The confrontation between Israel and Iran is escalating to an unprecedented level, with the United States now militarily involved in the conflict. Observers view this war as the culmination of years of pressure and warnings led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long sought a direct confrontation with Tehran and a reshaping of the balance of power in the Middle East.
The following is the full text of an article by Tunisian writer and Middle East expert Soumaya Ghannoushi, published by the website Middle East Eye.
Netanyahu’s Long Pursuit of War with Iran
For more than two decades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has circled around a single objective.
He warned about it, pursued it, and dramatically presented it on platforms from Washington to the United Nations. Now he has reached that objective.
The war he long claimed was inevitable has finally erupted: a direct confrontation with Iran, fought not by Israel alone but alongside the United States with the full weight of its military power.
This is not a limited strike or a calculated display of force. It is the most dangerous and reckless confrontation of its kind. A war not driven by American necessity or imminent threats, nor approved by Congress or the United Nations, but propelled by an Israeli vision aimed at reshaping the region.
Vision of Reshaping the Middle East
For many years, Netanyahu and those around him have openly spoken about reshaping the Middle East. From their perspective, borders are not fixed, and the region resembles a chessboard that can be rearranged according to Israel’s strategic and ideological ambitions.
The language of “Greater Israel” has gradually moved from the margins into the centre of mainstream political discourse. Israeli officials, alongside many American voices echoing Israeli rhetoric, speak openly about confronting “Shia extremism” today and “Sunni extremism” tomorrow, as though the entire Muslim world were simply a sequence of targets awaiting their turn.
Now, with American military backing, Netanyahu believes he can alter the course of history.
A Familiar Scenario
The justification for the war, it is said, lies in Iranian missiles, nuclear weapons, and American national security. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeat these arguments with apparent certainty: Iran is close to acquiring nuclear weapons, Iran poses a threat, Iran must be stopped.
These claims echo familiar arguments previously made by former US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair regarding the alleged weapons of mass destruction possessed by Saddam Hussein.
The result of those claims was the invasion and destruction of Iraq. In the end, the central justification for that war proved to be fabricated.
The consequences were not theoretical. They resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, widespread regional chaos, and a lasting stain on Western credibility.
Today, the same scenario appears to be repeating itself. During negotiations held in Oman and Geneva, Iran showed flexibility and willingness to reduce uranium enrichment and accept comprehensive monitoring, opening a path toward de escalation.
Yet those negotiations ultimately became what the author describes as a “theatre”. While diplomats discussed settlement and compromise, naval fleets moved quietly across the Indian Ocean and Gulf waters, and military forces were deployed under the cover of negotiations.
The scene was familiar: talk of peace amid preparations for war.
Then came the strike. The assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the targeting of political and military leadership, and intense bombardment of several Iranian cities.
Despite these developments, Iran continues to be portrayed in much of the Western narrative as the aggressor.
The Myth of Israeli Military Invincibility
Israel has long worked to reinforce the image of an “invincible army” and a state that repeatedly defeated Arab armies in conventional wars.
Historical records, however, present a more complex picture.
The 1948 War
In 1948, what was described as an “Arab coalition” was neither unified nor fully sovereign. Much of the Arab world had only recently emerged from direct European colonial rule.
The British Empire, which administered Palestine at the time, also trained, armed, and led the Arab Legion of the Emirate of Transjordan. Its commander was the British officer Glubb Pasha. The most effective Arab force in the field did not operate under a fully independent Arab command.
King Abdullah of Jordan focused primarily on securing control over the West Bank rather than defending the entirety of Palestine. His political calculations shaped the extent of Jordan’s involvement in the war.
Although Jordanian forces held their ground against Zionist forces, their military momentum was constrained by expansionist ambitions rather than coordinated Arab strategy.
Egypt’s performance in the 1948 war was also affected by serious dysfunction at the highest levels of command. Under King Farouk, the Egyptian army entered the war without adequate preparation, with confused command structures and weak coordination.
The later scandal of the “corrupt weapons” further inflamed public anger in Cairo, after allegations emerged that soldiers had been supplied with defective ammunition and unusable weapons. The controversy helped fuel public outrage that eventually paved the way for the Free Officers’ coup in 1952.
Meanwhile, Palestinian fighters faced an even harsher reality.
Abd al Qadir al Husseini, who led irregular forces around Jerusalem, repeatedly requested weapons and reinforcements that never arrived. Shortly before the Battle of al Qastal in April 1948, he issued urgent appeals for ammunition.
Two days before his death, he wrote to the Secretary General of the Arab League stating: “I hold you responsible after you left my soldiers, at the height of their victories, without support or weapons.”
He and his men fought until the last bullet, and he was killed on the battlefield. His forces were not supported by a unified Arab leadership. In many cases, they were fighting alone.
Reassessing the Narrative of Arab Military Defeat
In 1948 there was no coordinated Arab war machine operating under unified command. Instead there were fragmented states, competing monarchies, colonial entanglements, conflicting ambitions, and uneven military capabilities.
Israel did not defeat a unified Arab army. It emerged within an Arab world still shaped by European colonial structures and influence, while benefiting from superior organisation and international support.
The narrative of “defeated Arab armies” was constructed later as part of a national myth.
