Two weeks ago, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was facing a barrage of calls to freeze arms shipments to Israel over its disastrous war in Gaza. On Monday, Mr Sunak hailed British warplanes that had shot down several Iranian drones in a successful campaign to deter Iran from attacking Israel.
It was a prime example of how the conflict between Israel and Iran has messed up the equation in the Middle East. Faced with a barrage of Iranian missiles, Britain, the United States, France and others rushed to Israel’s aid. They put aside their anger over Gaza to defend it from a country they see as an archenemy, even as they called for restraint in Israel’s response to the Iranian attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose authorization of a deadly airstrike on a meeting of Iranian generals in Damascus on April 1 prompted Iranian retaliation, has succeeded in changing the narrative, according to British and American diplomats and analysts. But it could prove a fleeting change, they said, if Mr. Netanyahu orders a counterattack devastating enough to plunge the region into a wider war.
“We’re going to urge them to win at this point,” Mr. Sunak told parliament, borrowing a phrase President Biden used in a phone call with Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday after Iran’s attack was largely repelled. .
Mr Sunak was expected to have his own phone call with Mr Netanyahu on Tuesday, as part of a press call by European leaders to urge him not to allow the conflict with Iran to go unchecked. French President Emmanuel Macron, who played a supporting role in the military operation, told a French news channel: “We will do everything to avoid a fire — that is, an escalation.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock marked the limits of support for an Israeli counterattack. “The right to self-defense means to repel an attack,” he said. “Retaliation is not a category of international law.”
Analysts said Western pressure on Mr Netanyahu over Iran would be even more intense than over Gaza because an all-out war between Israel and Iran would be far more destabilizing – geopolitically and economically – than Israel’s campaign to the extermination of Hamas fighters in Gaza. . It would force a series of tough decisions on Israel’s allies in quick succession, requiring them to rethink their entire strategies for the region.
While the ferocity of Israel’s attack on Gaza has mobilized much of the world’s opinion against it, particularly after the Israeli strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen staff, it has not rattled financial markets or oil prices as a war between Iran and Israel. almost certainly will.
Such a war would likely attract the United States and possibly Britain, which has traditionally played the role of wingman in the American effort to shoot down Iranian drones and missiles. That could have volatile political implications in both countries, where voters go to the polls later this year.
“If every time Israel decides to punish Iran, it creates a huge stir in Washington and London, those countries will put pressure on Israel,” said Vali R. Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who served in Obama administration. “There will be a major international effort to create cordons around Israel’s behavior toward Iran.”
Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who now heads the US/Middle East Project, a think tank based in London and New York, said the difference in global stakes between the Iran and Gaza conflicts was evident in the way Western governments confronted Israel. every subject.
“There was this unified public response that defended Israel to Iran, with strong private messages to Israel, ‘Don’t you dare,'” Mr. Levy said. “Whereas in Gaza, there’s a lot of public handshakes, but a lack of will to be tough in private.”
“Gaza is not directly drawing the United States into war,” he said. “So they still think they can tiptoe through raindrops.”
On Monday, Mr Sunak insisted that the latest crisis would not alienate Israel over the civilian death toll in Gaza. The prime minister reiterated his call for a humanitarian pause that would lead to a sustainable ceasefire.
“Nothing that has happened in the last 48 hours affects our position in Gaza,” Mr Sunak said. “The whole country wants to see an end to the bloodshed and to see more humanitarian support in place.”
But even before the Iranian attack on Israel, the British government was resisting calls to halt arms shipments. Officials refused to reveal confidential legal advice on whether Britain’s arms trade with Israel breached international law, as several prominent lawyers have argued.
In Washington, President Mike Johnson said Monday that he planned this week to advance a long-stalled national security spending package to help Israel, Ukraine and other US allies.
The British arms cut is now on the “back burner” because of Iran, said Peter Ricketts, a former British diplomat and national security adviser whose call for a freeze on sales earlier this month helped start the debate. It could be entirely moot, he said, if Israel declared a ceasefire and struck a deal to free the hostages held by Hamas – something it has yet to do.
“Netanyahu must have calculated when he struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus that the Iranians would retaliate and that this would turn the Americans and their Western allies behind Israel,” Mr Ricketts said. “And that worked, extremely well.”
“It’s all a win for Netanyahu,” Mr. Ricketts said, “if he has the wisdom to take the win or at least retaliate in a limited way.”
Martin S. Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, said a limited Israeli response was the most likely scenario. “Netanyahu will respond – he must – but not in a way that requires the Iranians to retaliate and gain goodwill from Biden on the war in Gaza,” he said.
“The war is now open,” Mr. Indyk said of Iran and Israel. “I suspect it will make both sides more wary and more wary of each other’s intentions – more on a knife’s edge than before.”
The challenge for Europe and the United States, some analysts said, is that of all countries in the region, Israel has the greatest incentive to escalate hostilities with Iran. It has struggled to eliminate Hamas in Gaza and has become more diplomatically isolated due to the humanitarian end of the war.
Even Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Biden have been at odds, calling into question the support of Israel’s biggest supporter. But Mr. Biden, analysts said, cannot afford a wholesale break with Israel, especially if he finds himself in an existential conflict with Iran and if that conflict unfolds during an election year.
“The Israelis are trying to put the Americans in a position where they have no choice,” said Jeremy Shapiro, director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “For all the protestations of the Biden administration, they are in a difficult position. What will they do if the Israelis escalate?’
