There is only one overriding policy decision that Israel can and needs to make at this point: take the win and stop the war with Iran.
A day after three underground nuclear sites were effectively put out of use by US airstrikes, Israel seemed keen to escalate its own bombardment, launching a new attack on “access routes” to one of the obliterated uranium enrichment facilities.
Such a pointless act of attrition cannot conceivably benefit Israel. A continuation of the war under the guise of “there are more quality targets to hit” only solidifies a pattern of behaviour. Crucially, a protracted war leads to a more complicated proposition: that Israel is flirting with effecting “regime change” in Iran.
However appealing the idea may sound to the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from a geo-strategic point of view and from his historical perspective of himself as the saviour of Western civilisation, it is delusional in its unfeasibility, reckless in the consequences it would generate, and exudes unwise triumphalism from a country of 10 million towards a country of 90 million.
Euphoria is a fickle and misleading state of mind on which to base major policy. Those preaching “regime change” sound very sanctimonious to themselves but conveniently forget Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Vietnam or Cambodia.
The only successful examples in modern history of externally imposed regime change were Germany and Japan in 1945, and it took a world war and years of de facto occupation to complete the task.
The major question in the next 72 hours is whether or not Iran will attack US forces in a retaliatory strike – its so-called “decisive response” – or target Arab Gulf oil facilities, or mine or block the Strait of Hormuz, through which 25 per cent of the world’s oil and 20 per cent of liquefied natural gas flows.
But what if Iran makes a more rational strategic choice and refrains from any such retaliation at all? Then it is Israel that is left with the decision to stop or continue with what risks becoming a “forever war”.
When Israel began its military strikes on 13 June – which were phenomenally successful – it achieved three formidable goals: first, it further weakened Iran’s geopolitical position, already diminished in 2024 with the debilitating loss of regional proxies. Second, it established overwhelming and dominant Israeli air superiority in the region for the foreseeable future. Third, it appears to have critically set back Iran’s military nuclear programme and caused major damage to nuclear facilities. The mission was accomplished, even if not by 100 per cent. Now would be a good time to be smart and know when to leave the table.
How might this be done? Following the massive US bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, I can imagine the following scenario: Israel declares victory, announces a unilateral and immediate cessation of hostilities with Tehran, albeit conditional on an Iranian reciprocal move, which need not necessarily be announced, just executed.
Israel then explicitly states that any Iranian transgressions, or any credible intelligence indicating an attempt to revive the nuclear programme, will have grave consequences.
If the ostensible objective of Israel’s war was to neutralise, set back and destroy Iran’s military nuclear project as much as possible – and if, as the US and Israel both believe, despite the lack of a conclusive BDA (bomb damage assessment), that this has been achieved – then there is no compelling reason for further military activity.
There is a case to be made that, under these circumstances, given the dominant Israeli techno-military achievement, there may not even be an urgent reason to conduct tedious negotiations on a new nuclear deal. What for?
Instead, a series of understandings and principles will be formulated to govern the new reality. In due time, sanctions on Iran could be lifted, since there is now no military nuclear programme.
In the 5th century BC, the Chinese strategist-philosopher Sun Tzu wrote a military-political treatise, The Art of War, a 13-chapter compilation of thoughts on military strategies. One proposed concept was what he called a Golden Bridge: “Build your opponent a Golden Bridge to retreat across.”
The idea may be counterintuitive to the natural ambition to win a war decisively. In contemporary jargon, it is called an “off-ramp” – a way to avoid cornering the enemy and forcing him to desperately keep on fighting by offering a dignified, face-saving formula to effectively end the conflict.
The Iranian regime may not deserve a golden bridge. But a ceasefire would, nonetheless, be the smart and realist thing to do.
Alon Pinkas is a former Israeli consul general to the US and was a political adviser to two former prime ministers, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak
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