Israel has intensified its appeals to Iranians to overthrow the Iranian regime — implicitly acknowledging its limited ability to topple it without an internal uprising.

The calls were made after U.S. President Donald Trump said the war in the Middle East is “very complete, preet much.” On Tuesday, the U.S. and Israeli military fact carried out their heaviest bombardments yet, after indications that Trump might be preparing to declare the conflict over. That, at least, is what global markets appeared to be betting on throughout the day, with Brent crude stabilizing around $92 after nearing $120 the day before.

“We are not looking for an endless war,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

Iranian authorities, meanwhile, are maintaining an increasingly defiant tone. The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, has gone the furthest, urging Trump to “watch out”, warning that he could “be eliminated.”

After blocking shipments through the Strait of Hormuz — a route that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas — the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has also declared that it will block oil exports to the Gulf unless the attacks stop. It has added that Iran, not the United States or Israel, will decide when the war ends. Trump said if this happens, Iran “will be hit by the United States of America 20 times harder than they have been hit thus far.”

The speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, also used language that reflects a certain shift in tone. This change follows the after the initial triumphalism in Washington and Jerusalem after the strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Monday to support the appointment of his son, Mojtaba, as the new supreme leader, in a show of strength by the regime. Qalibaf contradicted the U.S. president by stressing that Tehran is not seeking a ceasefire, but rather intends to “strike the aggressor in the mouth” so that it “will never think of attacking our beloved Iran again.”

Failed plans

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview that the United States and Israel believed they would achieve “a quick and decisive victory” and bring about regime change “in a matter of two or three days,” but that “the option plan A was a failure, and now they are trying other plans, but all of them have failed as well.”

At least one of those approaches does not appear to be working: the “unconditional surrender” demanded by Trump, who will ultimately decide when the war ends, despite public statements from both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming they are acting in coordination

Another strategy — the popular uprising called for by Netanyahu — has also not yet materialized. Israel has been increasingly explicit that its objective is not only military (destroying Iran’s missiles and nuclear program) but also political: to bury the Islamic Republic nearly half a century after its founding. Netanyahu has described this as a long‑held dream that he can now pursue, with Trump in the White House and after weakening the militias supported by Iran.

On Tuesday, following Trump’s remarks about the imminent end of the war, Netanyahu placed responsibility for the regime’s downfall on the Iranian people. “Ultimately, it depends on them,” he said, urging Iranians to seize power and take to the streets despite the bombings and the bloody repression of protests earlier this year. “Our aspiration is to bring the Iranian people to throw off the yoke of tyranny

Our aspiration is for the Iranian people to free themselves from the yoke of tyranny […] There is no doubt that through the actions taken so far we are breaking their bones,” he said during a visit to the National Center for Emergency Health Operations.

Meanwhile, Mossad — Israel’s well‑known foreign intelligence service — posted a message on its Persian‑language Telegram channel urging the population to provide information and join its campaign. “Only one more step remains. Join people like you who have made the right decision. With us, a safe and better future in the new Iran awaits you and your family. Contact us through the secure channel,” the message reads.

Israel has also received its first diplomatic visit since the start of the war on February 28. The visitor was German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, representing one of the European countries that has most closely aligned itself with Israel and the United States. Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had previously sided with Trump when the U.S. president called Spain a “terrible” ally within NATO and threatened to cut all trade relations.

Wadephul said at a press conference in Jerusalem that Germany’s priorities regarding Iran are the “verifiable” end not only of its “military nuclear program,” but also of its “ballistic missile program,” and that it must “stop posing a threat to its neighbors.”

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The youngest country in the Middle East is the one redrawing the region’s contours. Israel didn’t yet exist when two diplomats—Britain’s Mark Sykes and the Frenchman François Georges-Picot—sketched a map of influence in May 1916 to divide the provinces of the dying Ottoman Empire. In the folds of those poorly drawn outlines, the seeds of a century of conflict grew. The agreement inaugurated the era of Franco-British tutelage, under the maxim of “divide and rule,” pitting Arab tribes against each other after seducing them with promises of nation-states.

