The war should be over by March 31st.
Netanyahu has a deadline. He is facing a snap election. If the Knesset doesn't pass a budget by March 31st, Israel votes 90 days later, and Netanyahu is not expected to win. Worse for Netanyahu, he's on trial for corruption charges, and once he's out of office, he's probably headed for jail.
The war was intended to give Netanyahu's popularity a boost, but that did not work out.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-seeks-av...
The elections would happen by default in October: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Israeli_legislative_elect...
The budget will likely be approved in parliament. Netanyahu has a solid majority and his partners are not interested in triggering elections. I'd be very surprised if that wasn't the case. Netanyahu survived many worse political crisis. I'll be happy to see him gone but he always pulls out some magic trick from his hat. The biggest factor will be whether the Arab parties will unite and actually get their people to go and vote. That they didn't in the last elections is how Bibi got to form the government again. Even if that happens this becomes tricky because you'll likely end up with a minority government.
90 days vs. October isn't that much of a difference either and a lot can change in 90 days.
Jesus, I had no idea that the Arab vote in Israel was so cruicial and that voter turn out is so low. Mid fifties for the 2022 election?
The Arab parties are potential "kingmakers" in the coalition arithmetic. In particular, it was Mansour Abbas that made the "change government" (Lapid-Bennett) and if there's any chance of unseating Bibi again it'll come down to him. And to my knowledge he hasn't ruled out joining Bibi either, if there's a deal to be made.
A lot also depends on whether the Arab parties run together in the coming elections or not.
This toothpaste is probably not going in the tube by March 31, even if Netanyahu tries to scrape it back in.
Iran has made it quite clear that it is not up to the aggressors as to when this ends.
> Iran has made it quite clear that it is not up to the aggressors as to when this ends
Israel and the U.S. can absolutely end the war and leave a turd in the Gulf states' mess kits. The former would focus on Hezbollah. The latter start laying into Cuba or whatever.
They can try. I don't think they'll like the consequences. Imagine if Saudi Arabia decides it's not friends with the US anymore and won't send any more oil here. That'll shake things up a bit, won't it? And Iran will be even more pissed off and determined to get a nuke than before, probably still choking the strait. You're talking about the US and Israel leaving the biggest, most obvious turd in history on the entire world's dining table.
Not saying it can't happen. There doesn't seem to be a bottom to the incompetence.
> don't think they'll like the consequences
Sure. The point is strategic depth absolutely gives America this choice. The way it could actually happen is with a regime change. Special election in Israel or midterm full switch of the Congress together with war-powers resolutions in America.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for this. But it’s a bit silly to say Iran gets a veto on this at a kinetic level. They don’t. They have a de facto veto on strategic and messaging levels. But so did Vietnam.
> Imagine if Saudi Arabia decides it's not friends with the US anymore and won't send any more oil here
This isn’t a realistic threat. America and Israel are not in positions to be lectured by Riyadh. Like, we started this mess without bothering to materially loop them in.
Not sure what "lecturing" has to do with it. The US has the physical power to withdraw, and Saudi Arabia has the physical power to decide where their oil goes. That we started this mess is another argument for them finding a way to retaliate if we somehow decided to leave them hanging. I don't know if that's the most realistic consequence, but there would definitely be some that, at least if they were known in advance, would make us wish we had done something else.
That's the point. We have the power to leave, we absolutely don't have the power to leave without severe consequences. Similarly, if someone points a gun at you and tells you to stay, you still have the physical power to leave unless they also strapped you down. But that's cold comfort.
Oil is a fungible commodity.
Sorta. There's different makeups for oil (light vs heavy, sulfer content, etc) with refineries being tuned towards a particular type. Retooling for a different type isn't necessarily economical so it depends on the types of oil being discussed.
It's not as fungible as you would hope. Funging refineries and transport capacity takes time.
I read on HN actually about different types of crude. Needing different refineries. Hence Venezuelan oil being atttactive.
Certain kinds of crude gets refined in certain refineries. The economic shockwaves are going to be felt in ways no one expects. We will see!
That would work great politically for both - we shot some bombs are basically realized we killed a bunch of innocent people/children and realized we gotta jet now achieving nothing but making sure Iran can continue even stronger than before (after China replenishes what was “bombed” in a few months?
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Iran, got that? 31st March. Add it to your Google Calendar.