Why was Iran struck at this exact moment, with such intensity, brutality, and at a depth that reached the point of targeting the Iranian Supreme Leader, a red line the United States itself did not approach despite decades of hostility towards the Iranian system? This is one of the central questions raised by the current war. The key to the answer lies in the fact that a primary actor found a rare golden opening, one it could only seize at that precise time.
That actor is Israel. It has not stopped calling for a war that would bring down the Iranian system, yet it was not able to do it alone. It repeated the demand with insistence, waiting for a window wide enough to charge through. When signs of fragility began to appear, not only in Tehran but also across the edges of its regional network, the Israeli call grew louder. Over recent months, the “Axis of Resistance” absorbed successive blows. The heaviest struck Hezbollah, Iran’s most important ally in the region since the 1980s, as though signalling that a once high ceiling had dropped and a once solid wall was now visibly cracking.
At the same time, Tel Aviv’s drive to strike Iran is fuelled by a perception of a changing regional environment. The premise is that the region is in flux following the sudden contraction of Iran’s role, and that it is reordering itself to counter Israel’s unilateral military expansion. This includes states that maintained positive diplomatic relations with the United States, yet have begun to grow wary of the green light granted to Israel’s new policies, policies that clearly disrupt earlier balances and the traditional US approach in the Middle East.
“From the summer of 2024 until now, Israel finds itself in a position resembling 1967: win the war adventure now, or lose everything.”
This suggests that rapid action to harvest and entrench the gains of striking the Axis of Resistance may not be possible in the near future, especially amid growing instability in Israel’s image within Western public opinion. It also comes as broad segments of Western right wing grassroots bases, and particularly in the United States, show restlessness towards unconditional support for Israel. This is reflected in the push and pull within the camp of US President Donald Trump’s supporters. Trump pledged to American voters that he would stop US military adventures, yet he displayed a clear alignment with Israel’s right wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
For that reason, Israel has found itself from the summer of 2024 until today in a situation similar to 1967: win the war adventure now, or lose everything if it waits for a vague future that may not deliver the fruits and gains available in the present moment.
Fire for the enemies, iron for the rest
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks about the formation of a Sunni axis alongside what he described as an eroding Shiite axis were not merely exaggeration. Over the past year, the region has witnessed unilateral and bilateral moves by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye, which can be read as an attempt to balance Israel’s escalating hostile policies. The most visible marker has been the raised ceiling of Israeli military action across its Arab surroundings, whether in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, or Iraq. This is an unprecedented freedom of movement Israel has not enjoyed since the founding of the Hebrew state in 1948, and it has placed a clear burden on the traditional balance equation that the Americans themselves managed for decades.
Successive US administrations worked to reconcile the strategic alliance with Israel and strong political and economic alliances with the leading Arab states in the region. This older alignment, which began in the late 1970s, was bound together by explicit anxieties about the newborn Iranian revolution. Those anxieties were not only about potential influence over Islamic movements in the Arab world, but also about the weight it gave Iran in pursuing its own regional project, a project born in open opposition to the United States and its alliances.
“The Israeli military has not enjoyed such an open ceiling for movement since 1948, placing a clear burden on the traditional balance equation managed for decades by the Americans themselves.”
Now that anxieties about Islamic movements have receded after most were weakened over the past decade, and as Iran’s role gradually declined following Trump’s cancellation of the nuclear agreement in his first term, alongside ongoing US Israeli escalation against Iran’s allies, a path that began with the targeting of former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020, a shift Iran did not take seriously enough, the main Arab powers no longer carry the same fears of Islamic movements as they did ten years ago. Nor, it seems, do they hold the same fears towards the Iranian system itself.
On the contrary, regarding Iran specifically, Arab US allies expressed reservations about Israel’s unrestrained targeting of Iran in a manner that threatens to bring down the system, beginning with the June 2025 war. Such a collapse is increasingly seen as pushing Iran into disorder in the absence of clear alternatives, negatively affecting regional stability. For example, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a phone call on 27 January that the Kingdom would not allow its airspace or territory to be used in any strike on Tehran.
Along the same lines, Türkiye condemned the Israeli strikes. Relations between the two sides were already tense due to subdued clashes rooted in divergent objectives in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime, as well as Israel’s alliance with Greece and Cyprus, Türkiye’s traditional rivals, in the Eastern Mediterranean.
At the same time, Tel Aviv views Egypt and Türkiye as a coming challenge, given that they remain the two cohesive armies left in the region and a barrier to Israel’s new regional project. That project seeks to impose a form of hard dominance over its immediate Arab surroundings. This implies confrontation with Egypt over Gaza and the Horn of Africa, and confrontation with Türkiye in the Eastern Mediterranean and Syria.
Because both Egypt and Türkiye maintain positive diplomatic relations with the United States, a strong long term relationship between them could become a source of irritation for Tel Aviv, especially if the two states, perhaps in understanding with Saudi Arabia, succeed in persuading Washington to restore the old balance policy. Worse still for Israel, the three states could themselves form an obstacle to Israeli power.
