Chaos on the stock markets is always a red line for Donald Trump. The war in Iran has been spiraling out of control for days now, with the objectives of Washington and Tel Aviv beginning to diverge on the ground, while the internal political and economic toll in the United States, in a midterm election year, accelerates the decline of the Republicans. Trump has gotten himself into a war he can neither explain nor end. The president, who returned to the White House with fiery rhetoric against inflation and the cost of foreign wars that have burdened the United States, has seen his energy strategy and geopolitical influence falter in a matter of days. But the response to all these fears has been as erratic as his doctrine: from the ultimatum in Tehran to the announcement of a pause in negotiations within hours, while the Iranian regime denies that any open dialogue exists.
But while Washington's agenda becomes more complicated, Israel's is becoming increasingly clear. Weakening Iran is not the same as regime change. The cases of Syria, Libya, and Iraq have demonstrated that state disintegration has brought persistent insecurity to the region instead of strategic gains that no actor could capitalize on.
But, seen from Tel Aviv, the prospect of a prolonged period of internal chaos in Iran, with a regime weakened both internationally and regionally, has already served to bolster support for Benjamin Netanyahu in the polls ahead of the fall elections. Indeed, amidst the uncontrolled shockwave of the Iranian response, Tel Aviv is simultaneously waging up to four distinct—and, from its perspective, strategic—confrontations: the attack on Iran and the weakening of a regime that calls for the destruction of Israel; the ground invasion of southern Lebanon; the coordinated violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, which has steadily increased since the war in Gaza; And the confrontation between Iran and the Gulf states, which directly affects the relations that the Netanyahu government had established through the Abraham Accords.
In contrast, Donald Trump has tested the limits of his ability to impose his coercive vision of the world, even on a European Union that nevertheless resists being drawn into the defense of the Strait of Hormuz. Transatlantic tensions are growing, as is the internal fracture within the MAGA movement. The American press is beginning to speculate about the president's mental health, and the Democratic Party's electoral prospects are being rekindled.
As Trump seeks a way out of the conflagration raging in the Middle East, countries in the region are beginning to speculate about the consequences of a post-war order in the Near East based more on Israeli than American influence. Furthermore, the Gulf states, traditional allies of Washington, have become the target of Iranian attacks that directly affect their economies and critical infrastructure. However it ends—and whenever it ends—the war will have eroded confidence in the United States' management of the regional order.
Trump has already established himself as the great disruptor of the present, both globally and domestically. Dependence on the US is toxic, even for those who, like the European Union, still see it as inevitable. While Trump looks for a way out of the Iran-Contra conflict, the world is accelerating the diversification of alliances to distance itself from the United States. In just one year, the US president has been able to erode decades of building an international system tailored to Washington's interests. Some experts now refer to the current global order as "the world minus one." We are witnessing an acceleration in the reshaping of global alliances. But Trump remains the unpredictable element that determines the fears and affinities of interests and needs that are redefining global geopolitics.
