President Donald Trump, flanked by members of his cabinet, delivers remarks from the White House after the U.S. military struck three Iranian nuclear and military sites on Saturday.Carlos Barria/The Associated Press
R. David Harden is a former USAID assistant administrator and mission director to the West Bank and Gaza, and senior adviser to president Barack Obama’s special envoy for Middle East peace.
The U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites on the weekend marks a pivotal moment in Middle Eastern history. While the damage assessment from the American attacks on the Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities is continuing, the attack itself represents a historic break from decades of American restraint. For more than 45 years – from presidents Carter to Biden – every administration concluded that a military strike on Iran was too dangerous, too destabilizing.
Not Donald Trump.
Without the hand-wringing analysis of the national security interagency nor the historical framing that could well shape the world for decades to come, Mr. Trump acted. In the years ahead, we will learn whether Mr. Trump unleashed chaos and global war, or paved the way to regional stability and opportunity.
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What we do know is that Israel, with a population of just nine million, is now the unrivalled power in the Middle East, with Jerusalem at the epicentre. Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on the Gaza periphery, Israel has vanquished Hezbollah in Lebanon, launched long-range air strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, extended control over the Syrian Golan border region, and – through its alliance with the U.S.– crippled Iran’s nuclear program using American bunker busters and cruise missiles. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also extended unrelenting military occupation and near control on more than five million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s dominance in the Middle East is stronger now than at any time in the past 3,000 years, when kings Saul, David, and Solomon ruled the United Kingdom of Israel.
In contrast, Iran is at its weakest in two generations. The mullahs of Tehran have been humiliated by Israeli air superiority and the IDF’s freedom to strike Iranian military and security positions at will. The Shia Crescent, Iran’s proxies in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and Sanaa, is fractured after Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah leadership and the Syrian mass uprising against the Assad regime earlier this year. Iran has launched largely theatrical retaliatory missile attacks on U.S. military bases in Qatar and Iraq, but it doesn’t have meaningful options to challenge Israeli hegemony or its American support. Tehran’s ability to project raw power is badly diminished, even as its repressive security apparatus maintains an iron grip on its more than 90 million citizens.
The U.S. strike also disrupts Russia’s war in Ukraine. Exhausted but still determined to conquer its western neighbour, President Vladimir Putin has increasingly relied on Iranian missiles and drones. Now, with Tehran consumed with its own war and stretched thin, Moscow may lose a key supplier.
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Meanwhile, the European Union and China remain on the sidelines – irrelevant, uninformed, and frustratingly energy dependent on unstable supplies and dangerous shipping routes. On Monday, Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the only sea route from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, through which about 20 per cent of the world’s global crude oil flows. Energy markets have already reacted to this weekend’s events.
And yet, as always, the fate of the Palestinian people remains unresolved. Since October, 2023, the Israelis have destroyed much of Gaza, largely neutered Hamas’s military capabilities, and expanded their occupation of the West Bank. While Israeli bullets and U.S. bombs may curb cash and material flows to Hamas, the Palestinian people have not given up their national identity or desire for a state of their own.
Mr. Trump made a high-stakes gamble on the weekend. Operationally, the U.S. military demonstrated staggering precision and overwhelming force, sending a message heard in every global capital. For now, the U.S. appears insulated from the worst consequences of the attack. Iranian retaliation – through cyberattacks, proxy strikes, or terror – may be lethal but likely will remain tactical, not strategically disruptive to Washington. With energy independence, vast intelligence networks, and unrivalled military might, the U.S. left the Iranians hamstrung. Tehran will endeavour a response while the regime’s very survival is at stake. The risks to the Islamic Republic are enormous and irreversible.
No president since 1979 has dared to do what Mr. Trump has done: take direct military action against Iran. Mr. Trump did Mr. Netanyahu’s heavy lifting, a favour really. He attacked Iran not out of love for Bibi or real concern for Israel, but because he could. Like the Godfather, Mr. Trump will one day ask Mr. Netanyahu to repay this debt. Maybe for a US$400-million plane. Maybe for a ceasefire in Gaza. Maybe for a peace deal with the Palestinians. But certainly, Mr. Trump will play the mafia boss card and demand a big, big favour from the Israelis in return.