M.K. Bhadrakumar predicts that Netanyahu, by underestimating the Islamic Republic’s powers of resistance, will meet the same fate as Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran War.
Iranian attacks on Haifa oil refineries in Israel on Sunday night. (Hanay/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
By M.K. Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline
An unnoticed undercurrent of the Israel-Iran War is that three Christian nations in Europe — the U.K., France and Germany — have joined the fray with alacrity on the side of Israel.
Strange, isn’t it, that these European countries comprising the so-called E-3 have a well-established exclusive path of dialogue with Iran but are joining Israel’s warpath? It’s a Crusade, stupid!
The three “Crusader nations” share Israel’s obsession to check the rise of a Muslim nation as an emerging power in the Middle East that could radically transform its geopolitical alignments. Simply put, destroying the Islamic regime in Iran is the real objective of Israel’s war — and of the three Christian nations from Europe.
Reportedly, Israeli fighter jets which attacked Iran used the British air base in Cyprus; British refueling planes are on deployment in Syrian-Iraqi airspace for use of Israeli fighter jets; French President Emmanuel Macron, as defender of Roman Catholicism openly vows that he will act to prevent Israel’s defeat; Germany, the fountainhead of Protestantism, has also similarly positioned itself behind Israel.
However, on the other hand, what emerges from the hour-long phone conversation between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday is that they will work together to advance the path of dialogue with Iran, the current conflict situation notwithstanding. The Kremlin readout stresses that Putin forcefully denounced the Israeli aggression.
Such a line-up of the principal actors signals that Israel’s best bet lies in killing the war itself as a strategic error and create a “new normal?” But will Tehran allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get away with murder? That’s the million dollar question. Putin will have to use all his persuasive power doing the planned visit to Iran, if it still goes ahead.
The Israeli thinking behind its assassination of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leadership and military commanders stemmed out of the foolish miscalculation that Tehran lacks a political will to resist aggression. The Israeli objective is on the one hand to create conditions for a regime change in Iran and on the other hand to derail any form of U.S.-Iran constructive engagement.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on a Ukraine-bound train on May 9. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Throughout, terror has been the chosen weapon for Israel and the Western powers to undermine and weaken Iran. But a point has been reached where a containment of Iran is no longer feasible. Logically, Iran’s neighbours in the Muslim world should have rallied in support of Iran but that’s too much to expect, given their limited sovereignty to act independently.
Nonetheless, Iran will not capitulate. Iran’s sense of national pride and honour as a civilisation state will prompt it to circle the wagons and wage a protracted war until victory. From the early days of the revolution, the Islamic republic which was founded on the principles of justice and resistance on the bedrock of nationalism and independence, got attracted to Mao Zedong’s concept of “protracted people’s war” to keep predator nations at bay. That strategy paid off during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, like Netanyahu, miscalculated that Iran was a hopelessly weakened nation in the civil war conditions with its economy in virtual collapse, army in disarray, state formation yet to crystallise and with no allies in the region to lend a helping hand. But as it turned out, Iran fought an eight-year war defiantly to a stalemate, undeterred by the lavish support extended to Saddam by the Western powers and their regional allies.
Iranian soldier in gas mask during the Iran–Iraq War, March 1985. (Mahmoud Badrfar, Wikimedia Commons,GNU Free Documentation License)
The U.S. even equipped Saddam’s army with chemical weapons to stop the human-wave–attack tactics of Iranian fighters, but to no avail — although, an estimated quarter million Iranians sacrificed their lives.
At some point, in a very near future, Israel will also meet the fate of Saddam, having miscalculated Iran’s grit to resist. Netanyahu also estimated that Iran is a much weakened country compared to last year due to the setbacks taken by the Axis of Resistance. Such naïveté underestimates the potency of resistance at the very core of Shi’ism.
Last week, the resistance forces that were supposedly vanquished from the face of the earth regrouped and began firing missiles at Israel — from Syria, of all places! On May 4, Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv hitting the perimeter of the main terminal of Ben Gurion Airport. Reports suggest that Hezbollah has restored its supply routes from Iran.
