How Did the US/Israel-Iran War Become a US-Iran War?
From the killing of Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 to the war that began in February 2026, the United States and Israel acted in coordination on almost every matter concerning Iran. Indeed, the present Iran war appears to be connected to Israel’s threat perceptions rather than to US interests, and to have been conducted for Tel Aviv’s security. Six months after the war began, however, the conflict has increasingly come to be described as a “US-Iran war,” with Israel receding into the background. The critical question at this point is whether Israel’s remaining outside the process is a strategic choice or a situation imposed on Israel by the United States. The answer, however, lies outside these two options, in the change of instruments on the American side.
From the outset the Iran war has been conducted around Israel’s core security concerns, targeting Iran’s nuclear programme, ballistic missile capacity and proxy network. The destruction of the Islamic Republic regime was set as the fundamental strategic objective, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented the strikes, in line with the ground of legitimacy Israel has used in many of its earlier attacks, as a preventive operation against the threat these three headings jointly constitute.
Washington, for its part, has sent mixed messages about its justification for launching the war from the beginning, sometimes foregrounding regime change and sometimes Iran’s nuclear activities. When the war dragged on and the objectives initially declared were not achieved, the aim of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran closed in the war’s first days, was placed at the centre. The shift in objective was driven by the realization that the regime in Iran would not be brought down by air strikes and that the population would not move. Accordingly, breaking the will of the population and rendering the state ungovernable were adopted as the route to the fundamental strategic objective. Countering the asymmetry Iran had established with an asymmetry of another kind, the approach became one of worsening living conditions to the point of affecting daily life in the country and of spreading the process over time. The basic result sought from this is to turn Iran into a country that continuously produces instability.
Because the instruments of this new stage lie in American rather than Israeli hands, the conduct of the process has also passed directly to Washington. The Netanyahu government, entering an election atmosphere, has meanwhile increased its aggression in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank while also turning towards Syria. Netanyahu hopes to win the election by turning these foreign policy and security matters into domestic political material.
On the American side, the Trump administration, which has begun to use time as an asymmetric instrument, has adopted a posture that does not leave the initiative to Iran and has kept its response to each Iranian move measured. In the war’s sixth month Trump stated that he was in no hurry to meet Iran and was keeping to no timetable. In the same statement it was claimed that Tehran could not pay its soldiers’ salaries and that its capacity had largely diminished. The reason Washington keeps its distance from negotiation despite the Islamabad Accord signed on 17 June is therefore the belief that pressure is working.
The new economic pressure campaign the US Treasury Department launched on 24 August 2026 under the name “Operation Economic Exclusion” is a product of the same logic. Seeing that bombardment did not break Iran’s resilience in the short term, Washington turned to economic pressure and regional containment, and the ceasefire became a tactical move rather than a solution. The war has thereby evolved from a direct military confrontation into a contest of time in which the parties’ capacity to endure is tested.
Israel’s remaining outside the process is also related to this contest of time. Israel, which from the beginning of the war played an active role in establishing air superiority over Iran, targeting prominent Iranians through assassinations and providing intelligence in general, does not possess the instruments the United States now prioritizes against Iran, such as economic pressure, naval blockade and sanctions mechanisms. For the Trump administration, therefore, while Israel structurally retains the quality of an ally, in the present conjuncture it has lost the quality of being an indispensable partner in the war’s day-to-day conduct.
Behind the Trump administration’s turn to different instruments lie the distance from the war’s initial objectives and the American focus on Hormuz. What is at issue is who will set the rules of passage in the strait, along which route passage will take place and to whom the transit fee will be paid. That file is directly connected to US naval power, to insurance and freight markets and to global energy prices. Moreover, actually operating the strait requires convoy protection, mine clearance and route assurance, none of which can be provided by air operations. Israel, for its part, has no trade passing through the strait, no energy supplied through it and no navy deployed in the region. Israel has therefore ceased to be a party not only in the conduct of the war but also in the war’s new subject matter.
What does Israel want?
Israel has not been troubled for weeks by not being the principal actor in the Iran war. The statement Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich made at a conference on 21 July 2026 is significant in this respect. According to him, the present situation, in which the conflict remains limited, is the best for Israel, and Israel does not wish to be drawn into the process. For the price is now being paid directly by Washington.
This transformation has become evident at three separate points. The first is Washington’s posture. In May 2026 it was reported in the press that the United States had effectively removed Israel from the negotiations, and at the beginning of June, on Trump’s instruction, Israel halted its strikes on Iran and maintained activity only on the Lebanese front. The second is the legal framework of the Islamabad Accord. That the text signed on 17 June carries no Israeli signature is another factor distancing Israel from being a party. Although the accord’s first article provides for an end to operations on all fronts, the provision does not bind Israel. Indeed, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir declared that the text binds them in no way whatsoever. The third is Tehran’s selection of targets. After the collapse of the ceasefire, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain were struck while Israel was not targeted. Israel’s remaining outside has thereby ceased to be an outcome and has become an arrangement that all three parties effectively acknowledge.
Whether Israel can disrupt this arrangement, however, remains uncertain. Israel’s military resources are not suited to it. It has been reported that in the war’s first weeks air defence stocks were rapidly depleted and that most of the Arrow missile stock was expended in the first month. Beyond that, for an Israel that maintains its presence on the Lebanese and Gaza fronts, carrying the conflict to a third front is not functional. The political calendar points in the same direction. Ahead of the 27 October elections, 61 percent of the public opposes Netanyahu standing again.
Despite all this, the divergence between Israel and the United States should not be read as a rupture. Although Israel does not take an active part in the war, the alliance between the United States and Israel continues. But while Washington sees Iran as a manageable problem, Israel is waiting for the file to be closed definitively. An Iran in which chronic instability persists, in which monitoring mechanisms are interrupted and whose missile programme is kept outside negotiation is, from Israel’s standpoint, a threat deferred rather than removed. The fate of the highly enriched uranium confirmed at roughly 440 kilograms before the June 2025 strikes is, after all, still unknown. In sum, the level of risk the two capitals perceive is not the same. The possibility that a cornered leadership will move towards the nuclear threshold the moment pressure eases is the most concrete expression of that difference. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen’s statement that they would strike Iran even if an agreement were reached with the United States is a plain expression of it too.
Returning to the initial question: the war’s transformation into a US-Iran war is the result neither of an imposition alone nor of a deliberate choice. As the United States shifted its strategy from military instruments to economic pressure, Israel’s influence over the course of the war diminished as well. In 1991 Israel chose to remain outside the war and was rewarded for that posture. Today, even if it wishes to become one of the war’s principal parties again, present conditions do not allow it. Israel’s becoming one of the war’s principal parties again will be possible only if the conflict returns to a kinetic phase.
At this stage the fundamental question for Tel Aviv is less whether the Iran file will be reopened than when Washington will want to close it. Whether Iran’s missile programme is included in a durable agreement replacing the Islamabad Accord is of secondary importance. For as long as Washington can use the present uncertainty to its own advantage, it has no need of a new and comprehensive agreement.
This article was first published in IRAM on September 9, 2026.
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