No Time for Losers: Why the War Meant to Save Israel
May Destroy It
by Ramzy
Baroud | Mar
20, 2026
https://original.antiwar.com/ramzy-baroud/2026/03/19/no-time-for-losers-why-the-war-meant-to-save-israel-may-destroy-it/
When Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu launched
their military aggression against Iran on February 28, they appeared convinced
that the war would be swift. Netanyahu reportedly assured Washington that the
campaign would deliver a decisive strategic victory – one capable of reordering
the Middle East and restoring Israel’s battered deterrence.
Whether Netanyahu himself believed that promise is
another matter.
For decades, influential circles within Israel’s
strategic establishment have not necessarily sought stability, but rather
“creative destruction.” The logic is simple: dismantle hostile regional powers and allow
fragmented political landscapes to replace them.
This idea did not emerge overnight. It was articulated
most clearly in a 1996 policy paper titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for
Securing the Realm, prepared for then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
by a group of US neoconservative strategists, including Richard Perle.
The document argued that Israel should abandon
land-for-peace diplomacy and instead pursue a strategy that would weaken or
remove hostile regimes in the region, particularly Iraq and Syria. The goal was
not merely military victory but a geopolitical restructuring of the Middle East
in Israel’s favor.
In many ways, the subsequent decades seemed to
validate that theory – at least from Tel Aviv’s perspective.
The Middle East Reordered
The 2003 US invasion of Iraq was widely considered a catastrophe for
Washington. Hundreds of thousands died, trillions of dollars were spent, and
the United States became entangled in one of the most destabilizing occupations
in modern history.
Yet the war removed Saddam Hussein’s government,
dismantled the Baath Party, and destroyed what had once been the strongest Arab
army in the region.
For Israel, the strategic consequences were
significant.
Iraq, historically one of the few Arab states capable
of confronting Israel militarily, ceased to exist as a coherent regional power.
Years of instability followed, leaving Baghdad with a fragile political system
struggling to maintain national cohesion.
Syria, another central concern in Israeli strategic
thinking, would later descend into its own devastating war beginning in 2011. Libya collapsed earlier after
NATO’s intervention in 2011 as well. Across the region,
once-formidable Arab nationalist states fractured into weakened or internally
divided systems.
From Israel’s vantage point, the theory of regional
fragmentation appeared to be paying dividends.
Without strong Arab states capable of projecting
military power, several Gulf governments began reconsidering their
long-standing refusal to normalize relations with Israel.
The result was the Abraham Accords, signed in September 2020 under the Trump
administration, which formalized normalization between Israel and the United
Arab Emirates and Bahrain, later followed by Morocco and Sudan.
For a moment, it seemed that the geopolitical
transformation envisioned decades earlier had been realized.
Gaza Changed the Equation
But history rarely moves in straight lines.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza did not produce the strategic victory
Israeli leaders had anticipated. Instead, the war exposed deep vulnerabilities
in Israel’s military and political standing.
More importantly, Palestinian resistance demonstrated
that overwhelming military force could not translate into decisive political
control.
The consequences reverberated far beyond Gaza.
The war galvanized resistance movements across the
region, deepened divisions within Arab and Muslim societies between governments
aligned with Washington and those opposed to Israeli policies, and ignited an unprecedented wave of global solidarity with
Palestinians.
Israel’s international image suffered dramatically.
For decades, Western political discourse framed Israel
as a democratic outpost surrounded by hostile forces. That narrative has
steadily eroded. Increasingly, Israel is described – even by major
international organizations – as a state engaged in systematic oppression and,
in Gaza’s case, genocidal violence.
The strategic cost of that reputational collapse
cannot be overstated. Military power relies not only on weapons but also on
legitimacy. And legitimacy, once lost, is difficult to recover.
Netanyahu’s Final Gamble
Against this backdrop, the war on Iran emerged as
Netanyahu’s most consequential gamble.
If successful, it could restore Israel’s regional
dominance and reassert its deterrence. Defeating Iran – or even severely
weakening it – would reshape the balance of power across the Middle East.
But failure carries equally profound consequences.
Netanyahu, now facing an arrest warrant issued by the International
Criminal Court in 2024 over war crimes in Gaza, has tied his political survival
to the promise of strategic victory.
In multiple interviews over the past year, he has
framed the confrontation with Iran in almost biblical terms. In one
televised address in 2025, Netanyahu declared that Israel was
engaged in a “historic mission” to secure the future of the Jewish state for
generations.