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What Israel fails to grasp is that resistance movements do not die; their raison d’être remains. Israel is, in reality, in very deep crisis fighting on multiple fronts amidst a cascading domestic political crisis and an economy that requires drip feeding by Washington.
As the U.S.’ capacity to influence events in the Middle East keeps diminishing, Israel’s unviability as a nation propped by the Jewish Lobby in the Beltway appears sharper in focus. Already, there is resentment within the U.S. about bankrolling Israel and fighting its wars.
Meanwhile, the rise of Iran is inevitable — with a population base 10 times bigger than Israel’s, vast mineral resources, a self-sufficient agricultural sector and broad-based industry, innovative progress in technology, big domestic market, highly strategic location and trained manpower.
Onshore facility in Pars Special Economic Zone in Iran’s South Pars Gas-Condensate field, one of the world’s largest gas fields. (Tasnim News Agency/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
Iran’s stamina is of a long distance runner, as the Iran-Iraq war showed, whereas, Israel’s forte is as sprinter on a 100-metre track. Make no mistake, Israel, a small country with a population of 8 million people will get hollowed out in a protracted war.
In the current scenario, what goes against Israel critically is that while Trump tried and failed to stop Netanyahu on the warpath, he is not going to deploy American forces to fight Israel’s war.
Trump has an evangelical base in U.S. politics and is on friendly terms with wealthy Jewish donors, but has nothing in common with the Crusader nations of the Old World — be it on Ukraine or Iran. In both cases, actually, he tends to view the paradigm through the America First prism where he sees immense potential to generate wealth through business links with Russia or Iran.
Besides, Trump is far too smart a politician to risk the future of his MAGA movement whose core tenet is the total rejection of all interventionist “forever wars.” Trump knows only too well that American public opinion is staunchly opposed to Middle Eastern wars.
The replacement of Mike Waltz as national security adviser on May 1 (a known Israeli proxy who found himself in the top echelons of Trump administration) and the subsequent purge of the entire pack of “Iran hawks” in his national security staff, signaled that Trump is wary of Netanyahu’s diabolical plots to derail his negotiations with Iran through back channels.
During their phone conversation on Saturday, according to the Kremlin readout, Trump and Putin agreed to prioritise the “negotiating track in Iran’s nuclear programme … Trump noted, the team of U.S. negotiators is ready for resuming work with Iranian representatives.” Clearly, a military confrontation with Iran does not figure in Trump’s calculus.
That being the case, and Netanyahu’s bombastic rhetoric apart, Israel’s best interests lie in ending this futile war in the quickest way possible. Conceivably, that is also the preference of the IDF. A protracted war on its own steam with a clutch of crusader nations in tow as cheer leaders is not something that can save Israel from destruction.
Curiously, Trump in his latest Truth Social post on Sunday after the conversation with Putin advised Israel “to make a deal” with Iran! Does that fit into Netanyahu’s war mongering? And Trump went on to burnish his own credentials as a peacemaker president.
Trump concluded predicting that “we will have PEACE, soon, between Israel and Iran!” Succinctly put, Trump has no intentions whatsoever to risk American lives by fighting Netanyahu’s wars.
Obviously, “PEACE, soon” will be Russia and Iran’s preference too, as serious negotiations can be resumed and agreement reached that would herald a U.S.-Iran normalisation and the lifting of American sanctions. But does that suit Netanyahu?
The paradox is, Israel has no future in a protracted war with Iran, but an inconclusive end to this war will pose the high risk for Netanyahu of a cascading demand for a regime change in Israel. Loss of power means loss of parliamentary immunity from prosecution that Netanyahu hitherto enjoyed from corruption charges against him and his family members, and a possible imprisonment.
M.K. Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat. He was India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey. Views are personal.
Thisarticle originally appeared on Indian Punchline.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Western Europe isn’t Christian, it’s atheist and materialist. You clearly don’t live on this planet.
