Neither Israel nor Iran has a viable endgame strategy...

...and that really scares me, says Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas

- Alon Pinkas

A week ago, the US was grudgingly echoing the ludicrously oxymoronic Israeli idea of "escalating to de-escalate" in Lebanon. Two days later, the US was confidently talking about a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon that would imminently commence.

The US acted bewildered and dejected, claiming that Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu manipulated and deceived the American administration. It was arguably the most belated “Eureka!” moment in history, given how he has been manipulating the Biden administration in the last year.

Both ideas were patently unviable – and now the escalation of the already explosive Israeli-Iranian relationship is on the verge of spiralling out of control, threatening to suck the US involuntarily into the whirlpool it may cause.

What may be even more worrying is that Israel has engaged in two fully justified wars but glaringly lacks political objectives and an endgame strategy for both. No ceasefire and no post-war political framework in Gaza, and now a war with Hezbollah – and conceivably with Iran – without a coherent political set of goals and defined deliverables other than militarily degrading enemies.

In this context, Netanyahu’s megalomaniacal assurance to “the Iranian people” that “the moment you will be free is sooner than you think” looks even more bizarre and arrogant. By invoking the rhetoric of regime change, he is riling Iran, not deescalating.

“Escalation” is the unequivocal term of the year in the Middle East. Escalation is usually the result of either a deliberate decision or a failed or deficient deterrence, and that is exactly what is happening between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon – and now, very possibly, between Israel and Iran.