I’ve advised two Israeli prime ministers – and this is what really scares me about the current conflict…

…neither Israel nor Iran has a viable endgame strategy, writes Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas. Their relationship is on the verge of spiralling out of control – and threatens to suck the US involuntarily into the whirlpool it may cause

Israeli strikes on Beirut have turned part of the city to rubble (EPA)

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 de-escalating.

“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.

The first immutable law of escalation states that when you think you control it, you don’t. The academic and military concept of “escalation dominance” is valid only in seminar rooms, simulation games or military planning boardrooms. It has little relevance or validity in reality, during a rolling crisis situation.

Escalation is driven and shaped by miscalculations, vanity, expedient political considerations and pressures, self-image, pride and credibility – all the lethal ingredients that make war the ugliest and most obtuse of human endeavours imaginable.

Escalation almost invariably eludes any form of control or dominance, meaning that one party effectively dominates the process and can turn it on or off at will. It can only be averted in two ways: when both parties have a vested interest in doing so, or when a hegemonic power with influence and levers of power on both dictates a truce. Neither is happening between Israel, Iran and Hezbollah.

This phase of escalation actually began in early October 2023, when Hezbollah committed a series of gross miscalculations and grievous strategic blunders that ultimately cost the organisation heavily, and may potentially weaken it significantly. Eventually, Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah’s hubris and delusions of power proved to be his undoing.

First, the decision on 7 October 2023 to join the Israel-Hamas war as a show of solidarity backfired. This wasn’t Hezbollah’s war, and it even admitted that much (as did Iran) on 8 October. Hezbollah’s trickling fire became intolerable and untenable for Israel, and the decision to further escalate by launching rockets, drones and missiles in greater numbers and at a greater frequency into northern Israel was calamitous.

Nasrallah’s fundamental premises were flawed: the assumption that Israel is deterred by the prospect of an all-out war with missile-rich Hezbollah, that it cannot fight simultaneously on two fronts – and that Iran will rush to assist its prized asset and proxy. Israel wasn’t deterred.

Second, while it is true that the war now has two active fronts, with an ominously dangerous Iranian arena, it is not intensively fought concurrently, since the Gaza theatre is by and large subdued.

Third, Iran’s guiding principle in managing its proxies network is simple: the proxies fight for Iran – Iran doesn’t fight for its proxies.

Until now, especially since the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July, Iran exercised caution and restraint. The cost-effectiveness of being lured into war to defend Hezbollah may prove disadvantageous.

But Iran was facing a conundrum: not only did Israel operate in Iran itself, Hezbollah has been its most potent proxy and planet in Tehran’s solar system. Failure to respond would thus send a negative message to other revolving terror planets in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. Furthermore, neither China nor Russia wants Iran to be defeated in such a confrontation, given that their foreign policy approach is based on a zero-sum game with America.

You would think that given this calculus, Iran would refrain from retaliation – and you would be wrong. Iran devised a formula, believing that a limited strike would end this cycle. That’s a gamble, not a policy.

While it may be the case that Hezbollah is currently perceived as more of a burden than an asset, the sequence of hits sustained by Iran and the erosion of credibility as a regional power made some form of reprisal an imperative.

Iran is driven by messianic ideology and a deep resentment and enmity with the West. That does not mean it is an irrational or suicidal actor. Quite the contrary. Over the years, Iran has proven to be an astute geopolitical force. Now it wants sanctions relief and a renewed nuclear deal, and may likely be rethinking the future modalities of the policy of outsourcing regional policy to the likes of Hezbollah or the Houthis in Yemen.

Tehran’s self-image as an omnipotent centre of gravity of a web of like-minded proxies remains a basic tenet, but its real level of control over these organisations is far from clear. It arms, funds and mentors them but the costs are becoming exorbitantly high, both financially and politically.

Either way, both sides have dragged themselves into a position where further escalation is far more likely than any de-escalation – and whatever the circumstances and explanations, this is as ominous as it gets.

Alon Pinkas is a former Israeli consul-general in the US and was political adviser to two former prime ministers, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak