By Dave Wurmser Ph.D.
Israel’s position in Gaza had been under immense pressure from the United States on several fronts. The US was pressing for expansion of humanitarian aid, even though there was a four-fold increase in food truck delivery into Gaza over comparable periods before the war (about 4kg of food per person per day this week). The US was also pushing Israel to abandon large-scale operations, deploy defensively and employ targeted operations only. It asked that Israel show immense flexibility on the ceasefire-hostage talks and to avoid any real military actions during Ramadan. The US also asked Israel to take off the table any plan to take Rafiah, the last remaining stronghold of Hamas – a request that essentially would leave Hamas to survive as the ruler of a rump-Gaza entity. The impossibility of these demands created pressure – described by some Israelis as perhaps the greatest rupture in US-Israeli relations since Israel’s founding.
Israel redeploys in Gaza
And then suddenly, on April 9, Israel shifted its position, essentially folding on all counts except for the insistence that Rafiah will still be taken, but not quite yet. Essentially, Israel on the surface yielded on the ceasefire-hostage talks, on the humanitarian supply, and on defense redeployment. It appeared as if Israel handed the United States the keys to the car.
It certainly seemed that way to Hizballah and Iran. Hizballah crowed that the end of the war was nigh and that Israel had been defeated. Iran, emboldened by what it saw as the American ability to leash its ally tightly, felt it could strike Israel – or even to threaten to strike Israel – and the United States would panic, Israelis would lose their nerve, and Iran would with impunity score a big psychological victory and perhaps a military victory without a major Israeli response.
Certainly, the popular mood in Israel was indeed anxious over the Gaza redployment. It remains a consensus that the US positions, if accepted, amounted to an Israeli defeat. That was clear, but had Israel’s government too lost its will, as it might seem, to continue the draining argument with its most important ally on the eve of what seemed to be the most dangerous phase of the war as it threatened to spread to the north of Israel, regionally and perhaps even with Iran itself.
There is no denying that there has been a dramatic change in Gaza. But why?
Reset and Resequencing
What we may be seeing is a strategic reset, or rather a strategic resequencing. Israel has fought the war over the last six months as an extension of the October 7 attacks itself. In other words, Israel fought to defeat the invader and to try to free the hostages, ultimately to create a new reality in Gaza that guarantees no more October 7th’s will happen. But this “Gaza first” was reactive. The nature of the war was dictated by Hamas, and now that Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) organizations themselves admit that one of the generals Israel assassinated in Damascus last week was the operational mastermind planning the attack, it is clear that it was the war Iran had chosen for Israel that it must fight.
But Hamas has been whittled down, not entirely but enough that the final push can be deferred a few weeks. To be clear, both fundamental strategic considerations as well as public opinion in the population create certainty that it will still happen, but the sequencing changed. The goals Israel set– to destroy Hamas’ operations capacity and ensure it rules over nobody and no territory — were both correct and uncompromisable. But for the moment, as Iran weighs its response to Israel’s strike on its IRGC conclave in Damascus that killed so many top officials, and as Hizballah and Israel slowly escalate along the Israeli-Lebanese border, Gaza has become a temporary sideshow.
It is all now about Iran itself and the potential for an attack on Israel from Iran, though NOT from Iranian territory itself. The head of the octopus is about to act, not just its tentacles.
The Biden team the nuisance
On this, Israel is alone. While mystifying, the United States could continue in its delusion that somehow Iran does not control its proxies. It is some sort of extension of a longer-term delusion that explains away Iran’s most dangerous behaviors as the actions of mythological “wildcat hardliners” throughout the life of the Iranian revolutionary regime. It was a convenient delusion since it ultimately not only fails to hold Iran to account, but actually establishes a framework for inaction (“it would validate hardliners”).
But the American “support” promised is really a poisoned chalice. Indeed, as the threats mounted, the administration behind the scenes was trying to signal Iran that its strike should not be so “inappropriate” as to trigger a direct Israeli response onto Iran as CENTCOM officials said. The United States embassy in Jerusalem also signaled its citizens on April 12 to stay away from the periphery land of Israel – clearly another message to Tehran that an attack on Tel Aviv – as opposed to peripheral communities in Israel – would be seen as inappropriate and could trigger such a withering Israeli response. Also, Axios reporter Barak Ravid – who serves as the mouthpiece for the Biden administration to Israeli audiences – reported on April 13 that Untied States had “asked Israel to notify the U.S. ahead of any retaliation against Iran and for the US to have a say before decisions are made.”