Such rhetoric reveals not confidence but desperation.
Israel cannot wage such a war alone. It never could.
Thus, Netanyahu worked tirelessly to draw the United
States directly into the conflict – a familiar pattern in modern Middle Eastern
wars.
The Paradox of Trump’s War
For Americans, the question remains: why did Donald
Trump – who repeatedly campaigned against “endless wars” – allow the US to enter
yet another Middle Eastern conflict?
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump
famously declared: “We should have never been in Iraq. We have
destabilized the Middle East.”
Yet nearly a decade later, his administration has
plunged Washington into a confrontation whose potential consequences dwarf
those of the earlier wars.
The precise motivations matter less to those living
under the bombs.
Across the region, the scenes are painfully familiar:
devastated cities, mass graves, grieving families, and societies once again
forced to endure the violence of foreign intervention.
But this war is unfolding in a fundamentally different
geopolitical environment.
The US no longer commands the unchallenged dominance
it once enjoyed.
China has emerged as a major economic and strategic
actor. Russia continues to project influence. Regional powers have gained
confidence in resisting Washington’s dictates.
The Middle East itself has changed.
A War Already Going Wrong
Early signs suggest that the war is not unfolding
according to the expectations of Washington or Tel Aviv.
Reports from US and Israeli media indicate that missile-defense systems in Israel and
several Gulf states are facing a serious strain under sustained attacks.
Meanwhile, Iran and its regional allies have demonstrated missile capabilities
far more extensive than many analysts had anticipated.
What was supposed to be a rapid campaign increasingly
resembles a prolonged conflict.
Energy markets provide another indication of shifting
dynamics. Rather than securing greater control over global energy flows, the
war has disrupted supplies and strengthened Iran’s leverage over
key maritime routes.
Strategic assumptions built on decades of uncontested
American military power are colliding with a far more complex reality.
Even the political rhetoric emanating from Washington
has become noticeably defensive and increasingly angry – often a sign that
events are not unfolding as planned.
Within the Trump administration itself, the
intellectual poverty of the moment is difficult to miss. Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth, whose public persona is built on television bravado rather than
strategic literacy, has often framed the conflict in language that sounds less like
military doctrine and more like locker-room theatrics.
In speeches and interviews, he has repeatedly reduced
complex geopolitical realities into crude narratives of strength, masculinity,
and domination. Such rhetoric may excite partisan audiences, but it reveals a
deeper problem: the people directing the most dangerous war in decades appear
to understand very little about the forces they have unleashed.
Hegseth’s style is symptomatic of a broader
intellectual collapse within Washington’s war-making circles – where historical
knowledge is replaced by slogans, and strategic planning by theatrical displays
of toughness. In such an environment, wars are not analyzed; they are
performed.
The End of an Era?
Netanyahu sought to dominate the Middle East.
Washington sought to reaffirm its position as the world’s unrivaled superpower.
Neither objective appears within reach.
Instead, the war may accelerate the very
transformations it was meant to prevent: a declining US strategic role, a
weakened Israeli deterrent posture, and a Middle East increasingly shaped by
regional actors rather than external powers.
Trump, despite the lofty and belligerent language, is
in reality a weak president. Rage is rarely the language of strength; it is
often the mask of insecurity. His administration has overestimated America’s
military omnipotence, undermined allies and antagonized adversaries alike, and
entered a war whose historical, political, and strategic dimensions it scarcely
understands.
How can a leadership so consumed by narcissism and
spectacle fully grasp the magnitude of the catastrophe it has helped unleash?
One would expect wisdom in moments of global crisis.
What we have instead is a chorus of slogans, threats, and self-congratulation
emanating from Washington – an administration seemingly incapable of
distinguishing between what power can achieve and what it cannot.
They do not understand how profoundly the world has
changed. They do not understand how the Middle East now perceives American
military adventurism. And they certainly do not understand that Israel itself
has become, politically and morally, a declining brand.
Of course, Trump and his equally arrogant
administration will continue searching for any fragment of ‘victory’ to sell to
their constituency as the greatest triumph in history. There will always be
zealots ready to believe such myths.
But most Americans – and the overwhelming majority of
people around the world – no longer do.
Partly because this war on Iran is immoral.
And partly because history has very little patience
for losers.
