Patrick Costello looks behind Netanyahu’s military offensive against Iran seeing it as a dangerous escalation of his war against Palestinians
Israel’s latest illegal military action, against Iran, is perhaps the most dangerous yet for global security. For two decades, Western military planners have successfully neutralised the efforts of anyone looking to take on the Islamic Republic directly, starting with John Bolton and the cast of US neocons who wanted to invade Iran from Iraq in 2004. They have had good reasons: war gaming the scenarios has never looked promising, given Iran’s ability to disrupt the transport of Gulf oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz and the fact that most of Iran’s military capabilities are targeted not at Israel but at the Gulf states and the US bases they host. Only last year, Biden’s team prevented Netanyahu from targeting either the nuclear facilities or Iran’s fossil fuel infrastructure in any military action against Iran because they knew full well the dire consequences of that kind of escalation.
Israel’s stated objectives for its actions are nonsensical. Without US involvement, it cannot destroy Iran’s nuclear programme. In fact, the result is likely to be the exact opposite: an acceleration of the development of the Iranian bomb as the only deterrent available to the regime. It is worth remembering that the Israeli air bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 only accelerated Saddam Hussein’s nuclear programme, which was halted only after his defeat by the US-led coalition in Kuwait. Crazier still is the idea that Israeli bombing could result in regime change in Iran. There is no example in history of that being achieved by an air bombing campaign, and the impact on Iran is more likely to be a rallying of Iranians around those who are trying to defend them from external aggression rather than popular support to overthrow them.
So why is Israel doing this? The timing suggests a direct attempt to sabotage the negotiations between the US and Iran on a new nuclear deal. But, as with many of Netanyahu’s recent military adventures, it is also about trying to find a way to resuscitate his domestic poll ratings: for 20 months, he has been substantially behind in the polls, and elections are looming with a deadline next year.
He also knows that he can take this dangerous step without anyone preventing him. Internationally, no one has restrained Israel, whether in its genocidal campaign in Gaza, its ever more aggressive moves towards annexation in the West Bank, its bombing operations in Lebanon and Syria or its occupation of more of Syria’s territory. Self-defence, it shouts, and the G7 dutifully echoes Israel’s right to defend itself. With Hezbollah massively weakened, and Iran’s buffer state ally Assad in Syria gone, Israel sees a golden opportunity to attack Iran, even if it knows that without US involvement, it will be inconclusive.
Therein lies the greatest danger: for Netanyahu, military success in Iran depends on drawing the US into the conflict by convincing Trump that Iran can be definitively defeated. But the moment the US engages, the regime in Iran has nothing to lose from attacking US bases in the Gulf. In the worst case, there is a high risk of escalation in a protracted conflict to the use of nuclear weapons if the existential security of Iran or Israel is put at risk.
Much of this could have been avoided if Trump hadn’t ripped up the landmark Iran nuclear deal in 2018, on the urging of Netanyahu. Today (20 June 2025), all anyone can do is to cross their fingers and hope that the grown-ups prevail in convincing Trump that joining Israel’s military adventurism would be madness. Trump may realise that joining Bibi and embroiling the US in yet another Middle East conflict would inflict too much damage on his MAGA base. It is frightening to think that global peace and security may be hanging on whether Steve Bannon’s whispering in Trump’s ear is successful.