Analysis

March 2026

Translated from Israel Time

The opening salvo of the new war against Iran has set the primary objective of the campaign in stark terms: regime change. The targets selected were entirely consistent with that goal – senior regime figures, institutions of governance, and above all, the destruction of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s presidential palace and the elimination of the Supreme Leader himself.

The question now is whether the Iranian people will seize the moment and take to the streets in mass. Some have celebrated, but as of the latest reports, a broad popular uprising has not materialized. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah, has called on Iranians to rise up and take power. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has all but pleaded with them to do so, understanding that they hold the key to success. Israel and the United States can provide support from afar, but only the Iranian people can finish the job.

Iran’s Attack on the Gulf States: A Strategic Blunder

In terms of regional repercussions, Iran’s missile attacks on Gulf states have proven to be a dramatic strategic miscalculation. Despite having initially signalled that it would only target American bases, Iran struck Gulf state territory directly. This breach of its own stated red lines ended the lingering rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates overnight. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman immediately picked up the phone to coordinate a unified Gulf response with fellow leaders across the Arabian Peninsula.

It is worth noting that every Arab state that issued a statement on the war – including all Gulf states and even Qatar – condemned Iran, and not Israel, despite the fact that Israel initiated the military campaign. Iran’s aggression against the Gulf gave Israel the legitimacy to systematically dismantle Iran’s missile infrastructure. Iran’s relative restraint in launching missiles toward Israel, at least initially, appears to have been a tactical calculation aimed at preventing its launch sites from being exposed to Israeli surveillance.

A New Opening for Saudi-Israeli Normalization

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel on the very eve of the strike against Iran carries significant weight in the broader regional picture. In his address to the Knesset, Modi emphasized the importance of expanding the Abraham Accords. Iran’s attack on the Gulf, combined with Crown Prince bin Salman’s initiative to reconsolidate the Arabian Peninsula alliance, has effectively reopened the normalization file.

A key objective of Modi’s visit was the inauguration of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a project that would link India to Europe via the Arabian Peninsula and Israel. What had been alarming New Delhi was the alternative axis that had been coalescing in the absence of Saudi-Israeli normalization: a nascent alliance between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, with Jordan and Egypt looking on sympathetically. For India, this meant that instead of gaining strategic priority over Pakistan through the Abraham Accords framework, Pakistan would gain priority through its alignment with Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The joint U.S.-Israeli operation has also underscored Israel’s irreplaceable value to America’s standing in the Middle East – more so than Turkey, whose regional influence had been rising, particularly in the wake of developments in Syria and Gaza. It is therefore critical for Israel that President Donald Trump’s campaign succeeds, beyond the obvious importance of the outcome for Israel itself.

Hezbollah Enters the Fray: The Shiite Arc Fractures

In an initial assessment, it appeared that Hezbollah and the Houthis had chosen to stay out of the conflict, suggesting that Iran had permanently lost the “Shiite crescent” that once encircled Israel. However, Hezbollah has since entered the war, opening a front from Lebanon and complicating the strategic picture. This development raises critical questions about the durability of the ceasefire understandings that had been in place along the Israeli-Lebanese border, and about whether Hezbollah’s leadership calculated that the existential threat to its Iranian patron left it no choice but to act.

Hezbollah’s entry into the conflict notwithstanding, broader Arab public opinion in the confrontation between Israel and Iran has leaned toward Israel rather than Iran. This represents an enormous strategic asset that Israel must leverage wisely.

The Diplomacy Ahead: Netanyahu’s Dilemma

The initial reports following bin Salman’s calls to Gulf leaders indicated that discussions focused on a ceasefire and the resumption of U.S.-Iranian talks. But after Iran violated its own assurances and struck Gulf state targets, talk of renewed negotiations subsided – though it may yet return. There is a prevailing sense that if the Iranian people do not seize the opportunity and take to the streets, diplomatic channels between Tehran and Washington could eventually reopen. One of the catalysts for the war, after all, was the failure of earlier talks to progress beyond the agenda-setting phase.

What is required of Israel, however, is progress on the Palestinian question toward statehood – the very opposite of the direction charted by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The settler violence against Palestinian villages carried out by hilltop youth would make it impossible to realize the normalization potential that has now reopened.

It is noteworthy that opposition leader Yair Lapid has extended full support to the government on the war effort. This is an appropriate and expected move, but it also opens the door to the removal of Ben Gvir and Smotrich from the coalition, in order to revive the prospects for normalization with Saudi Arabia. The central question is whether Netanyahu is capable of making that move. Is the courage required to eject his far-right coalition partners as great as the courage it took to launch a war against Iran?

The name Netanyahu chose for the operation, “Roar of the Lion,” does not inspire optimism on that front. The domestic political implications of the war in Iran deserve a separate analysis altogether.