The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas continues to hold as U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff seeks a Ramadan and Passover extension to the three-phrase deal. The Biden administration and the then-incoming Trump administration both pushed hard for the ceasefire, despite Israeli concerns that relieving pressure on Hamas could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Those concerns were justified. For Israel, the ceasefire is a disaster. First, it strengthens Hamas in both image and substance. Hamas’s survival after a 16-month onslaught enables it to claim victory and bolsters its image in the West Bank where transition looms. Second, even as Israel’s hostages are released, it is at the cost of setting free thousands of terrorists committed to launching even larger attacks. Hamas also uses ceasefires to rebuild and violates ceasefires when opportune. Hamas continues to have financial infrastructure and safe havens in far-off countries like Malaysia and Afghanistan.
Hamas’s survival after a 16-month onslaught enables it to claim victory and bolsters its image in the West Bank where transition looms.
Behind the scenes, Israel’s security establishment worries about not only Hamas’s resurgence, but also the sustainability of U.S. support to Israel. The same partisan and philosophical dynamics present in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump also could apply to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the future. Add into the mix Europe’s weakness and ambivalence, and Beijing’s and Moscow’s maneuvering, and Israel faces not only difficult geopolitical winds, but a perfect storm.
The problem is not just terrorism on Israel’s borders, but the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear progress. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that Iran has 605.8 pounds of 60 percent-enriched uranium, an increase of 203.9 pounds since the IAEA’s November 2024 report. Forty pounds of 90 percent-enriched uranium suffices to make a nuclear fission bomb, though World War II-era nuclear weapons operated at lower enrichment levels. IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi assesses that “Iran has enough uranium enriched to weapons-grade levels to make several weapons, if it chose to do so.” The IAEA also warned in December 2024 that Iran would “quite dramatically” increase its stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium because it had started operating cascades of advanced centrifuges.
Too often, Western diplomats explain conflict in terms of grievance; they discount the importance of ideology.
Policymakers and diplomats should consider what motivated Tehran to increase its near-weapons grade uranium amidst Israel’s retaliation against its proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Too many diplomats assume that such challenging circumstances will compel Iran to negotiate a deal. However, its uranium stockpile increase suggests the opposite. Does Tehran seek greater leverage and a stronger position by feigning strength? Too often, Western diplomats explain conflict in terms of grievance; they discount the importance of ideology. Ideology matters, however, especially for the Iranian Supreme Leader and the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps indoctrinated since their youth. Given the fact that ideology guides those directing the Islamic Republic’s security posture and nuclear programs, the latest IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program raises the specter of doomsday scenarios in the Middle East.
Shi’ite radicals in Kashmir, some of whom even fought under Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command against the Islamic State, insisted no one should underestimate the Islamic Republic’s passionate religious drive. If the Iranian regime ever gets a nuclear device, its priority will be to obliterate Israel, these militants insisted.
Perhaps in the United States, history begins every four years and diplomats can compartmentalize problems to obfuscate their linkages. Israel has no such luxury. The Islamic Republic’s program is clear. Jerusalem does not have much time. Either the Islamic Republic must fall, or millions of Israelis will be in peril.
