Can Iran Replace Israel?

Under the dictatorship of the Shah, Iran was a close U.S. ally. There are tantalizing indications that American policymakers are looking to recreate that Cold War-era partnership and kick Israel to the curb.

This seems crazy.

Just a few months ago, the Trump administration and Israel went to war together against Iran, assassinated its supreme leader and other top officials, and attempted to decimate its military and spark a popular uprising against the government. Against the odds, Iran prevailed by leveraging its control of the Strait of Hormuz -- through which 20% of the world's oil (and thus much of its economy) flows. Iran flipped the script, transforming U.S. bases in the Gulf from encircling threats to convenient targets.

Lest there be any doubt, 92% of Israelis -- in a right-wing apartheid state whose Left has been hollowed out and radicalized by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack -- say they believe that Iran has won.

The Islamic Republic has emerged with newfound respect not only from the Sunni Arab street but also its own restive population and its American attackers, as well as stronger economic alliances, the unwinding of sanctions, and hundreds of billions in war reparations. America is desperately suing for peace; demands that Iran give up its nuclear research and medium-range missiles have vanished into the "nuclear dust."

Arguably the most significant transformation to come out of the 2026 Iran War has been severe damage to the U.S.-Israeli alliance, which dates to 1948. For most of that time, the U.S. extended Israel a blank check. Whatever the Jewish state did -- launch wars of aggression against its neighbors, capture territory it never intended to liberate or annex, build secret nuclear weapons, create an apartheid state, kill American sailors, undermine efforts at regional peace -- the U.S. poured in arms, cash, intelligence support and U.N. security council vetoes whenever needed, no questions asked.

Like a kid with a permissive parent, Israel repeatedly tested its limits. Finally, they crossed the line.

Not only did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seduce President Donald Trump into a military misadventure that failed overnight, bringing about a humiliating defeat. There is broad consensus in official Washington that Israel was either stupidly naive or outright lied about the war's chances of success.

In their book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan describe the extraordinary Iran War sales pitch Bibi delivered to Trump and his top officials at the White House on Feb. 11: "Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near-certain victory: Iran's ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.

"Besides, Mossad's intelligence indicated that street protests inside Iran would begin again and -- with the impetus of the Israeli spy agency helping to foment riots and rebellion -- an intense bombing campaign could foster the conditions for the Iranian opposition to overthrow the regime. The Israelis also raised the prospect of Iranian Kurdish fighters crossing the border from Iraq to open a ground front in the northwest, further stretching the regime's forces and accelerating its collapse."

All wrong.

Not everyone in the Situation Room was sold on a set of optimistic predictions that quickly proved disastrously mistaken. "Sir," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine told Trump, "this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that's why they're hard-selling." Trump overruled Caine.

As the president sees it, Israel dragged him into a losing war. And now they're sabotaging his efforts to end it.

"As far back as March, when the Trump administration began to explore diplomatic options for ending the war, U.S. officials told Israeli counterparts not to continue killing Iran's political leadership," The Washington Post reported. It's hard to negotiate peace when your ally keeps whacking your enemy's chief negotiators.

"Washington's objection to killing Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the country's parliamentary speaker, was so acute that this spring it took the extraordinary step of asking intermediaries to warn Iran," the Post continued.

"Everybody hates you now," Trump shouted at Netanyahu last month. "Everybody hates Israel because of this," he said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces' latest invasion of Lebanon. He could just as easily have been thinking about the genocide in Gaza and thuggish IDF-backed settlers in the West Bank.

The U.S. thinks Israel is feckless and ungrateful -- Vice President and likely 2028 GOP presidential nominee JD Vance said so in public. Israel's support in the U.S. is at a record low and sinking.

We have good reason to start looking for a new Middle East bestie.

Iran would be a far more valuable ally in the region. As we've seen, Iran borders and controls the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. It offers vast strategic depth, access to Central Asia, and leverage over energy pipeline routes. Israel, on the other hand, is tiny and comparatively ill-situated.

Iran has enormous oil and gas reserves, the third-largest on Earth. As a stable ally, it could be a major, reliable supplier and stabilizer of Gulf energy. Israel has negligible oil or gas. Iran's 92 million people (Israel has 10 million) and large landmass provide a much bigger consumer market and recruitment pool. Thanks to the U.S.-Israeli disaster, most analysts agree, Iran is now the regional hegemon in the Middle East.

Israel still offers advanced technology, intelligence and military innovation, but it is small, with few natural resources, politically toxic -- especially post-Gaza -- and keeps trying to manipulate us.

Still, inertia tends to rule (until it doesn't).

"If Trump were to bring serious pressure on Israel, it would have to be in pursuit of a significant breakthrough that would make him look good," a skeptical former diplomat, Aaron David Miller, told Al Jazeera. "There's no issue out there -- not Lebanon, Gaza (or) Israeli-Saudi normalization -- that's close to a breakthrough that would warrant sustained pressure on Israel."

What about U.S.-Iranian normalization?

That would be huge.

The question then comes down to this: After 47 years of U.S.-imposed sanctions, proxy wars, isolation, assassinations and two recent sneak attacks during peace talks, could the Iranians ever bring themselves to trust us?

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Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of the brand-new "What's Left: Radical Solutions for Radical Problems." He co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.