Iran and the Limits of Israeli Empire

Since 10/7, Israel has taken its military aggression against its neighbors to a whole new level.  It has developed an insatiable appetite for whole swaths of its neighbors’ territory. It has assumed a new status as regional hegemon, having vanquished its foes in Lebanon (Hezbollah), Syria (Assad), and Gaza (Hamas).  It’s beeper attack was hailed as an intelligence triumph, which killed or wounded thousands of Hezbollah cadres. Though it did not directly topple Assad himself, it reaped the benefit of his overthrow by internal Islamist forces.  Finally, it decimated Hamas in Gaza and suppressed almost all Palestinian armed resistance.  Along with the settler-IDF assaults on West Bank villages, depopulating scores of them, Israel has (or so it believes) defanged the Palestinian nationalist movement.  A goal it has pursued until now, with marginal success.

Last June, Netanyahu achieved another cherished objective he’d pursued without success with three US presidents: a coordinated US-Israeli attack on Iran.  The massive air assault was, in the eyes of global media, a technological marvel involving sophisticated surveillance, coordinated air strikes employing pinpoint accuracy, designed to obliterate Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure.  Afterward, Trump and Netanyahu crowed like roosters about plucking the crown jewels of Iran’s nuclear program in Isfahan, Fordo, Bushehr, Natanz, etc.  Iran looked like a naked, defenseless state.

A popular uprising which followed brought the Islamist government to its knees.  Israel and US intelligence officials judged that Iran was ripe for the picking.  A renewed round of air assaults would seal its fate, encourage the protesters to rally and overthrow the regime, and decapitate the leadership. Its ill-fated plan which it pitched to the US, involved an invasion of Kurdish forces from the north and imposition of a new strongman government helmed, improbably, by either Reza Pahlavi or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Almost every element of this plot imploded.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu and his Israeli supporters basked in the glow of these strategic achievements.  This in turn has emboldened the most hardened, violent elements of Israeli politics.  All of them enjoy a full-throated sense of Israeli triumphalism.  Everything going Israel’s way.

It didn’t turn out that way, as Vali Nasr points out in a masterful analysis of the state of the Iranian state.  His account suggests that Iran has not only weathered these attacks, but it has transformed itself into what will eventually become a post-war government, brimming with renewed confidence.  Its successful blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the damage its missiles inflicted on US bases and Gulf allies, point to a transfomation of its military capabilities which will enable it to play an even more decisive role in regional affairs.

This isn’t at all what Israeli and US war planners expected.  They anticipated a weakened, impoverished Iran licking its wounds. Essentially, a failed or barely functioning state.  Instead, they find a state confident in its ability to hold its powerful enemies at bay.

Israel: limits of empire

Now, instead of a triumphalist Israel victorious on all fronts, it confronts a precarious military position.  Though it has amassed a mini-empire, occupying 70% of Gaza, 30% of Lebanon and all of southern Syria to within 20km of Damascus, its military forces are stretched thin.   It is increasingly dependent on US military weapons, despite a robust domestic weapons industry.  The US itself has exhausted much of its own missile inventory defending against Iranian missile attacks. It will have a limited inventory available should fighting with Iran resume in earnest.

Though the Israeli economy continues to thrive, one wonders how long it can sustain these massive occupations of vast stretches of territory of its neighbors; including both the financial and manpower costs. An Israeli economist estimated during last June’s joint attack on Iran that a month-long war would cost Israel $12-billion.  The current hostilities are much larger in scope and require a considerably larger set of forces and weapons.  Therefore, the cost rises considerably.

Israel’s 2026 military budget is $45-billion, a 120% increase over 2023.  $13-billion on that total is designated for costs related to Iran hostilities.  The fighting costs Israel $1.2-billion per day.

Against Iran, the IDF has also faced the limits of its military capabilities.  At the beginning of the war, it succeeded in wiping out the top echelon of political and military leadership including Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. It, along with the US, struck massive blows to Iran’s nuclear facilities.  It even desroyed a synagogue!  Yet the government still stands.  Leadership has been replaced.  As they say in sports, Iran has a deep bench.  It has also, as Nasr points out, responded to the earlier attacks by decentralizing both military operations, decision-making and communications.  You can’t destroy what you can’t find.  And neither Israel nor the US seem able to suppress Iranian missile salvos.

As a result, Iran has developed renewed confidence in its ability to withstand anything its enemies can throw at it.  It believes, with some justification, that it has the upper hand.  That it can withstand the siege and sanctions. A stalemate does not impact both parties equally.  Trump stands to lose much more than Iran.  It can wait him out, though the US president seems not to grasp this.

As a result, Netanyahu has failed to achieve an objective he has sought for decades: the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and its transformation into a fractured state dependent on western patronage. This failure indicates the limits of Israel power. Its inability to compel obedience and suppress a definant rival exposes its vulnerabilites to every state in the region–both the enemies (Hezbollah, Hamas, etc) and friends (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, etc.).  As a result, its ability to impose its will and pursue its interests will be considerably weakened.

The Islamic Republic is also turning away from any attempts to normalize trade, finance or relations with the west. Instead, it turns east to China, where it has found a ready ally.  This reinforces the rise of China as a global superpower, and the accompanying decline of the US.  Israel has become, according to an Oppositions politician, a “full-fledged” US “protectorate state.” He argued that it was dependent on US weapons, and that the scope of its military operations were constrained by American presidents.  Trump himself launched an expletive-filled rant against Netanyahu’s plans to expand the Lebanon conflict despite a supposed ceasefire. Further, Israel required shielding from hostile rulings and resolutions in internatonal bodies like the UN, ICC, and ICJ.

As the US goes, so goes Israel.  As American dominance declines, Israel’s prospects dim as well.  Of course Israelis, especially their leaders, don’t recognize this because they are trapped in their own illusions regarding their own invincibility.

The rise and fall of empires

As I’ve written here, empires rise based on grand visions, and the capabilities and ambition to realize them. They fall based on misjudgements of their enemies and overestimation of their own power.  They become increasingly authoritarian and repressive as societal consensus erodes, creating internal dissension.  Other factors like systematic corruption and colonial overreach play an important role.

It is a truism that every empire rises, but people sometimes forget that every empire falls.  The US superpower status and empire will fall, helped along by Trump’s catastrophic miscalculations. Israel’s regional empire will eventually dissolve as well.  While it is now bathed in triumphalist mentality, this very approach will lead (and has already led) inexorably to fatal misjudgments. Accompanying this are, as I wrote above, mistakes of overreach, authoritarianism, and a state riddled with systematic corruption.

Empires don’t fall overnight.  They face gradual decline amidst the accumulation of errors.  Thus, Israel will likely continue to enjoy regional dominance in the near to medium-turn.

But empires somethimes fall precipitously and suddenly, as happened to the Soviet Union in 1992.  Vladimir Putin has, over the past decades, pursued a vain campaign to restore its former empire through wars in Chechnya and Ukraine. South Africa also faced a similar dissolution of its apartheid regime in 1993.  The Shah was overthrown after 30 years in power, in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.  Israel would do well to heed their historical example, but likely never will.