On Oct. 9, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would “change the Middle East.” Observers may not have been paying careful attention, or they may have thought it was just rhetoric. But in the nearly 20 months of brutal conflict that has followed, the Israelis have done much to realize this goal. With the recent attack on Iran, which occurred just hours ago, they are seeking to strike a final and fatal blow against the Axis of Resistance.
All the death and destruction in Gaza and the attendant international outcry has obscured a critical Israeli achievement. Israel is in a better strategic position—and thus more secure—than it was on Oct. 7, 2023. There is no longer a military rationale for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank because Hamas is no longer a threat. Most of its leaders in Gaza are dead, and the few that remain have few resources, face a growing opposition of ordinary Gazans outraged at what Hamas has brought upon them, and have been forced to rely on lightly trained fighters. The war continues only in service of the annexationist agenda of the far-right politicians in Israel. The dream of taking Gaza and extending Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank has only been made possible by the broader battlefield successes of the IDF, however.
For years, policymakers, elected officials, analysts, foreign affairs columnists, and leaders of all stripes believed that Iran and Hezbollah had checked Israel’s military advantages with hundreds of thousands of rockets of all types. With near unanimity, the Washington foreign-policy community believed that deterrence was the best that Israel could manage. To take on Hezbollah directly would mean utter destruction of Israel’s north and massive damage to its population centers. Yet, armed with 20 years of intelligence and a much-changed willingness to take great risks after Oct. 7, the Israelis decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership. Over the course of a month or so in the fall of 2024, the Israelis nullified the threat the group posed. In the process, there was no mass devastation to Israel. Tel Aviv’s glass towers remained standing. Haifa barely sustained a scratch. No Hezbollah rocket hit the Knesset.
Israel’s willingness to change its security environment also had salutary effects on Lebanon and Syria. Perhaps not all the citizens of those countries welcomed Israeli help. Yet the fact remains that for the first time in four decades, Lebanon has a government that can reclaim sovereignty from a nonstate actor that had become the expeditionary force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It is unclear how Syria’s transition will go; many challenges remain. But many Syrians celebrated the demise of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, which made the overthrowing of the Assad dynasty possible.
Now, it is Iran’s turn: the “head of the snake,” as Israelis refer to the Islamic Republic. There has been endless commentary right up to and during Israel’s initial wave of assaults that the IDF does not have the ability to knock out the Iranians’ nuclear program and that any attempt to do so will result in a regional war. It’s only been a few hours since Israel’s strikes on Iran began, but these certainties no longer seem so certain.
The hint should have come last October when Israel dealt a shattering blow to Iran’s air defenses and missile production facilities using weapons not previously known publicly to be in its inventory. In the recent attack, the Israelis reportedly killed several major regime figures and senior nuclear scientists, destroyed a portion of its missile forces, and attacked the country’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Israeli leaders said the strikes will continue. This should have come as a surprise only to anyone not paying attention to the way Israel has been carrying out its changed strategy.
It remains to be seen how Iran will respond. But regardless of any specific military developments, the shift in Israeli thinking about security is forcing a potential paradigm shift in the Middle East. The Israelis are clearly not satisfied with doing damage to Iran’s nuclear program but seem to be engaged in regime change. They recognize what too few in the U.S. foreign-policy community seem to grasp. The nature of the Iranian regime is dangerous. Its leaders do not want a new relationship with the United States. They want to leverage American gullibility and caution to Tehran’s advantage.
After Oct. 7, the Israelis clearly had enough of this game and put in train a military solution to its problem that culminated with the attack on Iran. In the early hours after the initial strikes, Israel’s military leaders indicated that they had planned for more than a one-off strike. The targets that were hit made it clear that Israel’s goal was broader than damaging Iran’s nuclear program. It is a risky strategy based on the assumption that if the Iranian regime is gone or greatly weakened, many of the problems that have bedeviled the Middle East may also be gone. The potential upside for Israel is significant—more security, increased prospects for regional integration, and the final foreclosure of a Palestinian state. But downside is also significant if the regime survives and the Islamic Republic lives to fight another day.
“Existential” has perhaps become an overused term. But Oct. 7 drove home for Israelis the truly existential challenge that they confronted. They woke up to a world that morning in which deterrence no longer made sense. And they were clear from the very start that they needed to find another way to secure Israel’s borders. Therein was the source of tension between the Biden and Trump administrations and the Israeli government: The Americans believed that cease-fires and arms control agreements were the best way to manage Israel’s security problems. Israelis disagreed and sought to finally resolve them.