The Biden administration clearly is more worried about an Israeli retaliation to an Iranian strike than they are about the strike itself. It seeks to run interference to avoid a decisive Israeli action against Iran – in fear of the collapse of its twin-pillared paradigm (advancing a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue and seeking a strategic regional condominium with the Islamic Revolutionary Regime of Iran) – which in effect serves to save Hamas and Iran from defeat. But the U.S. loss of nerve and its attempts to leash its ally, Israel, run against the underlying realities of the situation and will fail.
The character of the Iranian regime’s strategy is to manipulate rather than fight, given its inherent weaknesses and great vulnerabilities. To do so, it employs disinformation, especially disinformation that stimulates Western concepts that serve their interests. So, it taps into the fear of apocalyptic escalation which has always been employed by Tehran to deter the United States from taking actions against them, and lately to deter the United States from responding meaningfully to its regional rampages. The apocalyptic messaging from Tehran thus is likely to frighten the United States into restraining Israel in its responses to some form of Iranian attack (including by its proxies) and to further incite tensions between Jerusalem and Washington. Thus, the more Tehran observes the rupture in US-Israeli relations, the more emboldened it feels to act against Israel even more aggressively and dangerously via its proxies.
Shahrazade, gorillas and Majnouns
But this reality is reaching its turning point. Ever since October 7th, Iran has been the grand puppeteer of its proxies, managing and directing the show across the region. Israel has reacted; which is a position in which one can win only with immense difficulty. As noted, Iran – the civilization that gave the world chess – is the master chess player. And in chess, the side that has a plan and orchestrates the board to force the opponent into constant reaction wins. An Iranian dissident, Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, once told me that when strategically parrying with the regime in Iran, one must remember that one is playing chess with a gorilla. When he starts to lose, he will simply lean over, and either grab your king and eat it, or just overturn the board. Either way, all rules are off and you sit for a moment paralyzed collecting yourself and measuring the circumstances as you digest what happened. In that moment of unpredictability, the gorilla has reset the rules and is back in control. To win against the Ayatollahs – who carefully move their pieces, manipulate and at times overturn the board – Tehran’s adversary must himself become the gorilla. Or perhaps to shift metaphors to a regional cultural context, Iran’s adversary must act as if it allowed the Jinn (Genies) to possess one’s soul, which serves as the crazed extension of the Jinn’s insanity (Janana). The possessed becomes a “Majnoun” – a crazed and dangerous loose cannon. Whether gorilla or Majnoun, Iran’s opponent must leave Iran paralyzed in fear derived from its appreciation that its strategy of manipulation has failed because it depends on the opponent’s predictability, which is suddenly gone.
Power itself does not frighten Iran since it sees real power in strategy and manipulation, not hardware. This is the land that brought us Shehrazade and A 1001 Nights. The cycle is not about adventures and eroticism – though there is much—but those are merely vehicles to seize the imagination and captivate the audience. Neither is it about the cycle’s attention-deficit-disorder arrangement of tales, where one is started but not finished and then another and another, nor even the onion-like wrapping of everything where the tales are eventually finished one by one after they all were started. The main theme of the cycle is that the most abject creature manifesting weakness itself in this tale – a woman condemned to death by a misogynist king for the next dawn – slowly uses her tales not only to buy time, but to slowly seize the soul of King Shahriyar, and in so doing, reawakens his humanity, empathy and capability for love. She controls her environment through the seduction of the story telling, but the aim is that the symbol of weakness controls and triumphs over the soul of the symbol of absolute power.
Again, power does not frighten Iran. In contrast, loosing control of the situation does terrorize and paralyze Iran since it denies it the ability to be Shahrazad, to manipulate its weakness into domination of the soul of the absolute power.
Israel has an opportunity to respond to Iran with the understanding that this may be its one chance to retake the regional strategic initiative and turn the region’s strategic momentum against Iran and place it in Israel’s hands. Israel has both the opportunity and the imperative to be the gorilla, to allow the Jinn to take over its body and “go crazy” (Majnoun).
Iran’s Hobson’s choice; trapped and no way out
In this context, one must remember how vulnerable Iran actually is. In terms of power, they are weaker, but they are the master no less than Shahrazad of the phycological strategy of manipulation.
