile and drone capabilities were growing rapidly and becoming an extreme threat, of which both Israel and the Gulf countries are now getting a very painful initial “taste.” Decades of diplomacy, including Security Council resolutions and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, had failed to do more than slow Iran’s inexorable progress towards a nuclear capability and regional hegemony, and become little more than cover for avoidance of the tough decisions that all presidents since Bill Clinton have dodged.
No one in Israel, from left to right, advocated waiting until Iran might have crossed the nuclear threshold, gained de facto impunity, and it had become too late to do anything about it – or until the missile threat had truly become capable of wreaking vast devastation. For Israel, the counterarguments against the war were moot, the war was perceived as necessary and just, and has enjoyed overwhelming public support. The question that Israelis are increasingly asking themselves, however, with growing doubts, is whether the war is being waged wisely and successfully.
In purely military terms, the achievements have been significant. Iran’s nuclear program has been further degraded, and the missile threat has been reduced greatly, even if Iran can still launch a relatively small number at Israel and the Gulf states each day. Most of Iran’s air-defense system has been eliminated, its already limited air-force and navy have been destroyed, and the military-industrial base has been hit hard, setting back Iran’s ability to reconstitute its military capabilities after the war. Numerous top leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and paramilitary Basij have also been struck, potentially weakening the regime’s hold in the post-war period.
As things stand now, however, it is becoming increasingly likely that the war will end without any of the primary objectives initially set out by American and Israeli leaders having been fully achieved – a military success but strategic failure. An Iranian regime facing a threat to its very existence has demonstrated an entirely predictable willingness to stay the course at virtually all costs. Its similarly predictable strategy of disrupting the global oil and financial markets, as a means of creating heavy domestic and international pressure on the U.S. to end the war, has proven highly effective. Consequently, Iranian leaders believe, not without justification, that it has gained the upper-hand and “escalation dominance.” Indeed, it is the Trump administration that has been forced to repeatedly pursue negotiations.
For the Iranian regime, merely surviving a war with the United States would constitute victory. If the regime further succeeds in preserving its remaining nuclear capabilities, especially the 440 kgs of HEU, retaining at least some missile capabilities, which it will undoubtedly rebuild when the war ends, strengthening its chokehold over the flow of oil through the Gulf, and possibly even gaining large-scale and badly needed revenue in so doing, its sense of victory will be even more pronounced.
A growing school of thought in Israel, at least within parts of the defense establishment and the media, though not yet one expressed by political leaders, increasingly views the war against Iran as a quagmire and doubts whether a significant escalation, as President Trump has threatened, will yield the desired Iranian response and an early end to the fighting. In this view, the U.S. and Israel should have focused solely on the nuclear and missile issues from the outset, not regime change, an unrealistic objective, and ended the war unilaterally after 2-3 weeks when they could have claimed an unequivocal military victory. Now that the situation has changed, proponents of this school believe that Israel should cut its losses and settle for the least bad outcome.
There is also growing skepticism regarding the likely success of Israel’s operation in Lebanon, a pessimism increasingly reflected in public opinion polls as well. Much as with the government’s definitions of the objectives in the war against Iran, it is believed here, too, that it over-promised, speaking of an entirely unrealistic goal of destroying Hezbollah and ending, once and for all, the severe threat that it has long posed to Israel’s security. Criticism has also been leveled regarding the wisdom of opening a major confrontation with Hezbollah, while fighting with Iran is still underway. In the meantime, an open divide has emerged between the political leadership and the top brass of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which has made it known, contrary to government policy, that it does not consider the dismantlement of Hezbollah to be one of the war’s objectives and that this can only be achieved in conjunction with a diplomatic outreach, at some point in the future.
Unsurprisingly, the government and many others in Israel, including in the defense establishment, believe that the only way to avoid a strategic failure and end the war successfully is through a major further escalation. To this end, they believe that it is now necessary to attack Iran’s oil infrastructure and even conduct limited attacks on the civilian infrastructure to try to compel Iranian capitulation, in addition to ongoing attacks against regime targets. They await Trump’s next moves with trepidation.
To the government, IDF, and public at large, it is painfully clear that Israel’s freedom of action in the war, certainly in regard to Iran, is almost nonexistent and that it will have no choice but to accede to whatever decisions Trump makes, whether for an early end to the fighting, or major escalation. Should the war end merely as another round with Iran and its proxies, rather than the decisive one that Israelis had long dreamed of, the ramifications will likely be severe. Iran will rebuild its military capabilities over time and have a far greater incentive to race to a bomb. Although the U.S. may still conduct a targeted attack against Iran’s nuclear program in the future, should it try to “breakout,” it is unlikely to go to war against Iran once again to achieve broader goals, especially regime change. The historic opportunity that Israel waited so long for, will have been squandered.
