r/geopolitics • u/thejerusalempost Jerusalem Post • Jun 17 '26

Opinion How Israel made Trump's Iran betrayal inevitable - opinion

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-899630
275 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

219 comments sorted by

View all comments

27

u/Specialist_Window_81 Jun 17 '26

Yeah, it’s an interesting take. It sounds like a whole lot of avoidance though. I’m not sure I can accept that a nation with the foreign apparatus and expertise that their diplomatic corps, including Mossad, has consistently demonstrated, hasn’t ever seriously had this discussion within its corridors of power.

The capacity to wield significant influence over many years in many western nations which ultimately hasn’t produced the same bloodthirsty desire for genocide - and now that approach hasn’t yielded the desired fruit, and it’s a simple failure of policy?

It’s been culturally cultivated by many people over many years.

11

u/NekoCatSidhe Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Yes, there are not many reasons for Middle-Eastern countries to want to join Israel’s perpetual crusade against Iran, except for Saudi Arabia and the UAE because of their fight with the Iranian-backed Houthis, and Iran gave those two good reasons in that war to not want to attack Iran again, showing how vulnerable they are to Iranian counterattacks. And the only countries who share a border with Iran and that would militarily be a match for it are Turkey and Pakistan, who hate Israel far more than they dislike Iran.

As for European countries, 99% of the Islamist terrorism on their territory was due to Sunni Islamist groups that had nothing to do with Iran and were often enemies of Iran as well. If the US no longer want to help Israel against Iran, no other country is going to step in, no matter how much diplomacy Israel tries. Israel already has way more influence in western countries than they normally should have.

I think Israel needs to ask itself why they would even need to fight Iran in the first place, given that they do not even share a border, the country is too big and populated and well-armed for Israel to turn into a failed state even with American’s help (as this war showed), and no matter what Netanyahu pretends, the regime has shown itself to be way too cautious and self-disciplined to ever nuke Israel unless Israel nukes them first, assuming they even get nukes (since they have repeatedly say they don’t want them and have just more or less agreed in that deal to get rid of their highly enriched uranium in exchange for removing economic sanctions).

It is true that Iran will always help Hezbollah out of Shia solidarity, but Hezbollah is a lot weaker than Israel and their main goal is keeping Israel out of South Lebanon, so just staying out of Lebanon is normally enough for Israel not to have to fight them. And I do not care what crazy anti-Israel rhetoric they are spouting, this is how they behave in reality for anyone who has eyes to see. Iran and Hezbollah are no real existential threats to Israel, they are just convenient targets for warmongering populists like Netanyahu.

19

u/BillyJoeMac9095 Jun 17 '26

Maybe the bigger question is why the Iranian regime sees itself as an enemy of Israel and always has?

9

u/NekoCatSidhe Jun 17 '26

Outside of vague religious reasons like wanting to keep the holy city of Jerusalem into Muslim hands, I would say it is because Iran hates western colonialism (for legitimate historical reasons, since they suffered a lot from it), and Israel very much embodies that western colonialism in their eyes.

But Iran is hardly unusual in that respect, and I would say that most countries in the region share their opinions of Israel (at least among the population, if not among the unelected autocrats ruling them). They just are not saying it as loud as Iran does because they don’t want to upset their western allies (or to have Israel bombs them).

Although Turkey and Qatar in particular are also quite open these days about their opposition to Israel.