Today, the new Trump-Netanyahu tandem has replaced the rules and guidelines of those diplomats with missiles and drones to reshape the Middle East. The order established after World War I by the Sykes-Picot Agreement has been challenged at least twice. The first time was with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, following the partition of Palestine and its subsequent occupation. The second time was with the rise of the Islamic State, which in 2014 temporarily erased the border separating Syria from Iraq.

With the last 29 months of the offensive there comes a third wave. Israel has bombed seven neighboring countries: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Qatar and Yemen, in addition to Gaza, and occupied new territories in the first two. This cartographic upheaval also has a political dimension that aspires to establish a new paradigm in the region. It puts an end to the era of Western tutelage—first Franco-British and then American—with the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and opens another where a Pax Israeliana is being imposed, with the Jewish state as the new regional hegemonic power. New alliances are being forged that revive old colonialist dynamics with a supremacist tinge of military domination.

The Cold War context has been replaced by an increasingly multipolar world in which the United States is reluctant to transition and relinquish its position as global leader. 9,500 km away as the crow flies from Washington, Israel is preparing to lead a new Middle East. The arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, armed with his MAGA doctrine, and the rise of far-right figures in European leadership positions have opened what Israeli hawks consider “a unique historical opportunity” to fulfill the expansionist ambitions of the Zionist far right.

This is not only about consolidating Israel’s military and technological supremacy over its neighbors—Israel having emerged victorious from the two major Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1948 and 1967, and ending in a draw in 1973—but also about reshaping regional alliances. The Abraham Accords have served as a roadmap by which the U.S. has shifted the international community’s focus from the recognition of a Palestinian state to placing Israel at the center, and its recognition by the rest of the Arab countries as the new objective.

Hamas’s attack on October 7, far from derailing these agreements and strengthening the recent rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, has left the Gulf monarchies between a rock and a hard place. The historic competition between the Sunni powers and Shia Iran for leadership of the Muslim world has been the flame that Netanyahu and his advisors have skillfully stoked over the past two decades to forge a tactical alliance, transforming their former enemies into new allies.

Morocco and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have already positioned themselves as partners of Israel, even though Netanyahu’s sphere of influence simultaneously fuels the Islamophobic rhetoric of his other allies, represented by the far right in Europe. Three Sunni monarchies—Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—played a key role in Israel’s defense against Iran’s missile response during the 12-day war in 2025. However, for now, participating in the offensive is a much more significant undertaking.

The tired old Shia-Sunni dichotomy has proven far less decisive than the rivalry between two of the region’s three major non-Arab powers: Israel and Iran. The third, Turkey—a NATO member that has yet to make a move—remains Israel’s last remaining competitor. In this equation, the two Muslim theocracies—Sunni Riyadh and Shia Tehran—have ultimately been displaced in the Middle East by the Jewish state.

The only way out of the crossfire in which the Gulf monarchies find themselves is to join Israel’s side. This alliance is difficult for Arab public opinion to accept, given the vivid images of tens of thousands of Muslim children dying of starvation, bombings, or amputations by Israeli drones. Within their palaces, the region’s leaders also have fresh memories of the so-called Arab Spring, which since 2011 has dethroned six Arab autocrats—from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and Syria—and plunged their countries into bankruptcy or war. The third path is embodied by the countries that have defied the established order: the oil powers of Iraq and Iran, along with pan-Arabist Syria. This is the path that has led to an inevitable and tragic end for Saddam Hussein, Ali Khamenei, and Bashar al-Assad—who together held power for 85 years.

The emerging new paradigm moves away from diplomacy and back to the law of the strongest: align with Israel or be eliminated—literally or economically. Even those who have submitted to the new Israeli order, such as Qatar and the new Syria, have been bombed by Israeli fighter jets. Just as the old European powers did, the young Israel is resorting to the same “divide and rule” strategy in Syria, Iran, and Lebanon, fomenting schisms between Shiites and Sunnis, and between Arab tribes and Kurds, Christians, or Druze.