Heads up here, the first the on the list here in my Jun. 19 comment here Sheika Hamad Abu Rabia, who was Jewish, was a member of the Knesset who got elected to the seat with the condition that he and Jabr Maudi rotate. Abu Rabi refused to rotate, a court ruled the agreement was invalid, and later Maudi’s two sons assassinated Rabia out side a motel in Jerusalem and Maudi took the seat in question.
Rahauam Ze’ve was an Israeli General who founded the far-right Natioalist Moledet, advocated for complete cleansing of the Palestinian population by population transfer.
You soon learn if you study these very recent histories just how dysfunctional the Israeli governmental institutions were and are.
Netanyahu did not “underestimate”. At this time, things are almost going to his plan, I’d guess. He couldn’t care less about Tel Aviv, although he might miss his mansion now that its likely gone.
The plan was never for Israel to defeat Iran. The plan was to start a war and then get/force the USA to join in and defeat Iran for Israel. The Saddam reference is relevant, but only in that Israel used the same plan then to get Dick Cheney to get rid of Saddam for Israel.
Trump just said there will be 2 weeks to negotiate. Trump never tells the truth. Trump put up the prospect of negotiations not too long before the last Pearl-Harbor style sneak attack. If anyone wants to wager, I’d pick a box for this weekend, maybe Fri Night/ Sat Morn in the Great Satan East time zone. Believing the attack is really in two weeks means believing Donald Trump, which is always a very bad wager. He might vary somewhere in that 2 week window, but I already read somewhere that he might like a weekend so the shock can dissipate at least a little before the markets open and react.
Fill your gas tanks before then, because the price of gas will jump suddenly when Trump attacks. So far, Iran has left both the US bases in the region and the Straits of Hormuz alone as an incentive for the Americans not to be stupid. But when the war starts, gas is going to get very expensive, which will add to every other price in our delivery-to-your-door economy. Probably why the Fed with the usual banker’s good sources is still expecting inflation.
Just remember when you are struggling and paying a fortune for a tank of gas, that the billionaires don’t care about you. Please stop voting for rich people. Vote for someone who lives in your neighborhood and drives a used car that makes the same noises as yours.
June 18,2025 @ 20:27. I wrote a comment here. I though some elaboration on what I wrote might generate some positive Karma for our side of the shit storm dear leader and other Israeli supporting sycophants have led us into!
In this case sycophants who are true believers and who have supported Israels genocide in Gaza. All others try to relax!
Once again I refer to the wiki, my search, “list Israeli assassinations. Four names appear on the list, with a page dedicated to their lives prompt, consisting of their the life story.
Sheikh Abu Rabia, 1929-12 January 12, 1981, , born in Israel, grew up Jewish, Bedouin politician.
Meir Kahane, Aug 1, 1932 – Nov 5, 1990. He has a. very lengthy history, American born Orthodox, ordained rabbi, ultra-nationalist.
Yitzhak Rabin born in Israel, born March 1 1922 – 4 Nov. 1995. He was raised in a Zionist labor house hold and became Prime Minister of Israel 1974 – 1977 and was a member of the Knesset, 14 Jan. 1974 – 4 Nov. 1995.
Rahauam Ze’ev, 20 June, 1926 – 17 Oct. 2001, assassinated by Hamdi Quran of the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine, PFLP, Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades IN RETALIATION for Israels assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa, Secretary General of PFLP.
So as I wrote earlier I can only hope Binni the Blade’s fate come sooner rather than later.
It’s Just a thought!
interestingly the author sums the article “It is a crusade, stupid!” Disappointingly this to me very true statement is not further elaborated in detail or analysed in a historical context.
