Exit strategies from the war in Iran

The war against Iran only has four days left.But some media outlets have already started talking about its end. However, the interests of the United States and those of Israel do not always coincide. Therefore, the strategies for exiting the conflict may differ for Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is the more intransigent and has clearly committed to ending the ayatollahs' regime, while Trump is more vague on the matter.

On Saturday, Netanyahu stated that the time will soon come when Iranian citizens will have to take to the streets to finish the job of the United States and Israel, words that an anonymous "senior" Israeli official repeated on Sunday in some Hebrew media outlets. This senior official even went further, asserting that there will soon be a clear signal for the Iranian population to know when to demonstrate. However, he did not specify what kind of signal it would be, although it can be assumed that Netanyahu expects hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of Iranians to demonstrate in the country's main cities to confirm the end of the Islamic regime founded by Khomeini in 1979. Iran is not much for protests. It seems as if the opposition is afraid to challenge the regime, even though Israeli aircraft control all of its airspace and are bombing Tehran. According to Israeli leaders, the people of Iran now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to overthrow the regime. However, the Iranians are not reacting.

President Trump, for his part, reported on Sunday that the Ayatollahs' regime wants to negotiate. This was communicated to him by Tehran using Oman as an intermediary. Trump seems to accept the possibility of dialogue and is not as insensitive as Netanyahu. However, in any case, it is unclear whether both sides have enough room to negotiate a solution that is acceptable to all, especially to Israel.

Opposition within the Republican Party

In the United States, representatives of some sectors have spoken out against the war in Iran, including members of the Republican Party. Moreover, among the members of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, which is Trump's main support within the Republican Party, voices opposing the conflict are multiplying.

The MAGA movement's reasoning is as follows: "We voted for Trump because he promised us there would be no more wars and that the interests of the United States would be the priority, but now he has betrayed us and dragged us into a war we don't want, over a distant reality that doesn't affect us, and we've put Israel in the middle of it."

Trump must listen to what his party and the voices opposing the war are saying, but he must also listen to the Zionist lobby. And it seems that between the MAGA members and the Zionist lobby, the latter has more power. What happens in the coming days will confirm or refute this argument, although Trump already hinted at it on Sunday when he said the war could last a few more weeks.

It is clear that when a war begins there must be an exit plan, but from what we are seeing, this plan only envisions the fall of the Tehran regime. Netanyahu is confident that the bombings and the mass mobilization of Iranians in the streets to demonstrate will contribute to bringing down the regime. But even such a solution, with the Shah's son as a replacement, as Netanyahu intends, does not guarantee stability in Iran.