The two-week ceasefire announced on April 7 by the president of the United States allows us to draw several initial lessons after six weeks of fighting.
First, this was a justified war. It was intended to remove threats, some of them existential, for Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enjoyed unequivocal support from U.S. President Donald Trump and succeeded in persuading him to pursue a coordinated, combined offensive move.
The military achievements are impressive, and the alliance between the two leaders is strong and robust, for now. However, the war’s objectives—three in number, as declared by Netanyahu—have not been achieved: the threat of ballistic missiles has not been removed from Israel; Iran’s nuclear program still retains approximately 450 kilograms of uranium that can be enriched into a nuclear weapon; and no conditions have been created for the toppling of the regime.
All of this was presented, according to The New York Times, in a meeting held in the White House Situation Room in early February as the war’s objectives. And, as noted, this did not occur. It is likely that Israel and the United States significantly damaged Iran’s military capabilities, but total victory was not achieved.
Second, Israeli did not win the war. Neither did the United States. Surprisingly, Iran didn’t win either. This was a military campaign in which each side defined victory differently, and this battle of narratives will continue to resonate in the media for a long time. But there is no absolute victory, nor will there be.
It is impossible to destroy all military installations in Iran; incidentally, this is also true regarding Hezbollah in Lebanon (as the Israel Defense Forces already acknowledges) and Hamas in Gaza. Therefore, without any tone of defeatism or resentment, every Israeli would be wise to adopt a more cautious and skeptical approach toward statements made by Trump and Netanyahu. Their upcoming appearances will be filled with boastful and arrogant rhetoric, but reality once again contradicts them.
It is enough to read the reactions from Iran mocking Trump, along with President Masoud Pezeshkian’s statement that “14 million Iranians are ready to die for the homeland,” to understand that there is no victory here—not for our side and not for the Iranians, who have suffered heavy damage and will need time to rebuild both civilian and military systems. But they will rebuild.
The third lesson, sharpened since Oct. 7, 2023, is that the only strategy Israel can adopt, if only because it is realistic, is to buy time while maintaining strong military power. This war demonstrated Israel’s military strength, certainly in the Middle East, comparing the weakness and passivity of the Gulf states. This helps Israel restore deterrence and reinforce its image as a significant and powerful regional actor. Such a situation may lead to future diplomatic agreements with additional actors in the region (Oman? Saudi Arabia? Lebanon? Syria?). Still, there will always remain state and non-state actors seeking to destroy Israel and erase it from the map.
The problem is that Israel cannot eliminate them on its own, and it now appears (at least, temporarily) that Trump does not work for us. When he considers the state of oil markets, rising social unrest in the United States ahead of the midterm elections and criticism within his own Republican Party, including from U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he stops. Why? Because Trump stops in the face of a reality he cannot shatter, even as president of the United States.
Beyond being a military and economic war, this is also a religious component. On one side stands an Iranian regime steeped in Shi’ite, quasi-messianic ideology, convinced that it is Allah’s representative on earth. If so, then every action taken by this regime derives from Divine command, and is therefore justified and moral.
On the other side stands a republican system led by a conservative president surrounded by religious individuals, some evangelical Christians, who are convinced that only they will bring redemption to the world. One need only revisit the recent statements by Vance or U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in the past month to understand that they, too, are imbued with a sense of Divine mission.
Moreover, Trump personally, failed in managing negotiations with the Iranians, partly due to a complete lack of understanding of how negotiations are conducted in the Islamic world. If, over time, the war does not resume, both he and the Iranians will owe a great debt of gratitude to the prime minister of Pakistan (a Muslim, of course), who found a middle path to achieve a temporary ceasefire.
Finally, this is a political war. Trump sought to leverage it to present America as a superpower under the slogan “Make America Great Again.” He understands the war has so far cost more than $40 billion—funds that could have been directed toward domestic issues—and has toyed with gas prices and the stock market. But two months before his 80th birthday, he aims to leave a historic mark as the president who reshaped the Middle East and confronted the “evil regime” in Iran. Such a political legacy could help his party not only in the 2026 midterm elections but also in the next presidential election.
In Israel as well, the political dimension of the war, ongoing since October 2023, cannot be ignored. The central message of the current government is that Israel is fighting on seven fronts, a narrative repeatedly amplified to strengthen internal cohesion and deflect criticism of government policy. Incidentally, this is precisely how Arab leaders behaved for many years in the Middle East: They warned their populations that Israel sought to take over the entire region and was the enemy only they could defeat. Their fate is well known.
In the absence of a total victory (which, as noted, will never be achieved), it is not unreasonable to cautiously estimate that the conflict may reignite in the coming months, ahead of the Knesset elections.
