Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr | Trump & Bibi: Diminishing Dividends Of Belligerence…

The war between Israel and Iran should have stayed confined to these two countries. But Israel is quite well aware that it does not have the military edge over Iran, which is a bigger country in terms of population and military strength. It cannot bomb to degrade the military capability of Iran. It needed American military support, not indirectly like Ukraine, but with direct involvement. This became evident in the last round of hostilities in the 12-day battle in June. Israeli missiles and bombers could not break the physical barriers of the nuclear installations. US President Donald Trump recognised Israel’s limitations and said so. So, the American intervention became necessary. American bombers flew all the way to bomb the Iranian nuclear targets. The American bombing dented the Iranian defences but it had not depleted it. Destroying the uranium centrifuges would have had a catastrophic fallout of its own, like in Chernobyl and in Fukushima. Iran retaliated. It fired missiles at Israel and said it was not meant to escalate.

There has been no perceptible change in Iran’s military capability between June 2025 and February-March 2026. Nor did Tehran pose any perceptible threat in the intervening period. Meanwhile, President Trump was trying to impose some sort of deal with Iran, which will ease American sanctions against Tehran.

American and Iranian negotiators were fully engaged with each other. The talks were being held in Geneva in the days before the attack on February 28. Mr Trump was his usual impatient, intemperate self.

Mr Trump was also emboldened by his success through the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cecilia Flores on January 3. What also pushed Mr Trump into the war was the countrywide protests across Iran over soaring prices and the economic distress it had entailed. The protests were suppressed ruthlessly by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), directly under the command of the supreme leader. Mr Trump threatened to intervene but backed off in the middle of January. He seems to have calculated that it would be a quick military blitzkrieg in Iran and the government would collapse. Israel did its bit by targeting the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed along with some of his family members on the very first day of the war.

In Venezuela, the Americans had some help from Mr Maduro’s detractors inside the government and that helped in replacing Mr Maduro. The Americans have no such access inside Iran. Even the acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, who had replaced Mr Maduro, has refused to be a US puppet. America’s role inside Venezuela remains under a cloud. The Maduro regime has not been replaced. The Americans have only managed to deal with the regime, which is showing greater flexibility towards America without losing its grip on power. There is lesser possibility of an Iranian regime that would cooperate with the Americans even on a limited scale.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu felt the urgency to open a war front against Iran after the peace pushback that Mr Trump had imposed on Israel through the multi-national Board of Peace in Gaza. Mr Netanyahu wanted total Israeli control of Gaza, and he preferred the initial Trump proposal of transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza. Mr Trump had to back down on his initial proposal when he faced stiff resistance to the idea from all Arab countries in the region. Mr Netanyahu had no option but to accept the plan, which amounted to a strategic defeat for him. Israel had said that Iran supported Hamas, financially and militarily. Iran did not deny its support to Hamas, but Tehran was clear that it was not involved in the Hamas attack in Israel of October 7, 2023. Israel did not accept this explanation.

Hamas’ political leader Ismael Haniyeh was killed in an Israel bombing in Tehran in July 31, 2024. On September 9, 2025, Hamas negotiators were killed in an air attack in Doha though the chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya survived. The same assassination strategy was carried out in the cases of Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani. Assassination is a guerrilla tactic, but Israel has adopted it as its military strategy. In the case of Hamas, it found that it could not defeat a guerrilla militia like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The assassinations of top leaders has not really helped.

Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu share the mindset of flaunting aggression as a sign of strength, in diplomacy and in military terms. Their policies are proving to be of limited use. Donald Trump wants to intimidate and control his neighbours in the Americas. He has picked up his target in Venezuela and he is turning to Cuba. It is becoming clear that he cannot go too far in Venezuela, despite the fact Venezuela is a small country in terms of population and military power. Someone needs to remind President Trump of the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba. The Trump administration is in talks with Mexico and Canada in trade matters.

Mr Trump is learning, however unwillingly, that belligerence is not the way forward. Mr Netanyahu has fewer reasons to learn from his follies because Mr Trump seems to be a willing partner of his aggressive tactics in West Asia. It is the case that there is a political faultline between Iran and the Gulf Arab states.

The Sunni-Shia divide is there but it is not the driving force. The major rivalry between Iran and the Arab states is based on strategic hegemony. But the two sides will sort it out among themselves without American interference.

Mr Netanyahu wants to drive a wedge between the Arabs and Iran. It is not going to succeed because the market dynamics of the region are such that the Arab states and Iran need each other.

Israel has no great role to play because it has not shown the ingenuity that Singapore has displayed in the economic context. All the Gulf Arab states are aspiring to be successful economic players. Dubai and Doha have modelled themselves on Singapore, as attractive and open market hubs, cosmopolitan and attractive investment destinations. Israel remains a garrison state and is trapped in its siege mentality. Israel can free itself and become an energetic economic partner in the region only when it makes peace with the Palestinians, to enable the emergence of an independent Palestinian state and become its partner in prosperity. To do so it will have to shed its predator-settler stance.

The writer is a Delhi-based commentator and analyst