As a result, the early signs of an Egyptian Saudi Turkish alignment, or even attempts at bilateral rapprochement among the three, which Netanyahu described as a Sunni axis, appear as a troubling development that Israel does not want to wait to mature. Israel does not want the outcome to restrict its current freedom of movement in the region, or worse, to influence the nature of US support. Hence, accelerating escalation against Iran while understandings among Cairo, Riyadh, and Ankara remain unripe was the ideal option for Tel Aviv to cement its gains from the past two years of wars, deliver a crushing blow to Iran, and perhaps send a “warning message” to the rest of the region.
America’s foggy tomorrow
Beyond concerns over how other regional powers may affect its relationship with Washington, there are broader shifts in US and Western public opinion that suggest the support Israel receives is no longer as sustainable or guaranteed as it once was. This has not only appeared with the rise of leftist and green movements expressing explicit solidarity with the Palestinian cause, but also within the US Republican right itself.
Democrats were once the strongest supporters of the Jewish state, given the Democratic leanings that prevailed among US Jews, particularly in New York City. The shift emerged gradually after Richard Nixon’s rise in the late 1960s. Over time, the strongest bias towards Israel became entrenched in the Republican Party and its bases, even though Jewish voting remained largely Democratic.
With Trump’s rise in his first presidential term, a new pattern of alliance between Washington and Tel Aviv took shape, based primarily on the personal relationship between Trump and Netanyahu and the enthusiasm of Trump’s close circle for extreme Zionism, which has continued to dominate Israel’s political landscape. This produced the US decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2017 and its recognition of Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan Heights in 2019.
“A new pattern of alliance took shape between Washington and Tel Aviv, rooted in the personal relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, and the enthusiasm of Trump’s close circle for extreme Zionism.”
However, the nature of the Republican grassroots base experienced sharp volatility after the most recent Gaza war. A large current emerged within the MAGA movement hostile to the unconditional US relationship with Israel. This current grew more prominent after the June 2025 strike on Iran, as they saw Tel Aviv as a burden on the “America First” doctrine. They began to view US commitments to Israel as an unacceptable weight on the American state.
The clearest expression of this shift appeared with Tucker Carlson, one of the most prominent conservative media figures and a supporter of Trump. Carlson unleashed harsh criticism of Israel and held a sharp interview days ago with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, fuelling unrest among segments of the MAGA base who considered what they saw as an unacceptable bias towards Israel from a man presumed to represent US interests. Carlson then issued a new statement on Saturday, plainly saying he viewed the strike on Iran as “disgusting and evil”.
The condemnation was not limited to Carlson. It also included other figures associated with the MAGA current, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former congresswoman from Georgia and a Republican, who described what Trump did as a violation of his promises that Washington would not enter more wars. It also included Alex Jones, the right wing media figure, who described the US strike in a post on X as: “Trump’s gamble accelerates the world’s path towards a nuclear world war.”
In addition, trends have emerged among US Jews that criticise Israeli policies and at times reject the Zionist project altogether. This is tied to the spread of leftist and green currents among Jews in major US cities, whose younger generations, like other Americans, are influenced by new ideas on the left of the Democratic Party. This points towards a possible unraveling of the established relationship between Israel and US Jews.
At the grassroots level, a Gallup poll conducted in February found that those sympathetic to Palestine in the United States surpassed those sympathetic to Israel for the first time. The first stood at 41 percent, while the second stood at 36 percent. Notably, the shift is occurring mainly among young people and those under forty, including both Democrats and Republicans. Support for Israel among young Republicans dropped from 69 percent to 51 percent after the Gaza war, while support among young Democrats stands at 11 percent. This comes amid recent reports that attribute Democratic defeat in the presidential election to the Biden administration’s pro Israel position during the Gaza war.
Within this unprecedented fog around Israel’s image in US public opinion, which holds the keys to the White House every four years, the future of the US Israeli relationship appears unclear despite its current strength. That strength relies on the current generation dominating military and security institutions, dominance that can change over time, particularly amid political volatility across both sides of the political landscape.
Because the Republican Party and its traditionally pro Israel base have the upper hand in Trump’s current administration, and given the relative newness of the MAGA current’s hold on power compared with the older Zionist current in the party, Israel’s decision to pull the Trump administration into war with Iran at this time and in this manner primarily serves Israel and its right wing government. It drains as much as possible from Israel’s capital in Washington, whatever the future consequences may be.
A regional scene not yet fully formed
The Israeli US strike did not come only in tandem with Iran’s unprecedented weakness and new understandings among Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye. It also coincided, by chance, three days after a historic visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Tel Aviv, and one day after Pakistan entered a state of war with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which maintains a good relationship with the Iranian system. This highlights a web of regional alliances and rivalries in that area, intertwined even if not identical to those in the Arab region.
