Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stern warning to several ministers at a secret cabinet meeting, stating that a direct conflict between Israel and Iran could resume at any time. As I predicted at the beginning of the conflict: if the United States compromises midway and slows its intervention, Israel may seize this rare historical window of opportunity to break through the traditional framework of alliance cooperation and independently advance this confrontational action aimed at reshaping the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. Currently, while US-Israeli military operations appear coordinated, the geopolitical "tail risks," underestimated by the market and public opinion, are continuously escalating, injecting significant uncertainty into the global situation.

Embers of the Outpost: The Root Causes and Current Status of the Recurring Conflict in Lebanon

To understand the deeper intentions behind Netanyahu's signaling a renewed conflict with Iran at this time, it's crucial to first grasp the strategic logic of the Lebanese front. Previously, the international community repeatedly attempted diplomatic mediation to push for a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, but the conflict remained trapped in a vicious cycle of "ceasefire and regrouping, troop regrouping, and renewed fighting," resulting in repeated back-and-forth battles and a lack of a fundamental solution. At its core, this stems from the fundamentally opposing and irreconcilable security demands of Israel and Hezbollah.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) explicitly demanded that Hezbollah withdraw all heavy weapons and frontline personnel north of the Litani River, while retaining the IDF's absolute military authority to cross the border at any time to strike against any violations. Hezbollah viewed this condition as a humiliating clause that completely stripped them of their sovereign dignity; therefore, its core forces have consistently and resolutely refused to back down or accept a unilaterally compromised ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah has demonstrated remarkable organizational resilience and regenerative capabilities. Despite suffering multiple precise "decapitation" strikes against its high-level command structure by Israeli intelligence, resulting in severe damage to its core command, its underground network, rooted in the Lebanese grassroots and built upon the Shiite community, has not been completely paralyzed. Furthermore, with continued covert support from Iran in terms of supplies, ammunition, and technology, Hezbollah's frontline supply system has been rapidly repaired. Whenever the intensity of Israeli airstrikes slightly decreases, its saturation rockets and suicide drones continue to bombard northern Israel.

Prolonged border raids have left hundreds of thousands of residents in northern Israel unable to return home, exacerbating their livelihood difficulties and gradually transforming into strong domestic political pressure on the government. Military analysts at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy point out that the Lebanese battlefield is far more than a localized border conflict; it is the forward front of Iran's "arc of resistance" strategy. Israel's current intensified airstrikes against Beirut and Lebanon's supply lines have a strategic objective that has long surpassed the traditional clearing of buffer zones. Instead, it aims to thoroughly weaken Hezbollah's operational foundation through high-intensity military attrition before Iran launches a full-scale strategic counterattack, thus severing Iran's strategic tentacles extending into the central and western fronts.

Multiple political calculations: Deconstructing the deeper intentions behind Netanyahu's tough stance

Against the backdrop of the ongoing stalemate in the Lebanon-Israel conflict, Netanyahu's signal to his cabinet that "the conflict with Iran could be restarted at any time" reveals multiple layers of domestic and foreign political and military calculations, serving as strategic groundwork, diplomatic pressure, and domestic stability maintenance.

From a military strategic perspective, Netanyahu is steadily advancing Israel's "octopus strategy." An internal assessment by the Israeli security cabinet suggests that Hamas and Hezbollah are not Israel's core adversaries, but merely peripheral proxies used by Iran to deplete Israel's national strength and tie down its military forces. A former senior researcher at the Israel Institute for National Security (INSS) stated that as long as Iran's nuclear facilities and the theocratic regime—the "octopus brain"—remain intact, even if its peripheral proxy tentacles are destroyed, it can rebuild its strength and make a comeback within a few years, leveraging its geographical advantages. Netanyahu's recent briefing to the cabinet is essentially laying the groundwork for an upgrade in Israeli military tactics and unifying high-level understanding, suggesting that Israel may move beyond proxy confrontation and directly launch devastating precision strikes against Iran's core strategic targets.

