Israel’s best scenario is war on Iran and no negotiations

By Elijah J. Magnier –

For Israel’s current leadership, a sustained United States–Iran negotiation track is not merely inconvenient. It threatens to undermine the central organising premise of its regional strategy: that Iran must be treated as a permanent emergency that cannot be managed through normal diplomacy. Once Washington and Tehran enter sustained talks, even narrow and fragile ones, Israel risks losing its most valuable strategic asset — the ability to maintain the Iran file in a state of continuous escalation while positioning itself as the indispensable guide of American policy.

The diplomatic track now opening in Muscat this Friday is therefore viewed in Tel Aviv less as an opportunity than as a strategic threat. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long framed the confrontation with Iran in existential terms, arguing that the only durable solution is to “cut the head of the snake” and break Iran’s capacity once and for all, thereby removing the last serious obstacle to Israel’s uncontested regional military dominance. The fall of Bashar al-Assad and the heavy blows inflicted on Hezbollah after the October 2024 war were interpreted in Israel as clearing the path toward the ultimate objective: striking Iran itself as the central financial, technological and strategic pillar of the anti-Israeli axis. Negotiations between Washington and Tehran — regardless of their outcome — risk freezing what Israel perceives as a moment of Iranian vulnerability.

Netanyahu has therefore pressed the United States to adopt conditions that Tehran cannot accept, notably the dismantling of Iran’s missile programme and the abandonment of its regional support networks, demands that amount in practice to strategic capitulation. The June 2025 twelve-day Israeli–US war against Iran, intended in part to weaken the system or trigger internal collapse, failed to produce decisive results and instead reinforced internal cohesion despite Iran’s economic and political strains. Subsequent unrest in late 2025, although violent and costly, did not translate into regime breakdown. For Israeli decision-makers, these developments suggest that the current alignment of US military presence and Israeli operational readiness may represent a narrowing window of opportunity.War, by contrast, offers the possibility — however costly — of reshaping the regional balance irreversibly. The Muscat talks therefore pose a structural dilemma for Israel.