Why did Iran strike at this precise moment, with such intensity, ferocity, and depth, reaching the point of aiming at the Iranian supreme leader - a barrier that the United States had not approached despite all its hostility to the Iranian regime for decades?
This is one of the questions that needs an answer regarding the current war, and the key to the answer lies in the fact that there is a key player who has discovered a golden opportunity that he could not have obtained except at this particular moment.
Israel has never stopped calling for a war to overthrow the Iranian regime, but it has not been able to wage it alone. It has repeatedly called for such a war, waiting for the right moment to attack. As signs of vulnerability began to emerge, not only in Tehran but also in its regional network, the Israeli call grew louder. Over the past few months, the "axis of resistance" has suffered successive blows, the most severe of which was the blow against Hezbollah - Iran's most important ally in the region since the 1980s - a clear indicator that the once high ceiling has been knocked down and the seemingly solid wall has begun to crack.
However, Tel Aviv's insistence on a strike against Iran is also dictated by the perception of the changing regional situation, namely that the region is in the process of changing after the sudden decline of Iran's role and that it is rearranging its cards to counter Israeli expansion and unilateral military actions, even from the perspective of countries that had positive diplomatic relations with the United States and have begun to worry about the green light given to the new Israeli policy, which clearly disrupts the existing balance and traditional United States policy in the Middle East.
This means that a quick move to reap the benefits of a strike on the axis of resistance and its consolidation may not be possible in the near future, especially given the turmoil in Israel's image in Western public opinion and even the anxiety of broad sectors of the right-wing popular base. in the West, and in particular in the United States, regarding unconditional support for Israel, as shown by the state of tension in the camp of supporters of US President Donald Trump, who promised the American electorate to stop American military adventures, but showed explicit agreement with the Israeli right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
The statements of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the formation of a Sunni axis, alongside what he described as a weakening Shiite axis, were not mere exaggeration. The region has witnessed individual and bilateral actions by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the past year that can be seen as an attempt to balance increasingly aggressive Israeli policies.
The most striking feature of these policies is the increased scope of Israeli military operations in its Arab neighborhood, whether in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen or Iraq – unprecedented freedom of action not enjoyed since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948. This has clearly upset the traditional balance of power that the Americans themselves have maintained for decades.
Successive American administrations have consistently sought to combine a strategic alliance with Israel with a strong political and economic alliance with the most prominent Arab states in the region. This long-standing alliance, which began in the late 1970s, was bound by clear fears of the emerging Iranian revolution, which raised enormous concerns not only about its potential influence on Islamist movements in the Arab world, but also about the weight it gave the Iranian state in pursuing its own regional project – a project that was inherently antagonistic to the United States and its allies.
With regard to Iran specifically, the United States' Arab allies have expressed reservations about Israel's increasingly aggressive attacks on Iran, which have threatened to topple the regime since the June 2015 war. Such a collapse is now seen as plunging Iran into chaos in the absence of clear alternatives, which has a negative impact on regional stability. For example, on January 27, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman assured Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian in a telephone conversation that the kingdom would not allow its airspace or territory to be used for any attack on Tehran.
Turkey similarly condemned the Israeli strikes, and relations between the two countries were already strained by simmering clashes over the two countries’ divergent goals in Syria since the fall of the Assad regime, as well as Israel’s alliance with Greece and Cyprus, Turkey’s traditional rivals, in the Eastern Mediterranean region.
At the same time, Tel Aviv sees Egypt and Turkey as an upcoming challenge, given that they are the two remaining cohesive armies in the region, and an obstacle to its new regional project, which seeks to impose a form of crude hegemony over its immediate Arab neighborhood, which means a clash over Gaza and the Horn of Africa with Egypt and a clash in the Eastern Mediterranean and Syria with Turkey.
Given that both Egypt and Turkey have positive diplomatic relations with the United States, the formation of a strong relationship between them in the long term could be a source of irritation for Tel Aviv, especially if the two countries (perhaps with an understanding with Saudi Arabia) manage to convince Washington to restore the old policy of balance or, worse, if the three countries themselves manage to form an obstacle to Israeli power.
Therefore, the emerging signs of an Egyptian-Saudi-Turkish alliance (or even attempts at bilateral rapprochement between the three countries), which Netanyahu defined as a Sunni axis, seem like a worrying development that Israel does not want to wait for to materialize, or it will lead to restrictions on its current freedom of action in the region, or worse, to affect the nature of American support for it. Therefore, accelerating the escalation against Iran, within the framework of the understandings still developing between Cairo, Riyadh and Ankara, was the ideal option for Tel Aviv to consolidate its gains from the wars of the past two years, to deal a decisive blow to Iran and perhaps to send a “warning message“ to the rest of the region.
In addition to its fear of the influence of other regional powers on its relations with Washington, there are fluctuations in American and Western public opinion in general that indicate that the support that Israel receives is no longer as stable and guaranteed as it was in the past. This is reflected not only in the rise of left-wing and green movements that express their explicit solidarity with the Palestinian cause, but also in the right-wing Republican camp itself in the United States.
Democrats were once the strongest supporters of the Jewish state, given the prevailing Democratic leanings of American Jews, especially in New York. This shift, however, occurred gradually after Richard Nixon came to power in the late 1960s, and a stronger pro-Israel bias took hold within the Republican Party and its base, even though Jewish voters remained largely Democratic.
With Donald Trump’s first term as president, a new model of alliance between Washington and Tel Aviv emerged, based largely on the personal relationship between Trump and Netanyahu and the enthusiasm of Trump’s inner circle for the extreme Zionism that continues to dominate the Israeli political landscape. This led to the United States’ decision in 2017 to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to the recognition of Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan Heights in 2019.
