New York Times: Here’s a Smart Way to End the Israel-Iran War

Prominent American author Thomas Friedman wrote that Iran and Israel are operating in their current war based on two deeply flawed strategic doctrines.

Friedman added that US President Donald Trump has an opportunity to correct both doctrines and pave the way for establishing stability in the Middle East in a way the region has not witnessed in decades, “if he is up to the task”.

In his New York Times article, Friedman elaborated on Iran’s strategic doctrine in its confrontation with Israel, describing it as an attempt to “outwit an adversary”.

He said that both Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah are prepared to go to any lengths, regardless of their opponents’ reactions, believing they will always outwit the enemy with more extreme measures.

He claimed that the fingerprints of Iran and its “proxy,” Hezbollah, both collectively and separately, were clearly evident in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, and in helping ousted Syrian President Bashar al Assad kill thousands of his own people to remain in power.

He added, “They (Iran and Hezbollah) are telling the world: No one will outsmart us, so be careful if you enter into a battle with us. You will lose, because we will go all the way. And you, the moderates, leave us alone”.

Friedman pointed out that this Iranian doctrine actually helped Hezbollah expel Israel from southern Lebanon, but he claims that what the two failed to grasp was their belief that they could expel the Israelis from their biblical homeland.

He continued that Iran, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) are “delusional” in their belief and their continued view of the “Jewish state” as a foreign colonial project with no connection to the land.

They therefore assume that the Jews will ultimately meet the same fate as the Belgians in the Congo, the African country they once colonized.

In his opinion, Israeli Jews will outsmart the Iranians and Palestinians if necessary, because they will play by local rules—not the rules established by the Geneva Conventions, but the rules of the Middle East, which Friedman calls the “Hama Rules,” a reference to the massacre committed by the late Syrian President Hafez al Assad in the city of Hama in February 1982.

Friedman revealed his innermost thoughts, saying that the late Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei believed they could outsmart Israeli Jews and that Israel would never attempt to kill them personally.

However, he claimed, Israel isn’t a “spider’s web” that will one day unravel under pressure, as Nasrallah, “who paid with his life for his miscalculation,” liked to say.

Friedman’s article touched on Israel’s strategic doctrine, noting that its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court—and his “gang of extremists” in the government are currently prisoners of their false perceptions, which he calls the ultimate doctrine based on the possibility of resolving the problem by force, once and for all.

In Friedman’s view, Netanyahu and his government have only two options to permanently resolve the problem.

The first is for Israel to permanently occupy the West Bank, Gaza, and all of Iran, and attempt to change the political culture.

But he sees no chance for Israel to occupy all of Iran while it has occupied the West Bank for 58 years without being able to eliminate the influence of Hamas there, let alone secular Palestinian nationalism.

This is because Palestinians are indigenous to their homeland, “just like Jews,” Friedman wrote.

The only way to even come close to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all is to work towards a two-state solution.

Friedman believes that if US President Donald Trump wants to reach a good deal, he should announce that he will do two things at once: He will provide the Israeli Air Force with B-2 bombers, 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, and American trainers.

This would give Israel the ability to destroy all of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, unless Tehran immediately agrees to allow teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency to dismantle these facilities and access every nuclear site in Iran to recover all the fissile material it has produced.

Second, Trump must announce that his administration recognizes the Palestinians as a people with the right to national self-determination.

However, Friedman believes that to achieve this, the Palestinians must demonstrate their ability to fulfill the responsibilities of statehood by generating a new Palestinian Authority leadership that the United States views as credible, free of corruption, and committed to serving its citizens in the West Bank and Gaza and coexisting with Israel.