Israel’s close relationship with India is among its most notable gains since Modi’s rise to power in 2014. India long played a significant role in supporting Arab causes, foremost among them the Palestinian cause. It did not even recognise Israel until 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union and after the Palestine Liberation Organisation itself recognised Israel in the wake of the Oslo Accords.
“Israel secured Indian support while strong US Pakistani ties neutralised Pakistan’s position.”
Historically, the United States was closer to Pakistan than to India, yet a deepening Indian Israeli closeness developed without being affected by that fact. Even with turmoil in Indian US relations due to tariff issues, that turmoil did not reflect onto India’s relationship with Israel. Israel benefited from both directions, as its relationship with Modi became an additional asset, alongside Washington’s strong relationship with Islamabad, which grew stronger under the Trump administration due to Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir’s success in building a good personal relationship with Trump.
Israel secured Indian support while strong US Pakistani ties neutralised Islamabad’s position. On India’s side, the Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement saying it felt “deep concern” about the latest developments in Iran and the Gulf region, urging all parties to exercise restraint, avoid escalation, prioritise civilian security, and pursue diplomacy and dialogue.
In doing so, without even naming Israel, India responded to the Israeli strike launched days after Modi’s appearance at the Knesset. The statement did not even rise to the level of India’s June 2025 statement after the US strike on Iranian nuclear sites, in which it expressed concern about “developments between Iran and Israel”, including “attacks on nuclear sites”, a clear reference to Israel and to Iran as the targeted party.
Pakistan, by contrast, and unlike its enthusiastic rhetorical solidarity with Iran during the June 2025 war, appeared more restrained this time due to its battles with Afghanistan and because the “Iranian response” targeted Gulf states with which Pakistan has strong ties. Pakistan thus took a middle position, especially after signing a joint defence agreement with Saudi Arabia in September 2025. That pushed it to announce solidarity with affected Arab states and to condemn the Israeli US strike in a brief statement.
Meanwhile, the wider regional circle also appears favourable to Israeli moves in more than one arena, most notably the Caucasus, where Azerbaijan currently maintains a close strategic relationship with Israel, even though its primary alliance remains with Türkiye. Armenia suffers relative isolation after a decline in Russian support, and Iran remains its only ally.
Israel is also reaping the gains of a strong relationship with Ethiopia in East Africa. Israeli President Isaac Herzog recently visited there, reflecting a presence in the Horn of Africa that may allow Israel at least to neutralise actors that could cause trouble if the war expands due to Houthi involvement along the Red Sea front. Tel Aviv has recognised Somaliland as an independent state and can use its relationships there to consolidate a presence in the region, amid Egyptian and Turkish attempts to bolster the Mogadishu government and cooperate with Eritrea to create balance against Israel’s expansion and that of its allies.
War now
As confrontation reignites in the region, it is increasingly clear that the main driver is Israel’s intense desire to wage war, and its insistence on using whatever cards and capital remain to encircle the Iranian system. Foremost among these cards is the effective and unconditional alliance with Washington, which remains alive and ensures the flow of weapons and money. Yet it is not guaranteed to the same degree over the long term if the United States becomes preoccupied with a conflict with China, or if both Democrats and Republicans are pulled towards new grassroots bases that push the American state to revisit the nature of its alliance with its Zionist ally.
“There is a global climate favourable to Israel in the absence of any real rival to the United States: China has no clear direction in the region beyond its economic interests, while Russia remains consumed by its main battles in Eastern Europe.”
Another card is the geopolitical vacuum in the region amid the contraction of Iran’s role, and the slow formation of Egyptian Saudi Turkish understandings that have not yet become an alliance and are still gradually emerging from the political clashes of the recent past. These understandings began to take shape after Washington explicitly stepped over its older guarantees to preserve a degree of political balance between its alliance with Israel and its historic relationship with its other regional allies. Finally, there is a favourable global environment due to the absence of any true rival to the United States. China has not yet adopted a clear direction in the region beyond its economic interests, while Russia remains preoccupied with its major battles in Eastern Europe.
In the end, Tel Aviv recognises it faces a long battle, with hardships that include renewed open targeting of its territory and an increased sensitivity to the entrenchment of its image as a state that is unsafe for its citizens since 7 October 2023. There is also the negative effect on its image in global public opinion, given that it is the state that initiated the aggression.
There are further complications in its relationships with regional states that maintain diplomatic relations with it, such as Egypt and Türkiye. These states are increasingly wary of Israel’s unilateral moves in the Arab sphere and of the vacuum created by the weakening of the Iranian system, a vacuum that produced the emergence of a singular Israeli regional project under US sponsorship, one that bypassed historic political assumptions in the region.
War now, then, is Israel’s strategy. Gambling with everything it has is its only option today, in the face of attempts to contain its project, and regional and global powers that have not engaged sufficiently or have chosen to distance themselves, all under a US presence that remains firm in supporting Israel despite the shifts it has undergone. As for Iran, it is as it has been since 1979: almost alone. It appears to have no option but to gamble with everything it can before it loses everything at once, with no return.