Just the mere threat of an Israeli reaction has tanked Iran’s currency and caused a bank-run. But Israel has laid a trap – clearly accidentally since the strike on the Iranian generals’ conclave appears to have been more an extension of the war being waged to destroy Hamas and degrade Hizballah and not a move imagined in the context of a regional war. Whether intentional or not, though, it has placed Iran in the impossible position of having to react to Israel rather than be the one pulling the strings that forces Israel to react. Moreover, it would be even more out of character than allowing itself to be forced to react to respond from its territory directly into Israel. And yet, the internal pressures on the regime are mounting to something substantial:
- Some IRGC types have long argued that timidity is the greatest threat, and that divine intervention leading to the great victory and return of the Imam will come only in the framework of resolute will. In this respect, there was two years ago a poster in Iran of Musa (Moses) berating his generals for timidity in the face of the threat of Pharoah’s army, and that salvation comes only by Musa’s resolute rejection of the timid, cautious path.
- The regime banks on an image of toughness and terror. Not responding tarnishes that and threatens the regime.
- Iranians have in recent months laughed and ridiculed their leadership for its big talk and small action in the war. These episodes of ridicule are now exploding like a volcano in the absence of a response.
- The belief that escalation might so freak out Washington that it could lead Washington in fear to support a universal (Hamas and Hizballah) UN Security Council ceasefire resolution that may be Chapter 7, which would leave Hamas in place and Hizballah unaddressed. This is not an unrealistic expectation, by the way.
And yet, the bottom line remains unchanged:
- Iran’s being reactive in response violates Iranian strategic character. They play chess and pride themselves that the essence of their strategy is anchored to manipulation over their adversary. Manipulative control not only is effective, but nourishes a sense of intellectual and spiritual superiority. In chess, if you are forced into a reactive game, you lost. You have to set the agenda and force the opponent into reaction. As such, Iran fears this is a chess-like trap set by Israel that they must avoid falling into, and instead of impulsively reacting, must do something unexpected that restores to them manipulative control of events.
- Iran could launch a large number of long-range missiles, but few if any will get through due to the Arrow missile defense. That itself could be a humiliation.
- Israel’s response could be withering directly back onto Iran, and could involve critical economic targets (ports, refineries), regime targets that can encourage opposition revolt (IRGC headquarters, Basiji HQ etc. , take out the drone and missile factories upon which not only Iran, but its proxies and Russia rely, and of course the nuclear program.
- Israel would likely destroy Hizballah, leaving Iran without its terror-hub proxy.
- Iranians would die, which would incur wrath against the regime for bringing this down on them.
Overall, this limits the chances of any response directly from Iran’s territory which could expose the limits and vulnerabilities of Iran’s power.
But inaction also humiliates. The public ridicule the regime faces for its lack of reaction can be fatal. So Tehran now finds itself in an impossible Hobson’s choice, and will be forced with a substantial degree of seriousness to react – bad as reacting rather than acting is – in hopes that it can then proceed to slowly regain its control as the grand puppeteer.
Israel’s golden opportunity
But how Israel responds to Iran at this point is perhaps the most important event of this war – and perhaps the most important event in the region in decades.
Iran has severe weaknesses. The same way as Shahrazad maneuvered, Iran has no alternative but to leverage its position through manipulation and bravado in order to maneuver the enemy from strength into weakness. To be manipulative, it needs to control the regional environment. It needs predictable opponents. If Israel uses any Iranian action as a pretext to turn this war directly into Tehran, to become the gorilla in the room, then this becomes something the Iranians cannot handle.
As such, Israel has for the next few weeks the opportunity to move from the local (Gaza, even Lebanon) to the strategic (Iran itself) by Jerusalem’s becoming the gorilla or Majnoun, or even worse, the Majnoun-gorilla. Israel thus faces that moment in which it has the opportunity to hit the strategic reset button and take control over strategic initiative in the region.
In this context, continuing a public spat with the United States over what is for the next few weeks the strategic sideshow, simply had to be shut down and deferred until the proverbial bigger fish is fried. Moreover, the one aspect of Gaza that Israel cannot defer however is the attempt to save as many hostages as possible. So Jerusalem essentially used the strategic reduction of importance for the moment of the Gaza front and threw to the United States control over the hostage-for-ceasefire talks to both leave no stone unturned in bringing the poor souls home, as well as to buy in much bigger support – or maybe even to preoccupy Washington as a diversion — when it really matters right now given what may happen with Iran.
In the long run, Israel simply cannot win the war thrust upon it in Gaza on October 7 without going all the way on Rafiah and maintaining stabilizing operations through occupation for quite some time (including keeping the north of Gaza largely empty and buffer zones all around), but the sequence of Gaza first, then Hizballah and eventually Iran has been upturned.
For the moment, Israel must become the Majnoun-gorilla.