Why Israel Cannot Afford Peace With Iran

Peace becomes impossible when one side still believes regional hegemony is within reach.

When discussions began around a possible memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, many observers rushed to interpret it as the beginning of a new chapter in the Middle East. Some spoke of diplomacy finally prevailing over confrontation. Others suggested that after years of sanctions, assassinations, covert operations, and military escalation, Washington had finally accepted that Iran could neither be invaded nor coerced into submission. The assumption behind these interpretations is that once both sides recognize the costs of continued conflict, peace becomes the rational choice.

I find that assumption difficult to accept.

Not because diplomacy is impossible, nor because Iran and the United States are incapable of reaching temporary understandings. States negotiate with their adversaries all the time. History is full of examples where bitter enemies reached agreements that served immediate interests. But there is a fundamental difference between a tactical pause and a strategic settlement. A ceasefire can freeze a battlefield. It cannot eliminate the forces that created the conflict in the first place. And that is precisely why I believe any memorandum between Washington and Tehran should be understood as an intermission in a much longer struggle.

The war against Iran was never solely an American project. It was, above all, an Israeli project that depended on American power.

This distinction matters because it changes how we interpret everything that follows. If Washington were acting exclusively according to its own strategic calculations, one could plausibly argue that reducing tensions with Iran serves American interests. The United States has spent decades exhausting itself through endless wars in the Middle East while simultaneously confronting the rise of China in the Indo-Pacific. From a purely American perspective, reducing another costly regional confrontation could be interpreted as strategic realism.

But Israel’s calculations are different.

For the Israeli political and security establishment, Iran is not simply another regional rival. It is the only state in West Asia capable of preventing Israel from transforming military superiority into regional hegemony. Every other major Arab military has either been defeated, neutralized, fragmented, or incorporated into a regional order that increasingly revolves around normalization through the Abraham Accords. Iraq and Syria were destroyed. Libya collapsed. Egypt abandoned confrontation decades ago. The Gulf monarchies have gradually moved toward strategic accommodation. What remains is Iran and the network of allies that Tehran spent decades building precisely because it understood that direct confrontation with Israel alone would be unsustainable.

Once viewed from this perspective, the larger objective of the recent war becomes easier to understand.

Military strikes alone were never the end goal.

They were intended to create the political conditions for something much larger.

For years, influential voices inside Israel and among sections of the American foreign policy establishment have openly discussed regime change in Tehran. Others have gone further, advocating the fragmentation of Iran itself into competing ethnic entities. Kurdish separatism, Baluchi insurgencies, Azeri nationalism, and other centrifugal forces have repeatedly appeared in strategic discussions about weakening the Iranian state. Whether every proposal is realistic is almost beside the point. What matters is that the underlying assumption remains remarkably consistent: a unified, sovereign Iran represents the principal obstacle to Israel’s long-term regional ambitions.

And this is where I think many observers underestimate the scale of what was at stake.

Had such a strategy succeeded, the consequences would have extended far beyond Iran itself.

A government in Tehran dependent on Western political backing would almost certainly have reoriented the country’s foreign policy. Iran’s enormous energy sector would have opened to foreign corporations after decades of sanctions and isolation. Even more importantly, control over the strategic environment surrounding the Strait of Hormuz would have shifted dramatically.

This is not merely another maritime passage.

It is one of the most important energy chokepoints in the global economy.

Whoever possesses decisive influence over the Persian Gulf enjoys leverage extending far beyond the Middle East itself. Energy markets, shipping routes, insurance costs, global inflation, and strategic competition between great powers all pass, in one way or another, through Hormuz.

Imagine, for a moment, an Israel that had successfully neutralized Iran, maintained overwhelming military superiority, enjoyed unconditional American support, expanded normalization across the Arab world, and indirectly shaped access to one of the world’s most important energy corridors. Such an outcome would have transformed Israel into not merely America’s closest regional ally but also the dominant geopolitical actor from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Countries that had hesitated to join the Abraham Accords would have faced overwhelming incentives to do so. Resistance movements would have found themselves increasingly isolated. Arab governments would have adjusted to a new regional balance of power in which accommodation became safer than opposition.

In other words, Israel would have achieved something it has pursued for decades: regional hegemony.

This is also why I believe the Israeli leadership thinks beyond the immediate present.

Many analysts continue assuming that Israeli strategy depends entirely upon permanent American supremacy. I think the opposite is closer to reality. Israeli planners understand that no empire remains dominant forever. Whether American decline proves gradual or uneven is another question, but few serious strategists assume that today’s international balance will remain unchanged indefinitely.

If that is true, then Israel has every incentive to consolidate its own independent position while American military, diplomatic, and financial power remains available.

The logic becomes almost self-evident.

Use American power today to secure Israeli primacy tomorrow.

Because if Washington eventually reduces its military footprint in the Middle East, an Israel that already dominates the regional balance of power would require far less direct American intervention to preserve its position.

Seen from this perspective, the recent confrontation with Iran was never simply about Iran. It was about preparing for a post-American Middle East.

This is why I remain skeptical that any memorandum of understanding can produce lasting peace.

Peace requires that both sides conclude that the strategic objectives of war have become unattainable.

I do not believe Israel has reached that conclusion.

On the contrary, I suspect the opposite.

The moment a diplomatic framework freezes direct military confrontation, attention naturally shifts toward other instruments of statecraft. Intelligence operations. Cyber warfare. Economic pressure. Psychological operations. Information campaigns. Covert sabotage. Influence networks. Proxy conflicts. All the methods that remain available below the threshold of open war.

Some have argued that Iran accepted such an arrangement because it underestimated Israel’s intentions. I find this interpretation equally unconvincing. One of the most important lessons of the recent conflict is precisely that Iran proved considerably more prepared than many of its adversaries expected. Despite severe military pressure, targeted assassinations, covert operations, economic sanctions, and sustained diplomatic isolation, the Iranian state demonstrated resilience that surprised many observers both inside and outside the region.

That resilience should caution against portraying Iranian decision-makers as naïve.

Tehran understands perfectly well that a pause in military operations does not necessarily represent a permanent settlement. Iranian planners are undoubtedly aware that Israeli intelligence, political lobbying, and covert networks continue operating toward the same long-term objectives that existed before any memorandum was signed.

Which is why I suspect both sides are currently preparing not for peace, but for the next phase of competition.

Exactly when that phase emerges will depend upon many variables. Domestic politics inside the United States will certainly matter. Congressional elections may reshape Washington’s appetite for confrontation. Regional developments may accelerate or postpone escalation. Strategic calculations inside Israel and Iran will continue evolving as each side studies the lessons of the previous conflict.

But none of these factors alter the underlying reality that the structural conflict remains unresolved.

This is why I think it is premature to celebrate diplomatic documents as though they represent the birth of a new Middle East.

Sometimes agreements end wars.

Sometimes they simply postpone them.

And in conflicts where the geopolitical stakes involve regional hegemony, energy corridors, the future of American power, and the balance of power across West Asia, postponement is often mistaken for peace.

History has a habit of reminding us that the two are not the same.

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—Kevork Almassian is a Syrian geopolitical analyst and the founder of Syriana Analysis.