Has the countdown to aggression begun?

The Israeli aggression against Iran was neither earth-shattering nor unprecedented, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened, nor creative, as you do not know what happened to it, as Yoav Galant, the Israeli Minister of Security, warned. Rather, it was much less than threats, and more of a symbolic response. This is what came in the warning of Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei "against exaggerating the response or downplaying it." With this strong Israeli response, but under the roof of allegations, the Netanyahu government missed a great opportunity to achieve the great goals that Netanyahu spoke about, which included destroying the Iranian nuclear program, changing the Middle East, undermining the axis of resistance, and providing a different security environment in the region that will last for decades at least. This is due to the following:

First: Either because Tel Aviv is unable to fight Iran alone, and this is a correct assessment, and this explains why it has not struck the Iranian nuclear reactor throughout the past years despite Tehran’s approach to obtaining a nuclear bomb and fortifying itself, especially since Israel has begun to feel exhausted after more than a year of war on several fronts, and needs a break and a period to catch its breath.

Second: Or because the war has exhausted itself, as there are no longer any targets to strike except “destruction for the sake of destruction” and “death for the sake of death”, and there is a growing need to stop the war, even in the form of declaring “Israeli victory”, and to seek to complete the achievement of the goals through the economy, politics, negotiations, and investment in the Palestinian-Palestinian, Lebanese-Lebanese, and Arab-Arab disputes. This is evidenced by the return of the disputes within the Israeli government, to the point that Netanyahu promised the religious to dismiss Galant immediately after the end of the current round of conflict with Iran, in addition to the disputes between the government, the occupation army, and the security services regarding the Israeli goals of the war, and whether most of them have been achieved or not, as the Minister of Security and the circles of the army and the security services see it, and this appeared in the support for the Egyptian initiative and the demand to make concessions, because as Galant said, military achievements alone are not enough, but rather the goals of the war need to be updated, because the war is changing its face and the threats against Israel are renewed, and painful concessions must be made so that we can release the prisoners. While Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich believe that the goals set by the government have not been achieved, and that their goals are much greater than the declared goals, they are also seeking the surrender of the resistance and not reaching a political solution with it.

Third: Or the far-right government has submitted to the desire and will of the American administration, and this is absolutely true, as Washington does not want a strong aggression against Iran that would open the doors to a regional war on the eve of the American elections, and with the continuation of the Ukrainian war, and in light of the presence of strong cards in Tehran’s hands, which make it capable of causing a global economic crisis if it closes the international straits, and targets American military bases and oil facilities in the region.

There is also a fear that China will exploit the war to its advantage, or enter it by force, if its interests are threatened by the inability to import oil, or to sell Chinese goods, given that China has become the world’s undisputed merchant, especially since the Netanyahu government realizes in its heart, and far from the claims, that there are limits to power, and that Israel cannot wage a war with Iran alone and win it without full American participation.

Fourth: Israel fears a stronger Iranian response than the honest promise 1 and 2, if the aggression is strong as Tehran has threatened, to the point that there is a possibility that if Israel strikes the Iranian nuclear reactor, Iran will decide to obtain a nuclear bomb, and this only needs one week, as stated by William Burns, Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency. If Iran’s response is stronger than previous responses, this is something that the Israeli home front cannot bear, which has been exhausted after the fall of about 2,000 dead and many times that number wounded according to official sources, and greater than this number according to unofficial Israeli sources, especially after Hezbollah regained the initiative, as evidenced by the volume and regularity of the launching of missiles and drones and the valiant resistance in the south, to the point of more than 73 Israeli dead and many times that number wounded during the current month of October, and this is the largest number of dead and wounded in one month since the Al-Aqsa Flood if we exclude October 2023.

In addition, despite the Israeli military achievements that caused euphoria among the Israeli political and military leadership, which imagined that they had removed Hezbollah from the battle, it proved that it was still strong and reorganized its ranks, which prevented the occupation forces from achieving significant progress. Rather, Galant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi began talking about stopping the ground war without linking that to achieving the declared goals.

Fifth: Or there is a need to choose an appropriate timing, and make more preparations and install defensive systems so that all or most of the Iranian missiles and drones do not hit their targets, as we noticed in the installation of the American THAAD defense missiles, so that if Iran responds, the response can be absorbed with minimal losses, provided that the response to the next Iranian response is earth-shattering.

Perhaps, and most likely, Israel has taken into account all four possibilities, as the Netanyahu government will not miss an opportunity to destroy Iran’s capabilities, especially its weapons, oil, and nuclear capabilities, if it can do so without paying a high price that it cannot bear.

The answer to the article’s question “Has the countdown to aggression begun?” refers us to three issues:

The first issue: The field, before anything else, will decide whether the Israeli aggression will stop or not. What happens on the field is reflected on the negotiating table, and what you did not achieve on the field you will not achieve through negotiations.

Based on the above, if the rate of Israeli human losses continues as it was in October, and increases, the Netanyahu government will not be able to continue the aggression for a long time. Therefore, the coming month is crucial to determine where things are heading towards continuing the war or stopping it. If the Israeli human hemorrhage continues, the differences within the Israeli government and between it and the army and security services will worsen, and Israeli public opinion, which suffered from “intoxication” after the assassinations and the pager and wireless operations and supported his government to a very large extent, will rise up, but “the intoxication went away and the idea came.”

The second issue: It is related to the proximity or remoteness of the regional war. The more likely it is to break out, the more American pressure on Netanyahu's government increases. This is due to the reasons mentioned above in this article. In addition, the deep state in the United States believes that the policy of siege, sanctions, fueling internal unrest, and the carrot and stick policy can lead to a change in the Iranian regime's policy, or to its downfall if it does not change its policy. There is another reason, which is the American need to continue to threaten the Iranian threat to ensure that the Arab regimes, especially the Gulf ones, operate within the orbit of American policy, although the impact of this reason diminished when Saudi Arabia needed American support after being bombed by the Houthis, whether during the era of Barack Obama or Donald Trump, and its need was not met. No one will protect the Arabs except the Arabs.

The third issue: The outcome of the US presidential elections. If Donald Trump wins, he will return to the deal of the century that aims to liquidate the Palestinian cause, and he will support Netanyahu to do as he pleases, as was leaked from a phone call between them, and as he stated publicly, where he went so far as to say that the area of Israel is small and must be expanded. Here, the issue of annexing the northern Gaza Strip and displacing its residents becomes more likely if he wins, as well as establishing buffer and safe zones along the border and on the Egyptian-Palestinian front.

Sources reported that Trump promised Miriam Adelson, in exchange for $100 million in campaign support - as her husband promised before winning the election to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and fulfilled - that he would agree to annex Area C, especially the settlements, to Israel.

Yes, Kamala Harris will support Israel, and will defend its alleged right to defend itself, but she prefers the less extreme and racist currents and parties in Israel, while Trump will support the more extreme, and without betting on either of them, but the differences between them must be seen, and politics is the art of the best of the possible, and requires seeing the differences no matter how small or large, and without that there is no politics.

The field and what will happen on the field remains the decisive matter, and if there is no steadfastness and resistance that causes human losses, there is no limit to what the Israeli forces can reach. Didn’t David Ben-Gurion, the first and most important prime minister in Israel, say that the borders of Israel are determined by the place where the Israeli soldiers stand?