With the regime in Tehran standing, its missile capabilities operational and its proxies strong enough to fire back, the Iran war is “back at square one” after more than 100 days, says former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.
The conflict began on February 28 in close co-ordination between the US and Israel, but is now at a point where the allies, once in lockstep, are diverging on how to proceed.
US President Donald Trump wants out, whether or not Israel is on board – a position he made very clear in an interview with the Financial Times this week. He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have “no choice” but to accept a deal struck with Iran, one that could substantially resemble the 2015 nuclear agreement.
“Largely, we are back to square one. The objectives ... have not been achieved,” Mr Olmert told The National in an interview.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a large cadre of senior commanders within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in the first days of the war, which Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu presented as regime change. But, according to Mr Olmert, the moves have not been enough. “The regime was not put down,” he said. “It has been weakened.”
Mr Olmert says there was a clear lack of planning in how the war was handled. Most evident is the predictable closure of the Strait of Hormuz by the Iranians.
“It is absolutely amazing to even think that no one cautioned President Trump in the beginning that once the Iranians are attacked, the first thing they will do is to close the Strait of Hormuz.”
The US now finds itself in a “desperate position”, he added, with pressure mounting to end a war it is actively partaking in hours before the Fifa World Cup 2026 is set to begin.
The US has been accused of being dragged into this conflict by Israel, a claim that Mr Trump disputes. “Israel never talked me into the war with Iran,” he said in a social media post in April. He has more recently claimed that he “calls the shots”, not Mr Netanyahu.
While Mr Olmert does not squarely blame either side for how this war came to be, he says it was based on “unrealistic expectations”.
“And who is responsible for this unrealistic expectation in the first place? I don't know to say whether it was Netanyahu, whether it was Trump, whether it was the lack of deeper knowledge of the situation by Trump, or the outcome of the efforts that Netanyahu made to convince Trump that we can dismantle the Iranian regime easily if we kill the leadership.”
Losing support
With such public displays of disapproval by Mr Trump of Mr Netanyahu's antics in the region, Mr Olmert believes Israel is losing its support in the US. He said Israel has “completely abandoned” historical bipartisan ties, and relationships have eroded, particularly with the Democrats.
Despite former president Joe Biden's general support for Israel during the Gaza war, Mr Netanyahu made him “more or less an enemy of the state of Israel”, Mr Olmert said.
Mr Netanyahu made public statements that the US was not completely on board with Israel's invasion of the enclave and told the Knesset that he stood firm against this sentiment, saying that Israel will “fight with our nails”.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a member of Mr Netanyahu's government, wrote “Hamas [loves] Biden”, using a heart emoji.
And now, with strong statements coming out of the White House, whether from Mr Trump himself or his Vice President JD Vance, Mr Olmert believes that if the current administration distances itself from Mr Netanyahu, there will not be “one single person in America that will rise to support him”.
“The Republicans will not oppose the President, and the Democrats are sick and tired of even listening or hearing about Netanyahu,” Mr Olmert said. “They don't feel that they owe him anything after he betrayed the friendship between them and the state of Israel after so many years.”
However this pans out, Iran is framing it as a victory by its mere survival and defiance of US calls to come to the negotiating table to sign an agreement. Iran has maintained that Lebanon should be included in a comprehensive peace deal, while Israel remains adamant that it has the “right” to fight what it claims are Hezbollah elements in the country.
As the situation ebbs and flows, with the appearance of all-out war in one moment and imminent peace the next, Mr Olmert said Mr Trump was “bored” and looking at other issues of concern, like the World Cup and Cuba. With Mr Trump's interests leaning elsewhere, Mr Olmert believes Iran has the upper hand.
“Trump is not patient enough to involve himself consistently for a long time with something that doesn't yield an immediate outcome, and therefore I think the Iranians dictate the agenda,” Mr Olmert said. But the end of this war is in the hands of Mr Trump, even if not all parties to the conflict are happy with the outcome, he added.
“Trump has the power to finalise the process one way or another, and it looks to me that he is more on the way to pull out from Iran with a minimum of an agreement that will be very satisfactory for the Iranians and very disappointing to the Israelis.”
