I'm getting Deja Vu to the India and Pakistan kerfuffle a little while ago. It looked like it would be intense to start with, but then it petered out, and those are two countries that hate one another and actually share a border.
I can't even begin to untangle the web of every factor involved here and how they interact, and why this might just end up being a nothing burger.
1. Iranian proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis)
2. Palestinians (specifically just those in Gaza)
3. Iranian nukes (whether this is a
genuine threat or not I'm not sure)
4. Local rivals (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria)
5. US aid to Israel being tied to Israeli military expenditures (with said aid also being conditional on it being used to purchase US equipment primarily)
6. Iran's proxies (Hezbollah and Hamas) supposedly going through severe
degradation.
7. Netanyahu's own position now
tenuous.
8. Iran's relative isolation in the Muslim world (Pakistan is their only real friend) and the middle East itself
9. Saudi Arabia's semi-recent discovery uranium in their territory and their reaffirmed commitment to a nuclear power station in 2023
10. Past precedent of nations lying about the capabilities and reach of an enemy nation to justify war (Iraq)
11. American politicians benefiting from AIPAC donations, and AIPAC's justification for existing being that Israel is under thread, ergo American politicians benefit personally from Israel being under threat
And possibly way more I'm forgetting about.
There's a bunch of plausible explanations for any of this.
1. Personally selfish motivation (Netanyahu's desire to remain the only viable candidate during these troublesome times -
there was a vote to dissolve Israel's parliament 3-4 days ago)
2. Pure national self-interest (If Israel isn't under threat, then America and others are less incentivised to give them aid)
3. Iranian Anti-Israel posturing being the result of their isolation (Sunni hate them, but prioritise Muslim vs Jew when push come to shove)
4. Israel's
own relative isolation (whilst they have the West by and large, and Jordan (maybe), they'd be on their own largely financially and diplomatically if there wasn't an aggressive military power in their local area)
5. The desire to remove Iranian nuclear capability to shift focus to the Saudis instead
6. Or just to remove the area's last openly hostile power to Israel/America (pragmatically speaking, it'd be 3 birds with 1 stone since it'd isolate Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis financially (though North Korea I.E. China have been aiding them as well)
I'm all in on it lasting 2-5 days.