From a diplomatic standpoint, this is Israel's strategy of "retreating to advance" in exerting pressure on the United States. Netanyahu is well aware of the fragile balance of the US-Israel alliance and is sending a clear bottom line to the White House through a strong statement: Israel will not accept a symbolic ceasefire without binding force, and will never restrict the Israeli Defense Forces' operational initiative. If the United States adopts a weak stance and deliberately appeases the US on issues such as sanctions against Iran and military deterrence, Israel will not hesitate to break the alliance's rhythm and take unilateral military action.

From a domestic political perspective, portraying an ultimate external crisis is Netanyahu's core bargaining chip for consolidating his power and resolving domestic crises. Currently, Israel is mired in multiple problems, including controversies over the handling of the hostage crisis, disagreements over judicial reform, and an economic downturn, with the Netanyahu government facing heavy criticism. By elevating the national security crisis to the strategic level of a "final showdown between Israel and Iran," he can effectively shift domestic public opinion, suppress dissenting voices, further solidify his irreplaceable image as a wartime iron-fisted leader, and strengthen his ruling foundation.

The U.S. Checks and Balances: Trump's Governing Logic and the Rift Between U.S. and Israeli Interests

Israel's aggressive strategic deployment in Iran has encountered strong counterbalancing from the United States, with the Trump administration's governing philosophy becoming a key variable in preventing the escalation of the Middle East conflict. Trump, upon returning to the White House, has consistently prioritized "America First" and ending meaningless wars overseas as his core governing principles. Even though he has repeatedly expressed public support for Israel, his businessman-like pragmatism inevitably creates a structural and irreconcilable conflict of interest with Netanyahu's strategy of maximum war.

Multiple senior White House diplomatic sources revealed that Trump has repeatedly issued stern warnings to Netanyahu through private channels such as closed-door meetings and private phone calls, explicitly opposing Israel's reckless escalation of the conflict and expansion of the war. Trump's core logic is very clear: the United States will not allow itself to be bound by Israel and dragged indefinitely into a quagmire of a full-scale war in the Middle East. He has repeatedly pressured the Israeli leadership, demanding that Israel end the fighting as soon as possible and conclude the conflict gracefully to avoid the situation spiraling out of control.

In Trump's global strategic plan, the ongoing high-intensity conflict in the Middle East would significantly divert the United States' strategic energy from dealing with the power struggles among Eurasian nations, continuously deplete US fiscal resources, and hinder the achievement of its core goals of domestic economic recovery and manufacturing revitalization. More importantly, Trump is extremely opposed to direct US military involvement in a full-scale war against Iraq. He has stated explicitly in internal policy meetings that if excessive Israeli provocations trigger a full-scale war in the Middle East, resulting in significant US casualties, the United States will reassess and adjust its allied support system for Israel.

While the current US-Israeli military operations appear coordinated, they are essentially just a temporary consensus reached between the two sides on the short-term goal of "weakening Iranian proxy forces." Once Israel crosses this line of cooperation and insists on escalating its attacks on Iranian soil, the hidden rifts between the two sides will be fully exposed, and the inherent contradictions within the US-Israeli alliance will erupt in full force.

Tail risks become apparent: Israel's strength and strategic ambition to wage war unilaterally.

The US-Israel alliance, characterized by its internal conflicts and checks and balances, has transformed the potential tail-end risk of "the US withdrawing midway and Israel going to war alone" from a theoretical conjecture into a real possibility. For a long time, the international community has generally believed that Israel is highly dependent on the US for logistical support, strategic depth, and great power checks and balances, and therefore dares not act rashly against the White House's will. However, research from several top geopolitical think tanks indicates that this established perception is becoming ineffective.

A recent report by a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution points out that on core red lines concerning national survival and security, Israel has consistently maintained a strong isolationist and preemptive warfare mentality. Historically, Israel's "Operation Babylon" airstrikes on Iraqi nuclear reactors and "Operation Orchard" airstrikes on Syrian nuclear facilities were both precision military strikes independently planned and carried out without the knowledge or even explicit opposition of the United States, demonstrating its strategic characteristics of independent operations and decisive action.

