Does Israel Win If the Gulf Burns? | Ask the Professor

0:03 Hello, this is John Meersheimer, and I'm here to answer a question from a channel member. And the question today comes from at Brian Perry-F7B. And Brian asked this question: Iran has threatened to attack the vital civilian infrastructure of Gulf countries in retaliation if their infrastructure and oil production sites are targeted.

0:36 Does Israel benefit from seeing Americans' allies damaged and possibly depopulated? Or to put it another way, does Israel prevail if its neighboring states are wrecked? Now, just to start, there's no question that if Iran is struck, that it will retaliate in a significant way against the Gulf states and against Israel itself.

1:07 And with regard to the Gulf states, which of course is what the questioner is focusing on, Iran has the capability to devastate those states. It can destroy their oil and gas infrastructure. It can attack their desalination plants. And furthermore, it can do all sorts of damage to the cables, the internet cables that run underneath the Persian Gulf, and there are seven of those.

1:42 So the potential for great devastation, which of course is explicit in the question, is there for sure. Now, is this in Israel's interest? I think the best way to get at the question is to ask what Israel's strategy, its overall strategy in the region is. And I would say that Israel has basically four main goals.

2:11 One is that it wants to create a greater Israel, an Israel that includes not just the Israel that was created in 1948, but incorporates the West Bank and Gaza into Israel, and also parts of Lebanon, parts of Syria, and maybe other places as well. So the goal is to create a greater Israel, number one.

2:36 The second goal is to make sure that there are only a small number, if any, Palestinians inside of Greater Israel. That's why, of course, the Israelis are so interested in ethnic cleansing. Third, and this is relevant to the question at hand, the Israelis definitely want weak neighbors. They do not want powerful neighbors.

3:00 They want neighbors like Egypt and Jordan that are highly dependent on the United States, which allows the United States to exercise coercive leverage over those two countries if they decide that they're going to play hardball with Israel. And of course, Jordan and Egypt don't have significant military capability either.

3:21 So there's no question that Israel wants weak neighbors. Furthermore, and this is the fourth point, it wants to make sure there's no nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Israel unsurprisingly is interested in being the only nuclear power in the Middle East. Then finally, Israel is committed to having a close relationship with the United States, because the United States can provide all sorts of material support and diplomatic support, and it can come to the rescue if Israel gets into trouble.

3:58 So those are the five main goals. Now, I think that if you look at the Middle East today, Israel's greatest concern has to do with Iran. And Iran matters to Israel for two of the five reasons that I just pointed out to you as to what Israel's goals are. First of all, I said that Israel wants weak neighbors.

4:27 And Iran is not a weak neighbor, as anybody who has been observing the war between Iran and the United States and Israel clearly recognizes. So Israel has a vested interest in seeing Iran weakened. Furthermore, Israel has a deep-seated interest in making sure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons.

4:52 And although Iran has not made a decision to acquire nuclear weapons, there is a serious possibility that it will do so, and there's no question that it has the capability. So when you look at Israel's five goals that I laid out, it's quite clear that Iran is the principal obstacle to achieving two of those goals at this point in time.

5:17 Again, one, the goal of having weak neighbors, and number two, making sure that there's no proliferation, nuclear proliferation in the region. So one could argue that if you had a war in the Middle East that did huge destruction to all of the countries in the Gulf, that would include Iran, and that would be in Israel's interest.

5:43 But there are real problems with that argument. First of all, there are a good number of other states in the Gulf, and Israel has quite good relations with those countries. This is true for sure with regard to the UAE, the United Arab Emirates. It's also true, I believe, with regard to Saudi Arabia. Israel, except for Iran, has quite good relations with almost all the states in the Gulf region, and it benefits economically and politically from those good relations.

6:18 So, with regard to all the states except Iran, Israel has a vested interest in not seeing those countries destroyed, and indeed one could argue it has a vested interest in seeing those states flourish. There are two other very important reasons why the United States, excuse me, why Israel does not want to see widespread devastation throughout the entire Gulf region.

6:50 The first is that it would have catastrophic consequences for the international economy. And those consequences would impact on Israel as well. If the international economy goes off a cliff, that has profound effects on Israel. So Israel has a vested interest in making sure that there is no economic catastrophe, which is embedded in the scenario that the questioner has put on the table.

7:43 That's not going to happen. The Iranians have made it clear from their past behavior and from what they've said about a future conflict that Israel will be high up on the target list. So Israel will be struck and badly hurt as a consequence. So it won't only be the Gulf states that are devastated. It is possible that Israel will be devastated as well.

8:09 So what's the bottom line here? The bottom line is that when you take everything into consideration, there's no question that Israel, from its own point of view, has an interest in seeing Iran badly hurt by a war in the Gulf. If you could have a war in the Gulf where only Iran was hurt, the Israelis would definitely see that as being in their interest.

8:37 But the point is that is impossible. If you have a major war in the Gulf, where Iran is attacked and the Iranians retaliate and there's devastation throughout the region. That is not in Israel's interest. Because aside from the fact that Iran would be badly hurt as a result of such a war, there would be other downsides, powerful downsides, that would cause huge problems for Israel.

9:10 So I think it's quite clear that when you look at all the dimensions of this issue, that it is not in Israel's interest to have a war that devastates all of the Gulf states, because that would be badly damaging for the Israeli national interest. Thank you very much for listening, and I look forward to answering a future question from another channel member.