Messianic vision

In this new tandem, anchored in the personalistic politics and messianic vision of both leaders, it is Netanyahu who leads the new strategy in the Middle East and who convinced Trump to derail the diplomatic process by attacking a country while still at the negotiating table. The Europe that was once the architect of the Middle East, now fading amidst smokescreens, has been left out of this new equation. The decision lies with its own leaders, who have preferred to be swept along by the expanding wave of this bellicose duo rather than defend international law or European interests in the region.

Trump and Netanyahu’s narrative about the need for regime change in Iran sounds like déjà vu, especially to Iranian ears. Iranians are trying to rid themselves of the ayatollahs’ regime, but not to have the U.S. or Mossad impose a new Shah on them. They haven’t forgotten Operation Ajax, through which the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service MI6 reinstated Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during 25 long years of repression and plundering of Iran’s national resources.

The original sin was the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadegh when he attempted to nationalize Iranian oil. This eventually triggered the 1979 Islamic Revolution and, subsequently, the co-optation of the militias it supports in the region. Seven decades later, young Iranians wonder what their country would be like today if British and American spies hadn’t thwarted its first democratic government. From a historical perspective, the current attempt at regime change in Iran is, in essence, a belated effort to undo the consequences of the 1953 coup.

There is nothing to suggest that reimposing a new order in the region by force will offer a different outcome in 2026 than it did a century ago.

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The Nazi regime’s chief political strategist whispered in Hitler’s ear that politics consists of identifying the enemy; the contribution of Trump’s ideologues to the reactionary spiral is to sow chaos. For more than a year, Donald Trump has pushed obsessively toward both goals, wielding tariffs like a hammer and threatening longtime allies, systemic rivals, and everyone in between. The checks and balances are beginning to push back.

“The Supreme Court has put an end to this divide-and-conquer tactic and thus manages to eliminate one of the main sources of uncertainty for Trumpism,” says Richard Baldwin, one of the leading experts in international trade. But Trump is a master of invention, and having lost his hammer, he has grabbed the flamethrower and, dragged along by Israel, has set the Middle East ablaze with the attack on Iran.

Trump’s 14 months in the White House are somewhat like the sequence between the titles of two Bergman films: Torment and Crisis. In that space of time he has undermined the international order, helped Israel turn Gaza into rubble, endangered Ukraine’s defense, intervened in Venezuela, and threatened Europe — and always with a supreme disregard for international law. And just when uncertainty seems to ease slightly after the Supreme Court ruling on tariffs, he drives it back up to Himalayan heights with the war in Iran, which is spreading across the Gulf and even reaching Cyprus, the easternmost island of Europe, just half an hour by plane from Damascus.

The future of this conflict is uncertain: starting a war is easy, but ending one is not. Other presidents had to learn that lesson in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in earlier wars; now it is Trump’s turn to learn it with a vast country of nearly 100 million inhabitants. The war also has uncertain political consequences in Iran, in the region, in the United States, and across the world. And it has equally uncertain geoeconomic effects: a very 1970s economic illness given an impossible name —stagflation (economic stagnation plus inflation). Uncertainty is one of the best synonyms for chaos: once upon a time, there was chaos. Some of the most revolutionary ideas of our time often begin with the phrase “once upon a time.”

This “once upon a time” began to take shape in February after a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump at the White House. A few days later, Israeli intelligence reportedly had information about a meeting of the entire Iranian regime leadership, according to diplomatic sources: Israel was going to strike. Netanyahu is uncannily effective at whispering in Trump’s ear, and Trump did not want to miss the opportunity to lead that attack — despite his campaign promises, and despite the fact that no U.S. president in decades had initiated a war with such overwhelming opposition from public opinion.

The declared objective is flexible: to destroy Iran’s arsenal, to halt its nuclear program, to eliminate terrorist proxies such as Hamas and, above all, to achieve “regime change,” says Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations, an influential think tank. But regime change rarely comes from airstrikes alone. Russia has failed to defeat Ukraine in four years, and 45% of Gaza’s territory is still under Hamas control.

