George Friedman, chairman of Geopolitical Futures, has argued that Israel will not achieve the broader outcome it seeks from the Iran war because Washington holds the leverage, and the US has a narrower goal: denuclearization, not regime change.
On the Geopolitical Futures podcast, Friedman told host Christian Smith that the US and Israel shared one critical interest going into the war - preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons - but their objectives have since diverged, "Hvylya" reports.
Israel's vulnerability drives its maximalist position. Friedman described Israel as "a very weak country geographically" whose widest point measures just 85 miles. Surrounded by hostile forces and facing an ideological adversary in Tehran, Israel wants a fundamental transformation of the Iranian regime. "The Israelis are even more terrified by an Islamic nuclear weapon than the United States is," Friedman said.
But Israel cannot prosecute a war that the United States does not support. "The Israelis cannot continue conducting a war if the United States doesn't want them to, because they're heavily dependent on the United States," Friedman said. That dependency puts Washington in the driver's seat for any settlement.
Friedman predicted a deal shaped by Washington's priorities, not Israel's - one that leaves the Iranian regime intact in exchange for denuclearization. "I see a settlement where the United States gets what it wants, the regime gets survival, and the Israelis don't get everything they want," he said. Whatever happens to Iran after the war, Friedman argued, it remains an Islamic country with a cultural and ideological opposition to Israel that no treaty can erase - a reality Israel must eventually learn to accommodate.
Also read: why regime change in Iran would not solve the Middle East's deeper structural problems.