Israel enters its fourth week of war against Iran, and its sub-campaign in Lebanon, with more question marks than exclamation points. It has achieved significant gains on both fronts, but risks being dragged into a war of attrition without reaching its objectives.
In the main arena – Iran – Israel is struggling to reduce the volume of rocket fire on its home front. The adaptations Iran has made – in the nature of its missiles, in the spacing of launches, in geographic dispersion – allow it to maintain a constant threat against Israel, one with the potential to exhaust the public more than the physical damage from the missiles themselves.
Meanwhile, the home front is showing impressive resilience and compliance with directives, but the campaign's continuation demands heightened attention and a stronger government response, above all for business owners and workers.
The many strikes on targets in Iran – including the elimination of senior officials and the destruction of facilities and infrastructure – are not, at this stage, bringing closer the hoped-for goal of regime collapse. Iran has managed to rapidly fill every vacancy and to maintain a rigid strategy of counter-strikes against Israel and the Gulf states.
The main headache falls to the United States, which is struggling to develop courses of action to break the Iranian stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz. President Donald Trump is caught in a complicated situation regarding the Strait. If he holds firm, he risks being dragged into a longer and bloodier war than planned, with severe economic damage from rising oil prices.
If he capitulates – and there are currently no signs of that – he will signal to Iran, and to every other country in the world, that the use of force pays off.
A further issue occupying the administration is the 460 kilograms (1,014 pounds) of highly enriched uranium that remain in Iran's possession. On Saturday, a strike was reported on the nuclear facility at Natanz, possibly in an attempt to prevent Iran from trying to extract sensitive materials from it.
At the same time, reports emerged that Trump held a discussion on ways to take control of the uranium. Given the fact that uranium has been and remains a top-priority issue, it is unlikely that three weeks of war were needed before such a discussion took place – it is reasonable that Washington (and Jerusalem) had given deep thought to ways of resolving it before the first shot was fired.
These question marks are expected to multiply in the coming days. Past experience teaches that leaders and commanders tend to apply more force in the hope that the situation will change. It is doubtful whether this will help against Iran, an enemy in a survival mode, one that shows no regard for its own people or for others.
The current campaign of attrition against Iran is important in order to set back its capabilities in the future, but Israel must ensure that it does not cross the point where the damage it sustains is greater than the damage it inflicts.
It is also necessary to tell the public the truth: unless something exceptional and surprising occurs, this will not be the last campaign against Iran. This message must also be conveyed in the context of the sub-campaign in Lebanon, where residents of the north have come to feel that this time, Hezbollah will be crushed.
Here too, that will not happen. The objective of the operation, as defined, is to push the threat back from northern communities and to strike the organization's infrastructure in southern Lebanon – and across the country as well. And yet, if the Lebanese government does not take matters into its own hands under an agreement, Hezbollah will recover and return to threaten in the future.
The IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, visited the north on Saturday and met with the mayor of Kiryat Shmona and with the head of the Metula regional council. His visit once again highlighted what exists in the north – and above all, what is absent. There is an army turning the world upside down to protect the residents and serve as a listening ear, and there is no government backing that up on the civilian side.
The sustained battering that northern communities have endured in recent days is far more severe than what the rest of the country is experiencing – and it therefore demands a different solution, one that has not yet been provided.
Residents of the north were evacuated from their homes on October 8, 2023, and they returned after being promised quiet and economic, employment, and educational certainty. The quiet has long since evaporated, and the certainty was never delivered because the government prioritized funding to preserve the coalition over preserving the north. The continuation of the current situation risks sealing the fate of the north – this time, empty promises of a better future will no longer do.
