A lot of the discourse around the Iran War suggests that it began merely as a result of Israeli pressure, who have been requesting American presidents to take such action ever since 1982. The narrative goes that Donald Trump was simply gullible or compromised enough to give the Israelis what they wanted and that this war would have started at any time in the past if a previous president had been as manipulatable.
However this narrative overlooks the completely unique circumstances that confronted Donald Trump in January and then February of 2026. Firstly the events of 2024 left Iran in a uniquely weak position. Hezbollah in Lebanon has long been Iran's premier military asset. They were vaunted as the only Arab military organization to force an Israeli retreat when they departed southern Lebanon in 2000. By securing a land route through Shia dominated Iraq and Assad's Syria in the mid 2000s, tremendous volumes of weapons would flow into Lebanon. By 2020 Hezbollah had amassed the largest rocket and missile arsenal possessed by a nonstate actor, numbering between 75,000 and 150,000.
This arsenal became Iran's primary method of deterring Israel, in a sense offering a similar capability to a nuclear weapon. Due to Lebanon's proximity to Israel cheap high quantity weapons could be used that would not be possible for the IRGC to employ from Iran. If Israel attacked Iran then the IRGC could unleash Hezbollah which would ravage Northern Israel and Tel Aviv with bombardments of several thousand rockets a day for perhaps weeks. Israel's defenses could reduce the damage somewhat but they were not built to absorb such volume. The only defense Israel had was to preemptively attack the Hezbollah's arsenal, which brought a tremendous risk of fumbling the preemption and attracting the bombardment unnecessarily. Additionally attacking Hezbollah unprovoked would attract the other massive rocket and missile arsenal possessed by Assad's Syria.
Between the arsenals of Hezbollah and Assad, Iran did not need a nuke. The Supreme Leader held Israel as a hostage and could constrain both Israeli and American behavior using these conventional weapons. Everything changed on October 7th 2023. With the fight to push Hamas out of Israel back into Gaza still raging Hezbollah began to tease its entry into the fight by firing a small number of rockets. Still on the backfoot, the fear of a two front war with Hamas and Hezbollah became existential and President Biden acted quickly to avoid drastic escalation. American carriers were deployed to the region and warnings issued about any parties expanding the conflict. While direct threats were avoided it seemed clear that if Hezbollah joined the war then so to would the United States, and thus Hezbollah stood down. However throughout the next year Hezbollah would continue symbolic attacks into Northern Israel in support of Hamas and the PIJ.
The Israeli security establishment, having been rattled by a brief existential dread, concluded that allowing the Hezbollah threat to continue to exist was no longer acceptable. As the war in Gaza began to slow down during mid-2024 Israel shifted its focus to the North. On July 27th 2024 Hezbollah made a critical mistake. During an attack on an Israeli military outpost a rocket overshot the target and landed in a football field killing Druze children. In retaliation the Israelis killed a high ranking Hezbollah officer, Fuad Shukr. Hezbollah prepared a medium sized rocket barrage in retaliation however the Israelis preempted the attack and destroyed between half to two-thirds of the rocket force that was being assembled. This began a tit-for-tat campaign that saw Israel attack Hezbollah officers and assets including those in Syria while Hezbollah would respond with indecisive rocket fire.
This revealed a critical weakness in Hezbollah's rocket deterrence theory. In order to achieve effective damage to Israel a large quantity of rockets had to be fired, however doing so would initiate an all out war. Israeli attacks against isolated targets was considered below the threshold of starting an all out war so Hezbollah would not respond with a large attack. So Israel was able to gradually degrade Hezbollah command and cohesion using precision strikes while only attracting minor attacks that could be absorbed by defenses like the Iron Dome. While Hezbollah had a limited precision attack capability it could only reach into the border areas so while the IDF was taking casualties they were very few and had no decisive effect.
As Hezbollah grew weaker, Israel made its move. On the 17th of September the infamous pager attack was conducted that shattered Hezbollah's command structure and the Israeli tempo began to increase. Once again Hezbollah refused to make the jump to full scale war knowing that doing so would only draw the wrath of the Israelis and was unlikely to achieve anything but impose cost on the already committed Israelis. Bunkering down and surviving was the only choice, but even that was quickly shown to not be a choice.
Operation Northern Arrows would begin on September 23rd 2024, with the Israeli objective being the decisive defeat of Hezbollah's rocket and missile arsenal. It was wildly successful and on the 27th Nasrallah himself was targeted and killed. The rocket shield that was protecting Iran had now vanished and it would turn out that shield was also protecting Assad. As part of the campaign against Hezbollah, Israel greatly expanded its strikes in Syria. As Assad grew weaker the Syrian rebels in Idlib and East of the Euphrates saw an opportunity and pounced. In one of the most shocking campaigns in recent memory HTS and other groups swept Assad's army aside and took over the country.
In the course of three months the walls that had stood between Israel and Iran for over 20 years crumbled. Iran was now vulnerable for the first time in recent memory. What would Israel do now that their foe, who for decades slowly maneuvered to strangle them, was now left exposed?