But Yes, indeed, it is a poorly disguised crusade of our time by European “Christianity” to take control of trading routes from East Asia to Europe in which Iran is pivotal and central link…the first crusade was about taking control of the spice trade from Muslim traders all that many years ago..just study colonial history to get the drift…then the ideological smoke screen was liberation of holy Jerusalem from the evil Muslims, now it is about bringing European values, freedom and democracy to oppressed Asian hordes…all too obvious..it is international economy and trade, stupid! Just follow the bloody trail of mammon to find the root cause of any war!
goodness gracious me, you could not be further away from the true state of affairs, AI driven Zionist bot called Rick not hard to guess desperate propaganda, amusing actually! oh yeah, American presidents the knight in shining armour coming to rescue us from the evil regimes in the east…absurdity at its best!
“could not be further away from the true state of affairs”
A sure sign someone watches way too much American news. I’m only surprised that every broadcast doesn’t start with Jack Nicholson screaming “you can’t handle the Truth!” It would be the perfect opening to the truth-free hour that follows.
I’m not so sure I buy “founded on principles of justice” either. But RB’s reply reads to me like the western desire for empire, especially as an imposition of the neocon idea of unipolar world order. That “we” RB uses is amusing. Reminds me of a joke I heard on a Native American reservation in the early ’70s. Based on a U.S. TV show, “The Lone Ranger,” a Texas Ranger wearing a mask and a badge who had a (Red) Indian sidekick named Tonto. They’re surrounded by supposedly hostile Indians. The Lone Ranger says: “We have to fight them, Tonto!” Tonto replies: “What’s this WE, white man?!”
The inspection teams have never found any evidence Iran was building nukes. But just in case they might someday, strike first?! Wouldn’t this “logic” mean doing the same everywhere else on the planet? Yet expecting no negative consequences. Such fantasists must not have read //Blowback// by Chalmers Johnson. This clumsy, ill conceived, aggressive behavior is a message to the world that having nuclear weapons is the only way to avoid western meddling or outright invasion. It reads like the point is to maintain exclusive power and not at all like an attempt to prevent the horror of nuclear war.
The idea of a crusader mentality is not some far-fetched appeal to long ago events. Look at the neocon Samuel P. Huntington’s 1996 book //The Clash of Civilizations.// Western Christendom (civilized) v. everyone else (not civilized.) The nots include the Eastern Orthodox, people who know how western crusaders behaved in Constantinople. Worst of all, it means the Russians. Anywhere associated with Islam? Certainly not! Forget how Islamic science and preservation of ancient philosophy helped kick start the Renaissance. Ignore that India, Persia (i.e. Iran,) and China were civilizations long before northern Europe and, with thousands of years of experience, might understand a thing or two about human nature. It’s sheer arrogance to insist otherwise. Despite being predominantly Christian, Huntington classifies Mexico. the Caribbean, Central and South America as a separate category. Must be the taint of Native and African ancestry. The world’s Indigenous peoples are left off his map entirely.
Especially here in the U.S., but even in the 3 crusader nations, there are a whole lot of us humans who are not part of that unwarranted assertion “we.”
Rafi, thank you for a learned and civil disagreement, a welcome anodyne to even this highest of comment threads (Consortium’s). I’ve read all your sources, and they are apt. My background includes not only being a Fulbright prof in Moscow (in Russian) but living and teaching in Arabia. I.e., I’ve been around.
I believe, yes, in the Western ‘we,’ and don’t presume ever to think I can channel Tonto, while applauding his insight. I think Islam will win the long term war of existence over ‘us,’ but I don’t want it to be a nuclear defeat, we invented that with no help past algebra (thanks for that).
Rafi, it remains a question of fact whether Iran really is a technical nuclear threat. Russia was. China, Pakistan, and even North Korea were and thus are. I’m staying with my read.
The goal of Trump is likely is wish to destroy BRICS thinking he can split them apart with his magnificent genius.They will not be fooled. but he may also fall victim to fire and fury tactics. All of NATO is a world crusade and a prerequisite for admittance to western economic culture war in this age. of fear of the rest of the world in technological development. They also have created a refuge from the antisemitism they can’t avoid after the Roman empire weaponized a new religion for religious war that become its own empire. All of the empires of suffering around the world are born from it.
It is well known fact that in Israel if one pisses of the wrong people one may very well pay for the transgression with their life.
I can always hope.