From a military hard power perspective, authoritative institutions such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) assess that Israel possesses the full capability to independently launch surgical airstrikes against Iran. Its F-35 stealth fighter fleet, mature electronic warfare suppression system, and combat-proven Arrow long-range air defense and anti-missile network are sufficient to enable the Israeli military to inflict irreversible damage on Iran's core strategic targets, such as nuclear facilities and command centers, without direct US military involvement. Furthermore, Israel's exceptional intelligence infiltration capabilities have enabled it to repeatedly conduct targeted strikes abroad and cripple enemy communication networks. This absolute intelligence advantage has fostered strong strategic confidence among the Israeli military leadership, who believe they can cripple Iran's core retaliatory capabilities through a short-term, precise blitzkrieg.

From the perspective of Israeli hawks, this is a once-in-a-century strategic window of opportunity. Hezbollah, supported by Iran, has suffered significant losses, and its domestic air defense system has exposed obvious vulnerabilities in repeated confrontations, resulting in a temporary decline in its overall strategic deterrent capability. If this opportunity is missed, Israel will face a permanent existential threat once Iran completes its nuclear capabilities and reorganizes its proxy network.

Driven by an extreme sense of crisis and the Jewish people's strategic mentality of "no compromise in dire straits, mutual destruction," Netanyahu may disregard US warnings and insist on launching a unilateral decisive war against Iraq. Israel's core confidence lies in its accurate strategic prediction: once a full-scale war breaks out between Israel and Iraq and Israel faces an existential crisis, constrained by the influence of Jewish lobbying groups within the US and America's core geopolitical interests in the Middle East, regardless of the US government's subjective intentions, it will ultimately have no choice but to passively step in and bail out Israel. This reverse game of "small country bound to a large country" is precisely the biggest black swan event in the current Middle East situation.

Global economic turmoil: Energy market crisis triggered by escalating conflict in the Middle East

The tail risks of Israel's unilateral war will have an impact that extends far beyond the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. They will also be transmitted through the global energy supply chain, triggering global economic turmoil. This is the underlying concern behind Trump's efforts to curb the escalation of the conflict, and it is a core risk that global capital markets and policymakers around the world must be wary of.

If Israel were to bypass the United States and launch a strategic strike against Iranian territory independently, the Middle East's energy supply chain would suffer the most severe shock since the oil crisis of the 1970s. Faced with a life-or-death crisis, Iran would inevitably deploy all its anti-ship missiles, suicide drones, and naval mines to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the lifeline of global energy trade. Data shows that nearly 20% of global oil consumption and over one-third of seaborne liquefied natural gas transport pass through this narrow waterway. In the short term, no oil pipelines or strategic reserves can offset the supply gap caused by a strait blockade, and the global crude oil supply and demand balance would collapse completely within hours.

Moreover, Israel will most likely target key Iranian energy facilities, such as the Kharg Island oil export terminal and the Abadan refinery, in its first strikes. This would not only directly disrupt millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil exports daily, but also trigger a chain reaction of retaliation across the Middle East, impacting the energy infrastructure of all oil-producing countries along the Persian Gulf and further amplifying the supply crisis.

With the realization of these risks, global oil prices will completely deviate from the conventional supply and demand adjustment logic, experiencing an irrational surge driven by market panic, shipping disruptions, and soaring risk premiums. Geopolitical stress tests conducted by top international investment banks indicate that if a full-blown conflict erupts in the Persian Gulf or the Strait of Hormuz is permanently blocked, Brent crude oil prices are highly likely to break through $150 per barrel in the short term, and even approach $200 per barrel.

For the global economy, already mired in inflationary pressures and supply chain restructuring, soaring oil prices will trigger a chain reaction of negative consequences. Rising energy prices will comprehensively increase costs across the entire value chain, including air transport, industrial manufacturing, and consumer goods, forcing major central banks worldwide to maintain high interest rates or even raise them further. This will not only completely disrupt Trump's economic plans to revitalize American manufacturing and reduce domestic energy costs, but could also induce a global, prolonged economic recession.

Netanyahu's warning that "the conflict with Iran could restart at any time" conceals a domino effect capable of disrupting the global economic order. In 2026, a year of heightened uncertainty, while the global market closely monitors the Middle East conflict, it must also be keenly aware that the energy black swan event fueled by Israel's will to fight independently is quietly gathering momentum amidst the geopolitical tensions in the Persian Gulf, and could sweep across the globe at any moment.