Israel and the United States are the big losers; the winners are the Iranians, says John Mearsheimer

In Tel Aviv, Israeli police continue to arrest demonstrators in the midst of hostage families’ protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies.

John Mearsheimer, renowned professor at the University of Chicago – anathematized by multimedia controlled by the “Israeli lobby” [1], gave a conference at the CIS (Centre for International Studies) in Australia on May 15 [2], which he summarized in his interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano [3].

Mearsheimer has no need to surround himself with hired cheerleaders, and is considered by Tom Switzer of the Australian CIS to be the third most important geopolitician in the United States. He belongs to the neorealist school of international relations [4] and, in his dazzling dissertation, he takes as a point of reference the situation in Israel before and after October 7, when war broke out between the Sunni Palestinian guerrillas of Hamas and Israel under the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Beyond the genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid of the pariah state of Israel, his central thesis at the moment of the water divide is that Israel is in serious trouble, considering that the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu failed to achieve his two declared goals: 1) defeating Hamas and 2) freeing the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas.

Mearsheimer alludes to the stance of the recently inducted US Deputy Secretary of State, Kurt Campbell, who replaced the Khazarian [5] Vicky Nuland, humiliated by her defeat in Ukraine while aiming for a strategic defeat of Russia, coupled with a regime change, increasingly more difficult to achieve. Kurt Campbell is doubtful about a total victory for Israel on the battlefield against Hamas [6]. Beyond the vicious pro-Israeli propaganda that we experience in the overwhelming majority of Western multimedia, Israel’s serious problem with Hamas has been overshadowed by the more sophisticated Lebanese Shiite guerrillas of Hezbollah, which possess an arsenal of 150,000 missiles (sic sic sic), and Yemen’s Ansar Allah (“followers of God”) guerrillas, popularly known as the “Houthis”, who have just launched their first missile against Israel.

With this in mind, Mearsheimer argues that Israel is the big loser in the ongoing conflict and that this pariah state has unwillingly dragged the United States into a defeat - admittedly less important than that of its staunch ally - that has caused deep uneasiness among its Arab allies (Egypt, Jordan and the six petro-monarchies of the Persian Gulf). This defeat has benefited Russia, back in the region, and the spectacular new entry of China on the scene, which has established excellent relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran. In my opinion, the relative defeat of the United States in Gaza is much less than that which it suffered in Ukraine and the slap in the face represented by the recent effusive double hug of Chinese President Xi with his Russian counterpart Putin [7]. The failure of the United States in Ukraine outlines the contours of the new world order, while Israel’s entrapment of the United States in Gaza only deepens it.

Mearsheimer’s explanation of Iran’s relative triumph is simply fascinating and hinges on three pivotal dates, beginning with April 1, when Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus without warning its closest ally, the United States; on April 14, when Iran showed its muscles, launching, with advance notice negotiated with the United States via Oman, its missiles and drones against Israel, half of which were shot down, according to a tacit arrangement with the United States; and on April 19, when Israel’s dreaded reprisal consisted of the obstetric roar of a mouse coming out of a mountain: it managed to destroy only one radar in Isfahan.

Mearsheimer diagnoses the reason why Israel is the big loser, on the basis of its having lost its legendary deterrence from the escalation dominance [8]. But he does not address the issue of the nine undetectable hypersonic missiles that struck two Israeli air bases near the Dimona nuclear power plant, yielding to Iran the only “hypersonic deterrent” in the region [9] Mearsheimer also does not speak of Israel’s possession of more than 300 clandestine nuclear bombs, which could give rise to a situation of mutual deterrence between Israel and Iran, with Iran being able to start equipping itself with nuclear bombs at any time .