Y’all have a nice evening now!
Wishful thinking.
The US and Israel are solidly in the Might makes Right camp, and all their talk of “democracy” and “morality” is hypocrisy (they are even talking about restoring the Evil Peacock Throne with the SAVAK, a typical US Puppet state.)
Unlike Iraq which was a US client/ proxy state, Iran will be totally crushed/ destroyed (and then on to Russia and China). Israel needs lebensraum.
Thucydides noted a similar situation with the Athenians and Melians.
cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-hellenic-studies/article/indicting-the-athenians-in-the-melian-dialogue/F57744FCCB406695E76A4C5BF35CDB58
Attempting to predict what Donald Trump will do is a fool’s errand. The man is wildly erratic and is almost certainly suffering from dementia, though not yet as severe as Biden’s. Many observers have concluded that Trump’s own post-attack statements indicate that he was fully aware in advance of what was to come and was actually complicit in lulling Iran into a false sense of security. One can only hope that he comes to his senses, such as they are, and puts the brakes on what could become a seriously destructive war for all sides.
I’m afraid events may have overtaken Mr. Bhadrakumar’s optimistic scenario. He gives too much credit to Trump as a rational actor, when senility and the Israel Lobby have likely weakened whatever powers of resistance he might have possessed to saving Netanyahu’s bacon. If he continues to believe the lie that regime change can be achieved in Iran with US assistance (and where have we heard that before?), his own presidency will founder in the quagmire that follows. That may not be a bad thing in itself, but the likelihood of Israeli or US resort to nuclear weapons if and when things really go sideways for Israel and the US does not seem farfetched. Israel has its Samson Option, while the US resorting to tactical nukes if it loses an aircraft carrier to Iran would be a Trump-like response.
Yes, events have been moving quickly. It sounds like this was written last Sunday. Bhadrakumar’s optimism over Trump’s abilities as a politican is misplaced, and Trump crowing over “deals” is the sign of a desperate, stupid, and short-sighted fool who can’t be trusted. Will anybody be foolish enough to enter into any agreement or treaty with the US or one of its allies or proxies for a generation after these insane and endless betrayals? Still, everyone also knows that when dealing with a gang of violent-minded simpletons, one must tread lightly and proceed strategically.
Thank you for publishing provocative pieces, especially when I disagree with them.
This predicts Iran will “wage a protracted war until victory” because they are “founded on the principles of justice.”
Wow. I predict no victory, but that: we will take out the nuclear bomb site with the 30k bomb; and the remarkable leaders waiting for decades for us to help them will overthrow Khamenie.
We (meaning Israel with our help) have decimated Iran’s proxies and missile supplies and eliminating its air power, while they have been reduced to sending mosquito-bite declining missile attacks on well-protected civilian sites in Israel. They are terrified of attacking American troops all over the region.
And do you really support Iran’s developing a nuclear bomb, as Russia, China, and North Korea did while American presidents did nothing?
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Israel is not. Iran permits inspection of its nuclear sites. Israel does not. Israel’s sneak attack–akin to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor–on a sovereign nation in the midst of nuclear negotiations with the US, was designed to wreck the diplomatic process. Israel even took out Iran’s chief negotiator. While its still unclear (to me at least) how much foreknowledge the US had of the attack (as opposed to Trump hurrying to the head of what looked at first like a winning parade), Iran may now decide to go ahead with a bomb–the very thing this war was supposed to prevent. And who could blame them? As for other nations developing nuclear weapons, that was inevitable given our militarily unnecessary first use of the bomb on Japan. It was intended to intimidate the USSR, and secure US post-war dominance. Instead it helped start the first Cold War. We had a choice then to place nuclear weapons technology under international control, and chose not to. As a result, we were off to the races. The rest is history, just not of your potted variety.
Do “you” support Israel’s illegal nukes, Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Israel’s illegal aggression against Iran that violated several international laws?
No state has violated as many international laws as Israel. It can only do so because it has hijacked our entire political system.
“Khamenie” your spelling says it all.