From June aggression ...
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The US is producing record levels of petroleum and natural gas in 2025, but certainly not with the goal of confronting Iran, and probably not with the goal of supporting Israel to attack Iran in a new non-United Nations Security Council-backed military action. Unless PM Netanyahu offered Washington options to win confrontations rather than further engage, the former appearing to be the new direction at the White House, the December 2025 visit may very well end up with warm support declarations and symbolic financial support only.
Israel may decide to attack Iran again. Besides its long case against post-1979 Tehran, and a bid to build regional legitimacy by helping countries to counter a millennia-long assertive power, Tel Aviv needs to set the record straight for its last regime-change attempt: it may have degraded Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure alongside the US, but although unconfirmed, reports of significant damage from 2025 Iranian strikes on Israel during the June aggression, such as on Site 81, relativize the selected exit strategy presented as a certain, partial “success”.
In theory, Israel, doing either the noble or dirty work of Western counterparts, has been equated to Western policy’s tip of the sword in the Middle East for decades. However, while this state of affairs endures time, Washington’s recent stances on the global stage hint at newer and more stringent geopolitical imperatives, in which the war on Iran has just become secondary for the US.
Israel’s security has not become less important to the US, nor did Iran’s role in regional and global balance of power. The paradigm change has not emerged from variations in confrontation patterns, or breakthroughs in files like the US-Iran spat, but from the manner in which value and power are generated and employed in dominance competition.
The 2025 Israeli-American attacks on Iran already tested the limits of carrying out a renewed war on Iran in the contemporary era. Hence, the only open question is what could a US-backed Israeli attack on Iran test in 2026?
Venezuela’s blockade and bombardment of Nigeria pressure two more OPEC competitors in energy markets. Further attacking Iran may strain countries that rely on oil and gas imports through price increases and availability, favoring established suppliers.
Iran is neither a fully defensive actor, nor a visibly aggressive regional power. It employs a long-term strategy presented as resistance, and while its regional proxies are being called out and confronted by opponents, it has not yet signed any mutual defense agreement that ensures a nuclear umbrella as additional protection, as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia did.
Iran is neither a small or historically-insignificant country that can be easily realigned through persuasion policies and propaganda, nor the most prominent economic and military rising power of Asia. Hence, while Israel and Iran trade deterring arguments, the global community extends challenges beyond countering non-cooperating hydrocarbon-rich countries, despite an American tendency to prolong oil dominance.
Consequently, in order to achieve international relevance, PM Netanyahu’s third 2025 White House visit would have to surpass classical confrontational clichés that Washington has declared exhausted, and self-reinforcing Israeli and Iranian confrontational discourse, especially if additional military and financial support is requested, at nearly fifty years from the Islamic Revolution.