Mar 02, 2026
Tom Friedman is the Political Twin of Bret Stephens!
To think clearly about Middle East wars, you need to hold multiple thoughts in your head at the same time. It’s a complicated, kaleidoscopic region where religion, oil, tribal politics and great power politics interweave in every major story. If you are looking for a black-and-white narrative, you might want to take up checkers. So, here are my four thoughts on Iran — at least for today.
First, I hope this effort to topple the clerical regime in Tehran succeeds. It is a regime that murders its people, destabilizes its neighbors and has destroyed a great civilization. There is no single event that would do more to put the whole Middle East on a more decent, inclusive trajectory than the replacement of Tehran’s Islamic regime with a leadership focused exclusively on enabling the people of Iran to realize their full potential with a real voice in their own future.
To think clearly about Middle East wars, you need to hold multiple thoughts in your head at the same time. It’s a complicated, kaleidoscopic region where religion, oil, tribal politics and great power politics interweave in every major story. If you are looking for a black-and-white narrative, you might want to take up checkers. So, here are my four thoughts on Iran — at least for today.
Second, this will not be easy, because this regime is deeply entrenched and is hardly going to be toppled from the air alone.
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Third, we must remember that the timing of the end of this war will be determined as much by the oil markets and the financial markets as by the military state of play inside Iran.
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Fourth, we must not let this war to bring democracy and the rule of law to Iran distract us from the threats to democracy and the rule of law posed by Trump in America and by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.
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Editor: Reader there are only 1795 words left in Tom Friedman’s political chatter at full gallop. Yet Friedmans final paragraphs, awash in well worn platitudes resembles Miss Havisham’s wedding cake, well past rot!
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It is way too early to predict how this war will impact two critical 2026 elections — one in Israel and one in the United States.
For Trump it is simple. He does not want to see the word “quagmire” in any headline with his name in it ahead of the midterms in November. As for Netanyahu, I could imagine him calling for early elections to use the downfall of the Iranian regime to keep himself in power. But victory over Iran could also complicate his politics. Netanyahu has notched short-term military defeats over Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Iran, but he has not translated a single one of them into long-term diplomatic or political gains. To do so would require him to agree to negotiate again with the Palestinians based on a framework of two states for two peoples.
The opportunity for Israel could be enormous: If the Islamic Republic of Iran is either toppled or defanged, I have little doubt that Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and maybe even Iraq would feel much more comfortable normalizing relations with Israel — on the condition that Netanyahu does not annex Gaza or the West Bank, but agrees instead to a plan for separation and a two-state solution. Would Netanyahu rise to that opportunity? Would Israeli voters punish him if he doesn’t?
But I get ahead of myself. I expect by Wednesday there will be at least three more points competing in my head to make sense of it all, because this is the most plastic, unpredictable moment in the Middle East since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Everything — and its opposite — is possible.
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