Aron Lund: Trump determines how the war ends – and therefore anything can happen

It burns in Tel Aviv and Tehran. Israeli fighter aircraft roars over Iran, while Iranian robots are raining down like falling stars over Israel, in a deadly sky play.

For years, the Middle East has been waiting for the enmity between Israel and Iran, rooting on the one hand the Palestine issue and, on the other, Iran’s on good grounds suspected nuclear weapons ambitions, to break out in war. The United States and other countries have been enrolled with sanctions and agreements. The other region has either fired on the tensions or just nervously crouched before the outbreaks of violence.

There are a long line of events that have led here. The most obvious starting point is that in 2018, US and current President Donald Trump tore up the agreement with Iran that set the nuclear technology program under international control. Equally decisive was the chain of crises set in motion through the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel then startedSit still ongoing and very bloody war in Gaza, which in turn led to conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in the fall of 2024, followed by the Syrian regime’s collapse shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, the Iranian-Israeli tensions increased, and the two countries attacked each other directly, but both times Iran drew the shorter straw, when the country’s robot’s arsenal proved to do moderate damage.

Anyone who knows something about the history of the Middle East knows that Israel actually has a long history of crashing into conflicts without any realistic goal.

According to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the war decision was made as early as November last year. The attack on Iran was initially intended to start in April, but had to be postponed for reasons that Netanyahu did not want to go into.

These reasons are likely to be called Donald Trump and his dream of a new agreement with Iran. Negotiations began in April, but at June’s entrance they had been trapped on the issue of uranium rioting. And then Israel stepped onto the stage, either with Trump’s good memory or in assurance that he would like increased pressure on Iran.

The Israeli attack has been characterized by the same technical skill as the previous Lebanon War: an initial wave of air raises knocked out Iran’s air defense system and killed both military leaders and researchers in the nuclear technology program. But Israel’s actions are also characterized by unclear war cases. Anyone who knows something about the history of the Middle East knows that Israel actually has a long history of crashing into conflicts without any realistic goal. As a rule, this quickly becomes a dilemma for the country’s leaders and the general public, and even worse it becomes for the inhabitants of the country they invaded. We have seen it in, among others, Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, and more than ever in Gaza since 2023.

On the one hand flirtsIsrael is now unabashed with the idea of ​​regime change in Iran. They have named your efforts to the ascending lion, in a wink to supporters of the former Shahregimen, whose flag was adorned with a lion and a sunrise. Netanyahu has directed appeals to the Iranian people about fighting Ayatolla Khamenei.

At the same time, the Prime Minister continues to talk about crushing Iran’s atomic ambitions, but without going on the fact that Israel, as well as known, lacks weapons that can reach the deep rock rooms in Fordow, where Iran has hidden some of its uranium -centrifuges.

On the other hand, Netanyahus Security Advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, has presented much more realistically embossed war goals. Hanegbi openly says that it is impossible to crack Iran’s nuclear technology program with air raises, and instead talks about creating the conditions for a US disarmament through agreements. And at the same time, Israel is on the Trump administration to join the war, hoping that US weapons will be able to knock out Fordow and other difficult goals.

This has the United States yetNo interest has shown, but the American commander’s opinion, on the other hand, spins faster than any uranium centrifuge.

Trump, on the one hand, says that he opposes the war, on the other that it is brilliant, on the third hand that the United States will not participate – this is still done, including with air defense – and on the fourth side that Iran’s only rescue is a new agreement. The strategic ambiguity on Israel is thus aggravated by the fact that the country is dependent on decisions that can only be made in the United States. And the United States is currently led by a man who seems to change his mind every time he opens his phone to deliver a new ointment letter and exclamation marks.

How long can the war continue in this form, with flight attacks against robotic attacks, and what other forms can it take?

Even for Iran, the US attitude is crucial. An American war entry would be devastating to the country’s leadership. But the United States may also be tempted to stop Israel’s attack, if Trump assumes an opportunity to explain victory under the US flag at the negotiating table.

So how ends This? How long can the war continue in this form, with flight attacks against robotic attacks, and what other forms can it take?

It is by all means possible that it does not end at all, for a long time. Israel may be able to tick off his target list and switch to the occasional bomb indefinitely, or stifle Iranian oil and gas exports. Iran may be able to respond equally sporadically with robots, asymmetrical tricks and threats to oil markets, and forging further underground on its atomic program.

However, no matter what scenario you imagine, there are practical and political boundaries that will eventually assume. How much can Israel damage the nuclear technology program on its own? What sinks first, Iran’s robot warehouse or the Israeli air defense magazines? And when the Trump lists to Israel’s Lockrop and sends in the bombing or when does petrol price increases and war-critical MAGA activists get him on the contrary to seize his allies in the neck?

The dice is thrown but still rolls. As so often, it becomes the US president who determines how this game ends, and that so often we have no idea what Trump wants. The question is whether he even knows it himself yet.

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