A War Against Israeli Interest

Robert Oprisko is a philosopher I know personally: he and I both write on the role of honor in moral philosophy, and share broadly compatible views about it. We've met for pizza in Asheville and exchanged ideas on several occasions. 

Today he has published a paper that offers a surprising view: Operation Epic Fury has been damaging to Israel's interests. Most of the commentary against the war has suggested that the war is very obviously in Israel's interests, and that America has been suckered into it by wily (or overly-influential) Israelis. Just yesterday I wrote briefly on why I think the war is overdetermined in America's interests; I don't take seriously the view that America hasn't got a national interest here, but instead think it has so many and such powerful interests at stake that many of them would individually be worth the fight. 

Yet here we see an argument that, in fact, while America may benefit from this war, Israel will lose even as it achieves its battlefield aims.

Anxiety over the existentially precarious position Israel occupies in the Middle East has persisted for thousands of years, though it has grown and intensified after World War II; genocide was no longer mere theory, it had been attempted. While existential anxiety can be alleviated, mitigated, and ultimately eliminated through dedication, discipline, and intentional action, Israel’s persists. Israeli and American politicians have personally found it politically useful... The fear of oblivion is so strong that support of Israel by citizens of allies (i.e., persons who don’t live in Israel and aren’t Jewish) represents a litmus test of the allies’ heads of government. For Israel, you are either with or against... Given the deep and pervasive concern of annihilation, Israeli spite to withstand and reject external pressure elicits asympathetic policy response from allies and reinforces the security protocols to reduce said anxiety.  

...

Operation Epic Fury has shown anabsolute character for Iran, but not for either Israel or the United States: Iran has absolutely no capacity formeaningful response..... Israel is capable of self-defense against Iran as a source of anxiety. In fact, they are capable of offense. More to the point, Iran is clearly not at the same level of military capacity, capability, or sophistication as Israel.... The “war” is not a war at all – Iran can’t fight back, they lost before they knew a fight was taking place....

The clear and undeniable success of the joint US-Israeli strikes against Iran do not simply mitigate the existential anxiety of the Jewish people and state, it utterly destroys the public façade maintaining that anxiety and eliminates the ideology as an aegis for any aggressive action taken (Oprisko 2015). Operation Epic Fury has been so successful so quickly, and the rationale for the aggression so flimsy that the world isn’t responding jingoistically, it’s attending a funeral; the world hasn’t seen such a lopsided win in an “even fight” since Ali-Liston II (Albanesi 2021).By having one-shot the end boss, the US and Israel have lost a value greater than any they will gain through success: an excuse for any bad behavior (Kain 2024).Overwhelming military dominance should feel like success, but the end result is failure via strategic blunder: Israel has inadvertently killed the ‘golden goose’ of all defenses by exposing Iran as a hollow threat. 

I think there's something to this. Israel has gone all-in* on the attempt to settle family business while it has a reliable presidential ally in the United States. It used its "grim beeper" ploy; it used its capacity to assassinate inside the most protected Iranian secure zone; it used its drone box to take out Iranian air defenses; it used up its whole targeting list on the first night or two of strikes; and now it is using its carefully-established networks inside Iran to identify and remove IRGC commanders leading the population suppression. Oprisko is probably right that they have also decided to use up the sense of vulnerability that they have long depended upon politically and diplomatically. 

That will have consequences. The Israel that emerges from this war will be very different from the one we have known for so long, and seen as hemmed in on all sides and threatened with destruction. This will have psychological consequences for Israelis at home, and political ones worldwide. 

I don't know that I agree that this will damage them in the long term, however. Someone used to say something about how good it is to be "the strong horse"; Osama somebody. It certainly works in the Arab world: just today the Wall Street Journal published a call from the UAE's current Ambassador to the United States -- and Minister of State -- to finish Iran once and for all, combined with his government's commitment to doing so.

* Oprisko and I are both using sports and gaming metaphors, I notice. I liked the Ali-Liston II fight video in case any of you hadn't seen that famous boxing match, or just wanted to see it again. "To one-shot a boss" is a metaphor from tabletop war gaming and/or role-playing games in which a single attack made on a target, in this case a 'boss' or final target, is able to kill it or destroy its ability to fight. In this case, the Ayatollah was 'one-shotted' in the sense of being killed; Iran itself might be said to have been as well; its continued but flagging resistance is trumpeted in the media, but the end-game is obvious to serious observers outside the news cycle. Finally, 'to go all-in' is a poker metaphor for pushing all of one's chips into the pot on the current hand.