How Washington and Jerusalem won the strikes and lost the war

The new year began with a scandal. A documentary built on the testimony of twenty-four anonymous Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers won a prize in Venice and set off a fury at home. The chief of staff has ordered a legal hunt for the sources; the culture minister speaks of treason.

But every soldier in every army already knows this: there is no war in history in which decisions to destroy strategic assets did not also mean civilians would die. A film that discovers this is not a scandal. 

A government that chases the film instead of finishing the war is a symptom. That is the real lesson of this year: you cannot start wars you do not finish. Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump started one on February 28. 

Neither planned how it would end. Seven months later, that failure - not a film festival - is the real danger to Israel.

To be fair to the war: Iran held over 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, barred from inspection for more than a year. Strikes on Natanz, Arak and Ardakan destroyed real capacity. 

But the uranium itself survived, and Washington knew it, since the June memorandum with Tehran was built around diluting that very stockpile inside Iran. 

Bombs did what bombs can do; only a deal could do the rest, and the deal was allowed to die in July. The material remains in the tunnels. The lesson Tehran learned: a supreme leader without a bomb does not survive.

First, decapitation was mistaken for regime change. Killing Khamenei was an operational masterpiece and the entire plan. Nobody rose. Within nine days, Mojtaba Khamenei was supreme leader, and the regime was harder, not softer.

Second, Washington and Jerusalem fought two different wars, Trump wanted a quick removal-and-exit; Netanyahu wanted to "mow the grass" indefinitely. Tehran read the gap and exploited it, making Lebanon the price of every ceasefire.

Third, Lebanon became the hole in every truce, reigniting the war each time a settlement neared.

Fourth, the Strait of Hormuz was Iran's answer, and the allies had none for it — producing a dual blockade neither side could break, at a cost to the US exceeding $100 billion by June.

Fifth, victory was declared repeatedly, before it was won, a trap that makes any negotiated end look like defeat.

The bill now comes due in Riyadh

With Hezbollah battered, Iran has turned its Iraqi militias and the Houthis on Saudi Arabia. The kingdom's main pipeline is shut; oil exports to Asia have collapsed; the Houthis are advancing near Bab al-Mandeb. 

Washington has quietly told allies major operations are off until after the midterms. The Gulf states, who joined this war in March at America's urging, are being left to face it alone in September.

Ben-Gurion's doctrine, seventy years old, still applies: Israel cannot afford long wars. Strike fast, fix one objective in writing, and convert victory into a great-power-guaranteed settlement. That meant one aim - the uranium - not five. One front, not a parallel ground war in Lebanon. 

A shared war aim with Washington, on paper. And knowing the culminating point: the June memorandum, enforced and defended, not discarded.

The uranium should leave Iran under international custody, not sit diluted at home. Hormuz should become an internationally policed corridor with no tolls. Iran's proxy network should stand down as the price of relief, Houthis lifting their Saudi blockade, Iraqi militias stepping back, Hezbollah honoring the June ceasefire, Israel withdrawing from Lebanon in step with the Lebanese army. 

And Saudi Arabia, which entered this war on Washington's word and now stands alone under fire, should finally get the defense pact and normalization it was promised before October 7.

It won't feel like victory. It will look like finishing. And it would leave Israel with more than any bomb ever could.

The film will be forgotten by Hanukkah. The uranium will not.