Shining through US president Donald Trump’s confused aims in the Iran war is Binyamin Netanyahu’s long and consistent policy to assert Israel’s military dominance in the Middle East by destroying Iran’s military capacity, political leadership and state infrastructure. However this war ends, that outcome seems to have been achieved, despite its many attendant catastrophes.

Ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Netanyahu and those who share his version of Zionism have prioritised this intransigent approach. That is partly because the previous monarchist regime co-operated closely with Israel on intelligence, agriculture, construction and trade. That relationship under the Shah is a template for Netanyahu about a potential, mutually beneficial, future “normalisation” in the region. This would be based on Israeli military dominance, United States hegemony and expanded economic interdependence. Its foundations in the 2020 Abraham accords during the first Trump presidency were undermined by the 2023 Hamas atrocities in Israel and Israel’s subsequent genocide in Gaza, by Netanyahu’s refusal to contemplate Palestinian statehood and Saudi Arabia’s rejection of co-operation under such conditions.

Netanyahu’s lifelong fixation with Iran is explained by Matthew Gould, a former UK ambassador to Israel (2010-15) who was previously a diplomat in Iran. Netanyahu’s father was a noted historian of anti-Semitism and a fierce opponent of any Israeli territorial compromise.........

© The Irish Times