Commentary
War is unleashed and the warriors have one goal: stay in power at all costs
We are endorsing a logic of war and extermination that will not usher in a new Middle-East order, but only another season of destabilization – the same chaos we set off for almost two decades after the 2003 Iraq War.
The tiger of war is now out of its cage, and it will be extremely difficult to force it back in. Worse still, it was the tamers themselves – first and foremost the United States – who unleashed it through Donald Trump’s deliberate diplomatic failure. He has now effectively signed on to Netanyahu’s war agenda, together with the Europeans as well, led by uninformed and irrelevant leaders plus the nationalist-populist right.
It is another hammer blow to international law and diplomacy, of which the West once styled itself champion, only to abandon every shred of concern for both humanity and legality, as the inhuman tragedy in Gaza makes painfully clear: the so-called “Europe of values” has accepted the Palestinian genocide and now, while going through the motions of talking about de-escalation, applauds Israel’s attack on the Ayatollahs’ Iran – an assault that keeps Netanyahu politically afloat and diverts attention from the unstoppable disaster in the Strip. The first casualty is the Palestine conference on a two-state solution, which was slated for this week in New York and is now shelved.
We are endorsing a logic of war and extermination that will not usher in a new Middle-East order, but only another season of destabilization – the same chaos we set off for almost two decades after the 2003 Iraq War, launched on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction that were never found. The chaos serves a single purpose: to make Israel, as Washington has long desired, the region’s sole super-power, to crush an Arab world already inert and defenseless, to shatter Iran if possible, and to carve up Syria while keeping Erdoğan’s Turkey – a reluctant NATO member – in check.
Here we stand not as spectators but as willing participants in this ill-starred project to dismantle the nations of the Middle East, a plan that can all too easily spin out of control, as recent history shows.
With Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israeli cities, the United States has already stepped in to defend Israel, deploying ships and aircraft not only to shield its own Gulf bases but also to support Tel Aviv’s operations. For the same reason, Emmanuel Macron has gone onto a war footing, and other European countries will follow, each in its own way, after Tehran warned that retaliation could target them as well. Italy is exposed because it fields a large contingent with UNIFIL in Lebanon, where Israel has called up reservists just as it did in Syria. Then there is the Red Sea, where Italian warships in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait are facing off against Yemen’s Houthi forces – allies of Tehran already engaged in operations against the Jewish state – alongside vessels from other nations, Israel included.
The war has an obvious economic aspect, too: more than 20 percent of global energy supplies go through the Gulf, which Iran now threatens to choke off at Hormuz, and upward of 60 to 70 percent of Mediterranean shipping moves through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Oil and gas prices are soaring, as are shares in arms makers, especially US firms that, as Trump boasted, are supplying Israel with sophisticated weapons. That market spike signals not only that the conflict is likely to drag on, but also that the Israeli-American military-industrial complex is a dominant force – in whose revenues and profits we also share.
We should stop and take a close look at Netanyahu’s agenda, which Washington and the Europeans now back in order to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment. The Israeli prime minister wants the destruction of nuclear sites and the decapitation of Tehran’s leadership. He has embarked on both goals, giving the war an existential aspect: the only exit strategy is an Israeli victory. Yet the nuclear facilities are not all gone; some lie in tunnels bored deep underground. Extra-powerful bombs are needed, and Israel has only part of what would be needed: hence the necessity of American support, with Trump already threatening total destruction if talks don’t resume with Tehran’s unconditional surrender on the agenda.
As regards the decapitation of the regime, Israel has already struck the first military tier and is signaling readiness to hit the political-religious echelon as well – namely Khamenei himself. The warning shot came in the form of targeting his Tehran residence, that of his long-time adviser Ali Shamkhani, and even Qom, the Vatican of Shi’ism. Netanyahu holds strong cards: high-level infiltrators have allowed him to eliminate IRGC commanders on home soil. Still, the regime-change scenario he is courting – a popular uprising at his urging – is highly unlikely: Iranians fear the regime, but they might well fear Iraq-style chaos and anarchy even more.
The Arab states and Gulf monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia and opposed to the war, have been delivered an unmistakable message: accept Israeli supremacy or risk finding themselves in the crosshairs at some point. Hardly a boost for the much-touted Abraham Accords Trump promoted.
Turning to exit ramps and to the roles of Russia and China, Tehran’s closest big-power partners: Omani mediation has failed to coax Washington and Tehran back to the negotiating table, and Trump claims Israel’s war will force the Iranians to negotiate.
But negotiate what? To this point, he has offered not an agreement but the terms of a surrender: freeze the nuclear program in exchange for nothing at all regarding sanctions relief. Instead of a negotiator, he has acted like Netanyahu’s delivery boy. Can he get out of that humiliating role? He must, or he will forfeit credibility at home and abroad. Yet every political calculation applied to this president comes to nothing in the face of his erratic, unpredictable behavior.
As for the reaction by Vladimir Putin to strikes on an ally that supplies him with drones for the war in Ukraine, one is faced with a paradox. He alone has spoken with both Netanyahu and Iranian president Pezeshkian. Truly a surreal scene: two men wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes plotting “diplomatic” mediation. In truth, neither Putin nor the Chinese – who opposed the IAEA resolutions – seem ready to hazard anything concrete to support the Ayatollahs. As for the G-7 summit which started on Sunday in Canada, it faces high headwinds: there may not even be a final joint communiqué.
One thing unites Netanyahu and Khamenei: their grim determination to stay in power at the cost of wars, conflicts, massacres. Such a will to survive, as Schopenhauer wrote two centuries ago, becomes a blind, irrational, insatiable impulse that spawns suffering. The Palestinians exterminated by Netanyahu know this all too well.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/la-tigre-della-guerra-e-uscita-dalla-gabbia on 2025-06-15