Shining through US president Donald Trump’s confused aims in the Iran war is Binyamin Netanyahu’s long and consistent policy to assert Israel’s military dominance in the Middle East by destroying Iran’s military capacity, political leadership and state infrastructure. That relationship under the Shah is a template for Netanyahu about a potential, mutually beneficial, future “normalisation” in the region. This would be based on Israeli military dominance, United States hegemony and expanded economic interdependence. Netanyahu’s lifelong fixation with Iran is explained by Matthew Gould, a former UK ambassador to Israel (2010-15) who was previously a diplomat in Iran. That goes back to the Dahiya doctrine, an Israeli military tactic named after the 2006 area in south Beirut, of disproportionate territorial wreckage to undermine enemy leaderships and achieve a sustained deterrent impact.

Source: The Irish Times March 21, 2026 00:43 UTC