“History suggests that regime change requires troops on the ground and that it is not always possible to pursue ambitious foreign-policy goals — such as those achieved in Venezuela — with limited resources,” Haass concludes, hinting his criticism of the overconfidence of the U.S. commander in chief.

Charles Kupchan, a former adviser to Barack Obama, suggests that Trump may be shooting himself in the foot: “Tariffs, the Greenland fiasco, insults to long-standing allies, now Iran. Trump is becoming increasingly weak.”

Brookings, another prestigious think tank, explained in a recent analysis that Trump has achieved significant gains in Iran. It cites the effective control of Iranian airspace, the damage inflicted on the country’s inventory of ballistic missiles, its navy, and its nuclear program, and the elimination of much of its political, military, and religious leadership. But alongside these achievements, it also describes Iran’s success in blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a move which has disrupted the global economy. Iran has also inflicted damage on a dozen countries in the region. The regime remains in place, clinging to power through the networks it has woven over half a century. And in Washington doubts are emerging about the formidable costs of the operation — both material and human — and about its benefits, which are far clearer for Israel than for the United States, as both countries face elections at the end of the year.

Faced with an existential threat, the ayatollahs are trying to buy time by escalating the situation: transforming the war into a regional conflict and a global economic crisis. They have been remarkably successful in both cases. Oil surged past $100 a barrel. Natural gas prices have skyrocketed, leading to disastrous consequences for European and Asian industry. The global economy is less vulnerable than in the 1970s due to its reduced dependence on fossil fuels, but there are serious reasons for concern. There are three possible scenarios, each more uncertain than the last.

First: if the war is short, the shock to energy prices and stock markets will be temporary, with only a moderate impact on inflation and growth. That is the scenario preferred by the United States, but few now believe the war will last just a couple of weeks. If the conflict drags on for more than six months and Iran continues blocking Hormuz, the impact will be far greater and the parallels with the 1970s will become clearer. That is the second scenario: a longer war that would create “a real risk of stagflation that will put enormous pressure on economic authorities,” a European central banker tells EL PAÍS. And then there is a third nightmare scenario: that in the midst of such a prolonged war, there is a financial accident.

“Markets have been relatively insensitive to geopolitics over the past year, but that has changed radically. There has been a degree of exuberance in private credit, in public debt, and in sectors such as artificial intelligence. If that feared accident occurs, uncertainty will accelerate dramatically,” the same source says.

The time dimension of the conflict is essential for politics — with the U.S. midterm elections in November — and for the economy. “There are growing signs that the war will not be short,” says Josep Borrell, former EU foreign policy chief. “And it is increasingly clear that it is not in Trump’s interest for it to drag on, so at any moment he could declare it over, with a heavy dose of propaganda, even if he is nowhere near achieving his goals.”

Between the most ambitious goal — regime change — and the non-negotiable minimum of reducing Iran’s arsenal and definitively ending its nuclear program, Trump “will declare victory when he sees fit and withdraw,” according to European sources. The decision will depend on his domestic political needs, the level of military resistance, public support in Iran, and the war’s impact on markets and the broader economy. But selling that exit, when it comes, will not be easy. “Something like a turning point for Trumpism may be approaching,” Borrell concludes. “It has been dragged by Israel into a conflict that does not look likely to end with the unconditional surrender of the Iranians, but rather with erosion on the American side: public anger brought Trump to power, but public anger could also land him in serious trouble.”

The apocalypse almost always disappoints its prophets — but one must be careful with the almost in that sentence. Two BNP Paribas funds suspended redemptions at the beginning of the summer of 2007, and that was the first time we heard the word subprime; a year later came the crash of Lehman Brothers, and the geoeconomic system suffered a memorable blow.

History rhymes: last Friday the giant BlackRock limited redemptions in one of its private-debt funds. Doomsayers glimpse the outlines of a crisis combining war, shadow banking, and the AI bubble. Perhaps that won’t happen — but tensions are at a peak. The age of uncertainty threatens to give birth to a new “once upon a time: chaos.”

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