If Trump and Netanyahu fail, it will be because they believed the Islamic Republic could be easily toppled and Hezbollah was a spent force

March 17, 2026

More than two weeks since Israel and the US attacked Iran, inflicting “death and destruction from the sky all day long” as US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said, it seems that the decision to go to war was founded on two major miscalculations.

One is almost entirely an American one regarding the possibility of toppling the Iranian ruling establishment, and the other is an Israeli misreading of Hezbollah and its potential response.

In addition, the results of the 12-day war and the recent demonstrations in Iran and subsequent violent crackdown led Israel and the US to believe that there was a golden opportunity to topple the Iranian government.