This is an excerpt from Al-Monitor Security, a weekly newsletter covering defense and conflict developments in the Middle East. To get Al-Monitor Security in your inbox, sign up here.
WASHINGTON — A major shift in the balance of power in the Middle East is underway, and Israel's leaders want the Trump administration to help ensure they and aligned Arab states come out on top.
Iran is at its weakest in decades, its strategic air defenses, ballistic missile production and arc of Shiite militias across the Levant badly battered by Israeli air power.
Israel's unlikely victory in the sustained war against Iran's multi-front bulwark came in large part due to the unrelenting support of the United States throughout the Gaza War.
Now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is seeking to persuade the new Trump administration to stay the course, eschew its isolationist tendencies and capitalize on what it sees as a once-in-a-generation collapse of regional Iran’s influence in the Middle East.
“This is the biggest opportunity to change something in the Middle East since the 1970s,” a well-placed source familiar with recent diplomatic discussions told Al-Monitor, adding, “It won’t stay this way for long.”
Chief among Israel’s concerns remains Iran’s advancing uranium enrichment.
Netanyahu declared on Sunday that with President Donald Trump’s “unflinching support,” he has “no doubt that we can and will finish the job” against Tehran’s nuclear program.
The Israeli premier got more than anticipated out of his meeting with Trump at the White House earlier this month, Al-Monitor's Ben Caspit reported this week. The two leaders agreed on next steps should Iran refuse to negotiate a new deal even more restrictive than the original 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Iran has accelerated its monthly production of 60% enriched uranium nearly sevenfold and is anticipated to amass a total of 250 kilograms by next month, UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi warned earlier this week.
While Trump says he still prefers diplomacy as a means to halt Tehran’s enrichment program, he has underscored that the United States will not allow Iran’s government to obtain a nuclear weapon under any circumstances.
“All options are on the table,” Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz said Sunday, adding that Iran’s leaders should “give up their entire program” as a prerequisite to talks.
It remains unclear how Iranian leaders will react to the new administration’s posturing.
American military commanders still don’t see eye to eye with Israel's top brass on the tradeoffs of long-range airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. But with Iran’s Russian-made S-300s disabled and the Kremlin at pains to replace them, the gap may be narrowing.
And now, Trump’s olive branch to Moscow to end the war in Ukraine could intensify Israeli officials’ perception of a closing window of opportunity to act against Iran, as ending the Ukraine war could free up Russian military assets to bolster Iran's battered air defenses.
Outgoing Israeli military chief Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi met with top Pentagon officials on Tuesday, including his American counterpart, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, following up on the recent discussions in Israel. Pentagon officials were unusually tight-lipped about the meetings, which the Joint Staff only belatedly announced two days after they occurred.
While the contents of the conversations remain unclear, Israeli military leaders have broadly advocated the new US administration enlist Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan to help fill the void left by the IRGC and act as a counterweight to Turkey and the Sunni Islamist groups its supports, most prominently Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria.
“We cut off the Iranian crescent; now we need to preserve that,” one person familiar with the discussions told Al-Monitor, noting, “A vacuum does not usually remain empty.”
One US official close to the discussions told Al-Monitor the Israelis are adamant about knocking out Iran’s nuclear program. The source suggested the Israelis were also “very serious” about ramping up their covert targeted attacks on Iranian officials.
Redoubled US economic sanctions are also taking their toll inside Iran. On Wednesday, 91 Iranian Parliament members signed a motion to dismiss Economy Minister Abdolnaser Hemmati after the riyal fell to a new low of some 927,300 to the dollar this week.
Israeli sources estimate that Iran spent roughly $20 billion on shoring up its proxies across the Levant over the past two decades.
“Hezbollah was Iran’s insurance policy and they lost it,” the first person familiar with the discussions said. “This was a huge amount of money for the Iranian economy.”
"They are feeling the pressure from the Iranian people.”