However, the character of the rank-and-file Republican Party has undergone dramatic changes since the recent Gaza war. A significant faction has emerged within the pro-Trump MAGA movement that opposes unconditional relations between the United States and Israel. This faction gained momentum after the June 2015 Iran strike, viewing Tel Aviv as a burden on the “America First” doctrine and Washington’s commitments to Israel as an unacceptable strain on the American state.
The most striking manifestation of this shift came from Tucker Carlson, a leading conservative media figure and supporter of President Trump, who has been sharply critical of Israel. He had also engaged in a heated argument with the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, just days earlier, which had raised concerns among some MAGA supporters. They saw this as an unacceptable bias toward Israel from someone who was supposed to represent American interests. Carlson then issued a new statement on Saturday, unequivocally calling the strike on Iran "disgusting and evil."
In addition, critical tendencies towards Israeli policy have emerged within the Jewish community in the United States, sometimes even leading to a rejection of the entire Zionist project. This is due to the prevalence of left-wing and green tendencies among Jews in large US cities, whose new generations, like other Americans, are influenced by new ideas from the left of the Democratic Party, which threatens to disrupt long-standing relations between Israel and American Jews.
At the public level, a Gallup poll conducted in February of last year showed that for the first time, pro-Palestinian sentiment in the United States surpassed pro-Israel sentiment, with 41% supporting Palestine and 36% supporting Israel. Notably, this shift is observed mainly among young people and those under 40, covering both Democrats and Republicans. Support for Israel among young Republicans fell from 69% to 51% after the Gaza war, while among young Democrats it is only 11%. This comes amid recent reports that attribute the Democratic defeat in the presidential election to the Biden administration's pro-Israel stance during the Gaza war.
Amid this unprecedented uncertainty surrounding Israel's image in the eyes of the American public, which holds the key to the White House every four years, the future of US-Israel relations seems uncertain despite their current strength. This power is based on the dominance of the current generation in the military and power structures, a dominance that may change over time, especially given the volatile political landscape at both ends of the spectrum.
The Israeli-American strike coincided not only with the unprecedented weakness of the Iranian regime and new understandings between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, but also, coincidentally, with its timing three days after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic visit to Tel Aviv and one day after Pakistan went to war with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which maintains good relations with the Iranian regime. This highlights a web of regional alliances and animosities in that region that are intertwined, if not identical, with those in the Arab world.
Perhaps the close relationship with India is one of Israel’s most significant gains since Modi’s rise to power in India in 2014. India has long played a prominent role in supporting Arab causes, particularly the Palestinian cause, and did not recognize Israel until 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the recognition of Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization following the Oslo Accords.
Pakistan, in contrast to its enthusiastic support for Iran on a rhetorical level during the June 2015 war, appeared more reserved this time due to its involvement in the Afghan conflict and the fact that the Iranian response was directed at the Gulf states, with which Pakistan maintains strong ties. Pakistan has therefore adopted a middle ground this time, especially after signing a joint defense agreement with Saudi Arabia in September 2015, which led it to express solidarity with the affected Arab states and condemn the Israeli-American strike in a brief statement.
Meanwhile, the broader regional context also seems favorable to Israeli actions in several areas, most notably in the Caucasus. Azerbaijan currently enjoys close strategic relations with Israel, although its main alliance has always been with Turkey. Armenia, on the other hand, has suffered from relative isolation following the decline of Russian support, leaving Iran as its only remaining ally.
As the confrontation in the region has flared up, it is becoming clear that the main motivation behind it is Israel’s overwhelming desire to wage war and its determination to use all of Tel Aviv’s remaining leverage and resources to contain the Iranian regime. The most important of these resources is the effective and unconditional alliance with Washington, which remains intact and guarantees the flow of weapons and funds. However, this alliance is not so secure in the long term if the United States engages in confrontation with China or if the Democratic and Republican parties shift their focus to new public bases, which will force the United States to rethink the nature of its alliance with its Zionist ally.
Another factor contributing to this situation is the geopolitical vacuum in the region, resulting from the decline of Iran's influence and the slow formation of Egyptian-Saudi-Turkish understandings, which have not yet developed into a full-fledged alliance and are gradually emerging from the political clashes of the recent past. These understandings began to take shape after Washington explicitly abandoned its long-standing guarantees of maintaining a certain political balance between its alliance with Israel and its historical relations with its other allies in the region. Finally, there is a favorable global climate in the absence of a real rival to the United States. China has not yet demonstrated a clear strategy in the region beyond its economic interests, while Russia remains preoccupied with its main conflicts in Eastern Europe.
Ultimately, Tel Aviv realizes that it faces a long battle and many difficulties, not least the renewed open attacks on its territory. It has become increasingly sensitive to the perception that it is a danger to its citizens since October 7, 2023, and to the negative impact on its image in the eyes of the world community, given that it was the aggressor.
In addition, its relations with regional states with which it maintains diplomatic relations, such as Egypt and Turkey, are becoming increasingly complex. These countries are increasingly wary of Israel’s unilateral actions in the Arab world and of the vacuum created by the weakening of the Iranian regime. This vacuum has allowed the emergence of a unilateral Israeli regional project sponsored by the United States, which ignores historical political norms in the region.
Consequently, war is Israel’s strategy, and gambling with everything it has is its only option today, given attempts to limit its project, as well as distant regional and global powers that have not engaged sufficiently or have distanced themselves from engagement. All this is happening against the backdrop of an American presence that remains steadfast in its support for Israel despite the transformations it has undergone. As for Iran, it is much as it has been since 1979, practically alone, and it seems to have no choice but to gamble with everything it can before losing everything at once, irretrievably.