THE NEW YORK TIMES — OPINION: Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his political life trying to make war with Iran seem not only inevitable but overdue. Thus, for the Israeli prime minister, the latest conflict was a victory the moment it began. Not because every consequence is good for Israel, but because he can sell almost every conceivable result as proof that he was right all along: that Iran had to be confronted, that force was unavoidable and that delay would only have made the threat more treacherous.
Mr. Netanyahu does not need a clean victory — he just needs a durable narrative. This is not just about distracting Israeli voters when they head to the polls this year. This is also about cementing an Israeli national security doctrine that always trumps diplomacy. He needs Israelis talking about Tehran rather than Oct. 7, about existential enemies rather than political accountability or the unresolved disaster in Gaza — where, after nearly two and a half years of indiscriminate destruction, Hamas still remains — or the crisis in Lebanon, where the renewed conflict with Hezbollah shows no signs of waning.
A war with Iran does not erase those failures, but it does slide them into the background. It also moves the political conversation back onto emotional and political terrain where Mr. Netanyahu has always felt strongest: using fear with the claim that only he truly grasps the scale of the threat to Israel from Iran, and the (empty) promise that he can remove it through force.
For all these reasons, any day-after scenario is a win for Mr. Netanyahu. If Iran capitulates under military pressure, he can say that force succeeded where diplomacy failed. If Iran refuses but emerges militarily weaker, he can say that Israel bought time by degrading the country’s nuclear and missile capabilities. If the Iranian government survives but is bloodied, isolated and more consumed by internal tensions, he can claim that he has neutered an implacable foe. A prolonged period of chaos and bloodshed in Iran could be cast in Jerusalem not as a tragedy that might have been prevented but as a problem to be managed from afar. Even a hardened Iranian regime can work into the narrative that the country must continue to be confronted. » | A New York Times GUEST ESSAY by Mairav Zonszein | Ms. Zonszein is a contributing writer at Opinion. | Friday, March 13, 2026
