Israel's Aims Likely The Key Determinant Of Iran War's Duration

For Israel, the more than two years of conflict that followed the atrocity inside Israel by the Hamas military group in October 2023 have represented both a tragedy and an opportunity, just as those years have represented a disaster for Iran. In response to the attack by Hamas, a group financed and supplied by Iran, Israel has succeeded in greatly reducing the military capabilities of Hamas and those of Hezbollah, its fellow Iranian proxy in Lebanon. And Israel has shared in the destruction last June – probably for a generation – of Iran's nuclear-weapons potential.

The deterrent power of the Israeli military has been restored and the Iranian threat weakened. Governments farther away, whether in Europe or America, may feel that those achievements should be quite enough for the time being. Some Israelis probably feel the same.

The fact that Trump set up his Board of Peace in January as part of his plan to rebuild and reform Gaza, with the involvement of Arab and other Muslim countries, suggests that he and his advisers did not really expect to do more this spring than to intimidate and pressure the weakened Iranian regime into submission.

That is not, however, Netanyahu's view, as he has made clear in several public statements since the war on Iran was resumed. Where Trump said that he wanted to seek a deal with the new leader chosen to succeed the assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, including demanding a say on who that new leader would be, Netanyahu threatened to kill whoever was chosen.

Israel faces the same dilemma it has faced with every war it has fought since the Israeli state was founded in 1948: the need to eliminate or at least defeat today's threat without creating a new threat for tomorrow. No one can know what new regime or form of government may succeed the theocratic regime in Iran that Ayatollah Khomenei established in 1979 and which his successor Ayatollah Khamenei perpetuated. But what Netanyahu's statements implied is that Israel was not prepared to see the theocratic regime perpetuated further through a third supreme leader, for it would expect that such a regime would eventually wish to seek revenge on Israel and might become powerful enough to do so.

For the same reason, Israel looks more determined than America is to destroy all the military facilities and leadership of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the elite force that has led the long-established Iranian policy of using proxies in Lebanon, Israel and Yemen to destabilize the region and intimidate Israel.

These two goals of destroying both the military and the political leaderships of Iran, beyond the point of potential repair, suggest the war may well last for many more weeks.

The size and strength of Iran's own stockpiles of missiles and drones will also determine how long the war lasts. With this clearly now a fight to the death for Iran's old political and military leaderships, we also cannot exclude the possibility that they may attempt to use some sort of concealed radioactive weapon related to their nuclear research, as a last, perhaps suicidal, act. As the Iranian authorities weaken further, new dangers could emerge.