In 1967, Israel’s decisive advantage resulted from a pre emptive air strike that destroyed Egypt’s air force on the ground within hours. Once air superiority was secured, the outcome was largely predetermined. The conflict was not a prolonged or balanced confrontation between equal armies but a decisive blow delivered before conventional warfare had fully unfolded.
The 1973 war further complicated this narrative. In October of that year, the Egyptian army crossed the Suez Canal, breached the Bar Lev Line, and advanced into Sinai in a surprise attack that stunned Israeli leadership and shattered the aura of superiority created in 1967.
For the first time since Israel’s establishment, an Arab army demonstrated planning, coordination, and battlefield effectiveness that forced Israel into a defensive position.
However, this military momentum did not translate into lasting strategic gains.
A massive American airlift compensated for Israel’s losses and stabilised its position, once again shifting the balance of power. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, eager to pivot toward Washington and secure a political settlement, quickly moved toward negotiations.
What began as a military shock ultimately evolved into diplomatic arrangements culminating in the Camp David Accords.
A Pattern of Conflict with Non State Actors
Since then, Israel’s major confrontations in the region have largely been against non state actors.
In Lebanon, Israel faced Hezbollah and was ultimately forced to withdraw. In Gaza, Israel has been unable to eliminate Hamas despite massive American support and overwhelming military force, and hostages were recovered through negotiations rather than military victory.
Israel has grown accustomed to launching air strikes against fragmented adversaries rather than engaging in prolonged wars of attrition against a large, organised army backed by unified political leadership.
The United States has followed a similar pattern. In 2003, Iraq was at its weakest after years of sanctions. Its military capabilities were degraded, infrastructure weakened, and society exhausted.
In Afghanistan, US forces faced insurgent groups. In Libya, Somalia, and Syria, Washington dealt with fragmented battlefields and multiple competing actors.
American military strategy became familiar: rapid intervention, overwhelming force, and a declaration of victory.
A Different Kind of War
This time, the situation is different.
For the first time in decades, Israel and the United States face an organised military force belonging to a cohesive political system capable of continuity and regeneration.
Iran is not Iraq in 2003, nor Afghanistan in 2001.
It possesses geographical depth, demographic weight, established military institutions, and one of the largest missile arsenals in the region. It has spent decades investing in domestic military industries, drone technology, and defensive infrastructure, all while operating under sanctions designed to strangle it.
Iran is the product of a revolution rooted in strong anti colonial sentiment. It overthrew a Western backed monarchy and spent decades building its independence under siege.
It manufactures its own weapons and forms alliances according to its own strategic interests.
Reducing the Iranian system to the term “the mullahs” is not analysis, the author argues, but a superficial caricature reflecting a broader American tendency to underestimate societies it does not understand.
Between Rhetoric and Reality
This stereotype was evident during a Pentagon press conference in which Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth described the Iranian government as “crazy” and “obsessed with Islamic prophecies”.
At the same time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed Iran is led by “extremist clerics” who make decisions based not on geopolitical calculations but on religious visions about the end of the world.
These statements come from an administration aligned with Christian Zionism and a far right Israeli government deeply immersed in narratives of biblical entitlement. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, frequently invokes religious texts and divine promises as justification for territorial claims.
Beyond such rhetoric lies a more significant reality.
Iran is not merely fighting Israel. It is confronting the entire architecture of American power in the region, the patron, supplier, and guarantor of Israeli dominance.
Tehran does not see Israel as an isolated adversary but as the most fortified node within a broader structure of American hegemony.
The line of confrontation does not end in Tel Aviv. It extends to the network of American military bases that sustain US influence from Bahrain to Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and beyond.
A Strategy of Asymmetric Warfare
Iran is not fighting a symmetrical conventional war.
Instead it is pursuing an asymmetric strategy targeting Gulf infrastructure, energy flows, and the strategic maritime routes upon which the global capitalist system and the US led financial order depend, particularly the petrodollar system that fuels both Wall Street and Washington.
If the stability of the Gulf is shaken, the repercussions could extend across global energy markets, currency systems, and the financial foundations of American power.
Washington’s Suez Moment
This conflict could become the most dangerous strategic gamble in modern American history, initiated by one of the most reckless administrations the country has seen.
Rather than producing a “new Middle East” according to Israeli ambitions, the war may follow a more familiar historical pattern: the story of a great power overextending itself.
Empires, at the height of their confidence, begin to believe their own myths. They confuse military superiority with strategic wisdom and convince themselves that power alone can reshape history.
Empires rarely collapse because they are weak. They collapse because they overestimate their strength.
They fall not from a lack of power but from excess confidence and arrogance.
Britain learned this lesson in 1956. Convinced its authority remained permanent, it embarked on the Suez Crisis, a show of force intended to discipline a rebellious regional actor and restore imperial prestige.
Instead, financial pressure mounted, international opposition intensified, and illusions of control dissolved.
What was intended as a display of strength became the beginning of strategic retreat.
The Suez Crisis did not end the British Empire overnight, but it revealed a crucial truth: military capability without political legitimacy, and power without restraint, accelerates decline rather than preventing it.
History rarely repeats itself in exact detail, but it often repeats its logic.
Iran, the author concludes, may become Washington’s Suez.