The public mood is further soured by the Netanyahu government’s intensive efforts, during wartime, to promote a “judicial overhaul” that many view as an onslaught against Israel’s judicial and democratic systems, and to formalize in statute, rather than practice, the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) population’s exemption from military service. At a time when most of Israel believes that it is fighting an existential war and the IDF is desperate for manpower – the Chief of Staff has warned that it may even “collapse” in the face of the multi-front threats the IDF faces – these issues are arguably the most toxic ones in Israeli public discourse at this time. With elections just half a year away, they are further exacerbated by the creeping sense that Netanyahu is once again giving precedence to his own political needs over the nation’s. For Netanyahu himself, the stakes could hardly be greater, possibly a final opportunity to stave off what appears to be a looming electoral defeat and with it the possibility of a jail sentence.
Paradoxically, while Israel’s public standing in the U.S. has never been so low, US-Israeli strategic cooperation has never been so close. Although Israel is neither a NATO ally nor a treaty partner, it is nevertheless fighting a joint war with the U.S. as few American allies ever have, as a full and almost equal partner, and in important areas, the primary one. It will undoubtedly come as a surprise to many that diminutive Israel, with a population the size of New York City’s, brings to bear greater conventional military capabilities, in the air and on the ground, than all American allies, with the exception of South Korea. Even in the naval area, where its capabilities are the most limited, Israel bears favorable comparison.
Given the war’s unpopularity in American popular opinion, however, a critical outcome of the conflict — and one that Israel can ill afford — may be a significant further deterioration in Israel’s public standing. As it is, critics have alleged that Netanyahu drew Trump into the war and that the U.S. is “fighting Israel’s battle;” leading the U.S. into a losing war will make the fallout that much worse. There is no doubt that Netanyahu has been hoping and pushing for American involvement in a war against Iran for decades. The argument that he led the U.S. into the war is, however, specious. One thing Trump is not, certainly in regard to Israel, is a pushover. He had no compunctions about forcing Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire in Gaza last year, or to prematurely end the 12-day war against Iran in June. In the weeks before the current war, it was Trump who was pushing to launch the attack and Netanyahu who pressed for a postponement, arguing that neither the U.S. nor Israel was sufficiently prepared.
The War Israel Long Dreamed of: A Squandered Opportunity?
By Chuck Freilich
Middle East & North Africa
Editor’s Note: Prof. Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security advisor in Israel, is the author of several books on Israel’s national security, including Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change (Oxford University Press, 2018.) He is an adjunct professor at Tel Aviv and Columbia universities and the senior editor of the Israel Journal on Foreign Affairs.
By Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Perspectives Project
American critics of the war against Iran have argued that the threat Iran poses was not imminent, that diplomacy was not given a sufficient chance, and that the war did not enjoy the international legitimacy afforded by a supporting UN Security Council resolution. For Israelis, many of whose leaders – most notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – dreamed for three decades of a scenario in which the U.S. might join it in a war to topple the Iranian regime, end the existential threat posed by its nuclear program and, more recently, downgrade Iran’s missile arsenal, matters were far more straightforward.
Imminence, of course, is a relative term. On the eve of the war, Iran was building new and deeper nuclear facilities both at Natanz and Isfahan and could have soon unearthed the 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) – sufficient for more than 10 bombs – buried underneath the rubble of the June 2025 war. Iran’s missile and drone capabilities were growing rapidly and becoming an extreme threat, of which both Israel and the Gulf countries are now getting a very painful initial “taste.” Decades of diplomacy, including Security Council resolutions and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, had failed to do more than slow Iran’s inexorable progress towards a nuclear capability and regional hegemony, and become little more than cover for avoidance of the tough decisions that all presidents since Bill Clinton have dodged.
No one in Israel, from left to right, advocated waiting until Iran might have crossed the nuclear threshold, gained de facto impunity, and it had become too late to do anything about it – or until the missile threat had truly become capable of wreaking vast devastation. For Israel, the counterarguments against the war were moot, the war was perceived as necessary and just, and has enjoyed overwhelming public support. The question that Israelis are increasingly asking themselves, however, with growing doubts, is whether the war is being waged wisely and successfully.
In purely military terms, the achievements have been significant. Iran’s nuclear program has been further degraded, and the missile threat has been reduced greatly, even if Iran can still launch a relatively small number at Israel and the Gulf states each day. Most of Iran’s air-defense system has been eliminated, its already limited air-force and navy have been destroyed, and the military-industrial base has been hit hard, setting back Iran’s ability to reconstitute its military capabilities after the war. Numerous top leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and paramilitary Basij have also been struck, potentially weakening the regime’s hold in the post-war period.
As things stand now, however, it is becoming increasingly likely that the war will end without any of the primary objectives initially set out by American and Israeli leaders having been fully achieved – a military success but strategic failure. An Iranian regime facing a threat to its very existence has demonstrated an entirely predictable willingness to stay the course at virtually all costs. Its similarly predictable strategy of disrupting the global oil and financial markets, as a means of creating heavy domestic and international pressure on the U.S. to end the war, has proven highly effective. Consequently, Iranian leaders believe, not without justification, that it has gained the upper-hand and “escalation dominance.” Indeed, it is the Trump administration that has been forced to repeatedly pursue negotiations.
