Netanyahu’s lifelong obsession with striking Iran and his looming spectacular defeat

For almost four decades, Benjamin Netanyahu has defined his politics by his singular, animating idea: that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, and only he possesses the vision and courage to confront it head-on. On February 28, 2026, in front of television cameras in Jerusalem, he made it official: “If we do not stop nuclear and missile programs now, they will become immune.” The war he had been urging, preparing for, and promising his country for so long was finally here. It was to be brief, it was to be decisive, it was to be Netanyahu’s vindication. But weeks into the war, Israel finds itself in precisely the war it had hoped to avoid—a war of attrition, of prolonged […]