In 2003, a few weeks into the invasion of Iraq, the Israeli journalist Gideon Samet wrote a prescient article in Haaretz, about what he called the “Israelisation of America”. Samet observed that Operation Iraqi Freedom had revealed an ideological split in Washington. One faction, led by institutional men, ostensibly wanted to ‘build democracy’ in the Middle East, in the spirit of the ‘rules-based international order’, by way of political agreements and diplomatic pressure (however much these were backed by military power). They were opposed by neoconservative hardliners in George W. Bush’s circle, who rejected anything other than naked force and sneering contempt toward America’s enemies. This split mirrored a conflict within Israel, between a ‘left’ that desired a ‘political solution’ in the occupied territories and rightwingers who wished to vanquish the Palestinians without legalistic niceties. Already, the neocons seemed set to prevail, as did the hawks on the Israeli General Staff. There was a real possibility, Samet wrote, that the “Sharon-Netanyahu-Rumsfeld-Cheney school of thought will come out on top”, violently uniting the strategy of both countries. His vision has proven true, to a degree that he could not have imagined.

This week, as American and Israeli bombs have fallen across Iran, the US government has provided a plethora of inconsistent and contradictory reasons for waging war on the Islamic Republic. President Donald Trump has spoken of liberating the Iranian people from totalitarian theocracy, warned of the threat from future Iranian ICBMs and hypothetical nuclear bombs, and claimed, speciously, that an Iranian offensive was imminent. The justifications have changed from day to day, as have the ostensible aims.

Trump appears to have initially desired a repeat of the Caracas operation. Remove Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and replace him with biddable lieutenants – perhaps even drawn from elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – who would fear being assassinated themselves. When the Islamic Republic did not surrender instantaneously, Trump sputtered that an exit was possible, though that it could take weeks. If need be, the US would fight “forever”.

The incoherence of these explanations is symptomatic of an administration that equates critical questions with treason. But it also serves as a kind of smokescreen. A war of choice has to be sold to the American public as a war of necessity, as a ‘preventive’ measure against an attack – one that has been coming, according to Senator Tom Cotton, for 47 years. The real reason, bitter and simple, is that Israel and the US saw an opportunity to strike a weakened state and decisively collapse it.

US and Israeli foreign policy are now almost wholly aligned. “Why now?” the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, asked at a press conference on Monday. “It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond, and respond against the United States,” he said. “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we did not preemptively go after them… we would suffer higher casualties.”

In other words, rather than blocking Israeli aggression and preventing a regional war, America has joined the Israelis and produced a regional war.

Since the 7 October attacks, American policymakers have placed no meaningful guardrails on Israel, and have lifted the few that were in place. Joe Biden adopted a foolhardy ‘hug Bibi’ strategy – “smothering Netanyahu with unconditional support… to influence his actions” as the former Obama advisor Ben Rhodes put it. Trump has taken a more absolute approach, abandoning any pretence that the US is indulging Israel‘s prime minister in order to retain leverage. This has been a bipartisan undertaking, building in the air across both administrations. The Democratic leadership has done almost nothing to resist the path to war with Iran, leaving the onus of opposition to individual representatives.

Now a precedent has been broken: this is the first time that Washington has embarked on a war directly alongside Israel, rather than just backing it with funds and arms. It is also the first time that a state has assassinated the internationally recognised head of another state since the Soviets killed Hafizullah Amin in Afghanistan in 1979. (It should be noted that Israel recently took out much of the Houthi-led administration that controls parts of Yemen.) The US has never intertwined its fortunes so completely with Israel – and so the question must be asked: what do Netanyahu and Trump want from this war?

Israeli propaganda has been pitched at a heroic register since the bombing began: the IDF, it is claimed, is laying the ground for a democratising rebellion that will overthrow the IR. Destroying crucial infrastructure and killing hundreds of civilians from the sky is just the first step; then the “people” can take over.

