Imperial calculations

In its attacks on Iran, Israel is exploiting the chaos of American foreign policy.

Regime change doesn’t happen overnight. Israel has now spent almost two years immolating the Gaza Strip without achieving its stated aims of destroying Hamas and installing a pliant administration. It has also tried, over a much longer period, to topple its most powerful regional opponent: penetrating the security apparatus of Iran, assassinating its senior officials and working to ensure its diplomatic isolation. This strategy culminated in Israel’s ferocious assault, beginning on 13 June, in which it rained missiles down on Iranian military sites, infrastructure and residential areas, killing at least 430 people and injuring 3,500, while enlisting Washington to bomb the major nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz.

It looked like there were no limits to the escalation. Yet after less than two weeks of bloodshed, the White House brokered a ceasefire which, for now, has left the Iranian government intact. There was a striking contrast between Israel’s pronouncements at the outset of the war – that the country must prepare for a “prolonged campaign”, that the fighting would continue for “as long as it takes” – and the speed with which an agreement, however fragile, was signed. Donald Trump claimed that, thanks to his deal-making, a conflict which “could have gone on for years” and “destroyed the entire Middle East” had been averted “forever”. Then, after only a few hours, his optimism started to unravel, as the two sides continued to exchange fire. How should we interpret this convoluted episode? What light does it shed on the relationship between Israel and its Western backers, including Keir Starmer’s Britain?

For Tel Aviv, the target was not just the Iranian nuclear programme, which US intelligence assessments have long described as “defensive” in nature – “designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities”. Also in the crosshairs was the fact of Iranian sovereignty: the existence of a non-compliant regional power with a network of allies – including the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas – who are ideologically opposed to Israel’s existence and determined to resist its expansionist project. The ultimate goal, as Benjamin Netanyahu has all but acknowledged, is to turn this troublesome state into either a vassal for the West or a Balkanised territory without an effective central government. Israel decided to mount its operation in June not because Iran was on the offensive, but because it had been reduced to its weakest point in decades: rattled by domestic protests, and unable to rely on an “axis of resistance” following the rout of Hezbollah and the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

The chaos that would flow from the Israeli plan is considerable. In Iran, it would likely lead to mass civilian casualties, the collapse of critical infrastructure and the descent into ethnic conflict, giving rise to political tendencies that would make the country’s current “hard-liners” look moderate. Were Tehran to respond by closing the Strait of Hormuz, it could trigger a global energy shock and soaring inflation, while the outflow of refugees would at the same time catalyse another “migration crisis”. In the event that more foreign actors join the fray, it would transform the country into the Ukraine of the Middle East: a battleground that rival geopolitical blocs would use to test their mettle. Israel, however, seems to have factored all this into its strategic vision. It has already mastered the art of managing chaos – turning the convulsions in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria into the everyday business of government.

The country that is less prepared for such a polycrisis is the US. The overarching purpose of Trump’s foreign policy, often mischaracterised as isolationism, is to complete the “pivot to Asia” which began under Barack Obama: withdrawing from secondary theatres so that the US can focus its efforts on containing China. In the Middle East, this is supposed to involve replacing direct intervention with oversight from a distance: creating a stable security architecture in which local subordinates can act on America’s behalf. Trump told the crowd at his inauguration to judge his administration “not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into”. He knows that any deviation from this doctrine would be stridently opposed by key parts of his Maga coalition.

Yet it appears that, early in his second term, Trump came under pressure from both the Israeli government and the neocons in his administration, who convinced him that he could take a middle route: smashing this long-term adversary while avoiding another extended military debacle; assisting Israel without indulging its desire for sustained conflict. The goal, it seems, was a limited mission that would procure Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, winding down its nuclear programme and further weakening its regional position. This policy was forced through over the objections of less interventionist Republicans in the president’s inner circle.

Trump’s ceasefire deal was announced on 23 June as evidence that his approach has succeeded: hobbling Iran while containing a wider conflagration. Yet his declaration of “peace” turned out to be premature. While the US was desperate to broker this short-term solution, Israel remains set on its long-term objective of an all-out war that would draw in the hegemon. Even if Tel Aviv accepts a temporary pause in the hostilities (which can hardly be taken for granted, given its flouting of similar agreements in Gaza and Lebanon), it nonetheless sees the past two weeks as a significant stride towards meeting this ambition: a test-case which suggests that, when push comes to shove, America will intervene on Israel’s side, even if this threatens to undermine its own geopolitical priorities. Secure in this knowledge, Israel can wait until the moment is right to manufacture another crisis and force a further reckoning. In the meantime, it can simply deploy the same tactics it has used against Hezbollah, launching semi-regular strikes to keep Iran in check and prevent any rebuilding of its defensive capability.

What we have, then, is a repetition of the fundamental dynamic in Gaza: Israel pursues a strategy so reckless and bloody that it conflicts with the US’s ostensive regional interests – yet Washington naively convinces itself that it can reconcile the two, and so continues to support its wayward ally, descending even deeper into this endless quagmire.

Where is Europe in the equation? Since the eruption of conflict in Ukraine and Gaza, the fantasy of European “strategic autonomy” has been exposed as precisely that. The EU and UK have reaffirmed their subservience to American power, at the cost of both their energy security and moral credibility, while embarking on a frenzied armament drive to bolster “the West” against its civilisational enemies. More than ever, the continent has been reduced to an enclave of empire.

Starmer’s response to the Iran crisis is illustrative. While his government recently joined in the rote condemnation of Israeli atrocities, and took the symbolic step of suspending a small number of arms licences, it is obvious that no material shift has taken place. The Prime Minister responded to Israel’s latest aggression in exactly the same way as he reacted to its assault on Gaza: by invoking the country’s “right to self-defence” – which, in practice, means its right to exercise a monopoly of violence over the entire region. He described the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme as the major “threat to regional security”, while saying nothing about the nuclear stockpile of the country which has, over the past year, launched direct attacks on five of its neighbours: Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and finally Iran. He called for “de-escalation”, initiating a round of faux shuttle diplomacy with Jordan and Oman, before offering his full-throated support for Trump’s escalatory bombing.

There could be no clearer sign of Starmer’s attachment to the Atlanticist script. And yet, there is every indication that the script itself has become increasingly confused. On the one hand, the UK government made sure to dial up its jingoist rhetoric and hold out the possibility of joining a US-led campaign. On the other, its plea for a “return to the negotiating table” seemed to chime with America’s desire for a speedy settlement, amid concerns that the situation might spiral out of control. These contradictory signals reflect a deeper ambivalence in Washington, where imperial strategists continue to debate whether their unconditional commitment to Israel is compatible with their new orientation towards China.

While the US is beset by this uncertainty, its European proxies find themselves in the risible position of trying to second-guess America’s course of action so that they can adjust their policies accordingly. They are not only refusing to act in their national interests; they are attempting to anticipate the decisions of a world power that lacks a lucid sense of its own. As Israel strives to impose a new war in the Middle East, Britain’s response will be determined not by considerations of peace or justice or even political realism, but by the question “What does America want?” – even if the answer is opaque to America itself.