For the Iranian regime, merely surviving a war with the United States would constitute victory. If the regime further succeeds in preserving its remaining nuclear capabilities, especially the 440 kgs of HEU, retaining at least some missile capabilities, which it will undoubtedly rebuild when the war ends, strengthening its chokehold over the flow of oil through the Gulf, and possibly even gaining large-scale and badly needed revenue in so doing, its sense of victory will be even more pronounced.
A growing school of thought in Israel, at least within parts of the defense establishment and the media, though not yet one expressed by political leaders, increasingly views the war against Iran as a quagmire and doubts whether a significant escalation, as President Trump has threatened, will yield the desired Iranian response and an early end to the fighting. In this view, the U.S. and Israel should have focused solely on the nuclear and missile issues from the outset, not regime change, an unrealistic objective, and ended the war unilaterally after 2-3 weeks when they could have claimed an unequivocal military victory. Now that the situation has changed, proponents of this school believe that Israel should cut its losses and settle for the least bad outcome.
There is also growing skepticism regarding the likely success of Israel’s operation in Lebanon, a pessimism increasingly reflected in public opinion polls as well. Much as with the government’s definitions of the objectives in the war against Iran, it is believed here, too, that it over-promised, speaking of an entirely unrealistic goal of destroying Hezbollah and ending, once and for all, the severe threat that it has long posed to Israel’s security. Criticism has also been leveled regarding the wisdom of opening a major confrontation with Hezbollah, while fighting with Iran is still underway. In the meantime, an open divide has emerged between the political leadership and the top brass of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which has made it known, contrary to government policy, that it does not consider the dismantlement of Hezbollah to be one of the war’s objectives and that this can only be achieved in conjunction with a diplomatic outreach, at some point in the future.
Unsurprisingly, the government and many others in Israel, including in the defense establishment, believe that the only way to avoid a strategic failure and end the war successfully is through a major further escalation. To this end, they believe that it is now necessary to attack Iran’s oil infrastructure and even conduct limited attacks on the civilian infrastructure to try to compel Iranian capitulation, in addition to ongoing attacks against regime targets. They await Trump’s next moves with trepidation.
To the government, IDF, and public at large, it is painfully clear that Israel’s freedom of action in the war, certainly in regard to Iran, is almost nonexistent and that it will have no choice but to accede to whatever decisions Trump makes, whether for an early end to the fighting, or major escalation. Should the war end merely as another round with Iran and its proxies, rather than the decisive one that Israelis had long dreamed of, the ramifications will likely be severe. Iran will rebuild its military capabilities over time and have a far greater incentive to race to a bomb. Although the U.S. may still conduct a targeted attack against Iran’s nuclear program in the future, should it try to “breakout,” it is unlikely to go to war against Iran once again to achieve broader goals, especially regime change. The historic opportunity that Israel waited so long for, will have been squandered.
The public mood is further soured by the Netanyahu government’s intensive efforts, during wartime, to promote a “judicial overhaul” that many view as an onslaught against Israel’s judicial and democratic systems, and to formalize in statute, rather than practice, the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) population’s exemption from military service. At a time when most of Israel believes that it is fighting an existential war and the IDF is desperate for manpower – the Chief of Staff has warned that it may even “collapse” in the face of the multi-front threats the IDF faces – these issues are arguably the most toxic ones in Israeli public discourse at this time. With elections just half a year away, they are further exacerbated by the creeping sense that Netanyahu is once again giving precedence to his own political needs over the nation’s. For Netanyahu himself, the stakes could hardly be greater, possibly a final opportunity to stave off what appears to be a looming electoral defeat and with it the possibility of a jail sentence.
Paradoxically, while Israel’s public standing in the U.S. has never been so low, US-Israeli strategic cooperation has never been so close. Although Israel is neither a NATO ally nor a treaty partner, it is nevertheless fighting a joint war with the U.S. as few American allies ever have, as a full and almost equal partner, and in important areas, the primary one. It will undoubtedly come as a surprise to many that diminutive Israel, with a population the size of New York City’s, brings to bear greater conventional military capabilities, in the air and on the ground, than all American allies, with the exception of South Korea. Even in the naval area, where its capabilities are the most limited, Israel bears favorable comparison.
Given the war’s unpopularity in American popular opinion, however, a critical outcome of the conflict — and one that Israel can ill afford — may be a significant further deterioration in Israel’s public standing. As it is, critics have alleged that Netanyahu drew Trump into the war and that the U.S. is “fighting Israel’s battle;” leading the U.S. into a losing war will make the fallout that much worse. There is no doubt that Netanyahu has been hoping and pushing for American involvement in a war against Iran for decades. The argument that he led the U.S. into the war is, however, specious. One thing Trump is not, certainly in regard to Israel, is a pushover. He had no compunctions about forcing Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire in Gaza last year, or to prematurely end the 12-day war against Iran in June. In the weeks before the current war, it was Trump who was pushing to launch the attack and Netanyahu who pressed for a postponement, arguing that neither the U.S. nor Israel was sufficiently prepared.
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