In reality, Netanyahu does not wish to install a friendly regime in Tehran, let alone help Iran regain stability. His intentions are purely destructive, as they have been throughout the region. In recent months, Israel has depopulated large swathes of the Gaza Strip and pushed for the same in southern Lebanon. Just in the last few days, it has killed dozens of civilians in Lebanon, and yet again displaced thousands from the south and Beirut’s southern suburbs. It ostensibly intervened in Syria to protect the Druze minority, but in fact pushed the already fragile post-Assad state to the brink of another explosion. All these actions were sold to the Western public as fostering religious tolerance, promoting regional allyship, and maintaining the ever-ambiguous notion of ‘security’.

With internet access inside Iran still mostly cut off, it is difficult to ascertain the full picture. What is clear is that Israeli and US strikes have eliminated not just political and military leaders, but also regular law enforcement officials. The twin air forces have laid waste to communication infrastructure, schools, hospitals and residential buildings. While American commentators ponderously weigh the merits of “regime change”, Israel is pursuing state collapse, or at least something akin to it. That project includes (but is not limited to) annihilating the navy, destroying missile defences and even halting the production of IEDs (improvised explosive devices). The aim is to ensure that Iran will never again threaten Israel in any capacity, regardless of whoever is in charge in Tehran.

What does the US stand to gain from joining this campaign as an equal partner and enabler? Trump, strangely, has not expressed a desire to seize Iranian natural resources, as he did in Venezuela, Syria, Iraq and even Ukraine (though there is still time for him to do so). Rubio’s frank remarks have prompted Democrats and the liberal media to suggest that America has perhaps been drawn into a war ‘against its own interests’. Reporting in The New York Times and elsewhere has emphasised Netanyahu’s determination to fulfil his lifelong obsession. “This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years”, he said. “Smite the terror regime hip and thigh.”

But this analysis is misguided. When Samet spoke about the “Israelisation of America”, he was only telling half the story. The Israeli-US relationship has arguably been much more like a feedback loop. Israel can pursue terror and plunder with full immunity because of America’s unconditional backing – a licence that American politicians envy. Recognising their mutual interests, the world’s sole superpower and the state of Israel have grown ever closer to each other, and ever further from international law.

It is this dynamic of collaborative impunity, rather than any purported solidarity with the people of Israel, that explains Netanyahu’s extraordinary reputation among the American political elite. When the Obama administration began its diplomatic talks with the Islamic Republic, various Republican politicians sided with Israel over their own government. Leading lights on the American right argued that Bibi was doing more to defend “Western civilisation” than the West’s most powerful nation. Ted Cruz praised his “Churchillian” qualities. Lindsey Graham promised that Congress would “follow [his] lead” on Iran. When Netanyahu gave an address to Congress, setting out the hardline case for curtailing Iran’s “nuclear ambitions,” Bruce Westerman, a congressman from Hot Springs, Arkansas, remarked that his hands had gone “kind of numb” from applauding so much.

Bibi was thus transformed from a foreign head of state into an ideal American leader, indefatigable and unquestionable. On Sunday, in the Rose Garden, Trump refused to even answer questions from the media about Iran. Instead, he urged the gathered journalists to watch Sean Hannity’s upcoming interview with Netanyahu. “I have tried to persuade successive American administrations to take firm action” against Iran, he told the Fox News host. Only Trump listened. “I am sure this will be studied for centuries to come,” Hannity concluded, in awe of the statesman sitting before him.

On Monday, when the secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, finally briefed the press about Operation Epic Fury, he dispelled any illusions that it might have been undertaken to benefit Iranians: “No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time, or lives.” Israel’s blatant disregard for international law was no longer an embarrassment, but rather an aspiration. “Israel has clear missions,” Hegseth said, “unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.”

“Israel’s security is America’s security”: this maxim is true, but not in the way that it is typically meant by American policymakers. Israel has become the model of impunity to follow, the prodigal son that has been raised up past the image of its father. Its spectacular violence has subdued its regional rivals for now; but military dominance eventually provokes resistance from within and from without. In time, Israel’s insecurity may well become America’s insecurity as well.