The Last American Vagabond - How Iran Is Ending The Greater Israel Project

Episode Date: June 27, 2026

Welcome to Foreign Policy with Robert Inlakesh. In today’s episode, Robert discusses how the actions of Iran—in the ongoing war of aggression against it—have changed the political reality of the Middle East, the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood of a future “Greater Israel.”Bitcoin Donations Are Appreciated:www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/bitcoin-donation(3FSozj9gQ1UniHvEiRmkPnXzHSVMc68U9f)The Last American Vagabond Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Last American Vagabond Substack at tlavagabond.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to the latest edition of foreign policy with me, Robert and Lakesh for the Last American Vagabond. And today we're going to be talking about the Greater Israel Project and how it is now on the verge of collapse. Now, the first thing that we have to address and understand is that the Israelis were, of course, the driving force behind the recent. attack on Iran, which began on February 28. And the Israeli public were very much up for this fight as well. They overwhelmingly supported the 12-day war in June of 2025 that Israel launched by itself

at first, of course, coordinating with the United States, and then Donald Trump came in at the end in order to sort of finish that round. The reason why I'm bringing this up, and Israeli public opinion is because it's very important to everything else we're going to cover here in this edition of foreign policy. So the Israeli public, even after the 12-day war, overwhelmingly agreed that the performance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was good. They had a positive opinion towards it. They were also favorable of the war, even just.

during the conflict itself. They felt as if they had achieved something. And part of this illusion of victory that the Israelis were feeling, this is the Israeli public now, was the fact that in September of 2024, against what they saw as all odds, the Israeli Mossad carried out a series of pager explosions inside of Lebanon,

which injured around 2,000 people and killed a few dozen people, many of them belonging to Hezbollah, not all of the militants because Hezbollah is, of course, the biggest political party inside of Lebanon, and so it has people who are not just fighters as well. That's important to consider. But it pulled off this pager attack, it dealt a serious blow to Hezbollah,

and then it managed to assassinate a big chunk of the senior leadership, and actually locate some of Hezbollah's weapons and take out the estimates are between 15 to 25%. The Israelis say 90 plus percent or 85 percent, something along those lines. But of course, this is just nonsense and propaganda and has now been debunked. But by the end of that war in 2024, the Israelis believed, because of the propaganda of their government, that they had overcome Hezbollah in Lebanon. and thus they had cut the unity of squares equation between the axis of resistance which is led by Iran. They had managed to stop Lebanese Hezbollah from waging a support front in favor of the

Gaza Strip and the Palestinian resistance factions operating there. So by November 27, 2004, Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire. And from that time on, Israel violated it repeatedly. There was a pro-U.S. government that came into power inside of Lebanon because there was a deadlock for years. And Hezbollah eventually allowed for a new government, which was not favorable to it and its positions, but instead to the United States, to come into power by February, of 2025 in order to try and support national cohesion and stop the situation from deteriorating even further. Of course that has not exactly worked the way perhaps it was intended, but throughout this time, a 15-month period, the Israelis were bombing Lebanon on a if not a daily basis,

a near daily basis. They committed 15,400 ceasefire violations, killed hundreds of people, and you can go and look for yourself exactly what happened during that period. So the Israelis felt dominant. They felt like they had defeated Hezbollah. That's what their leadership was telling them. And then suddenly the Trump administration got in and bombed the nuclear sites inside of Iran, and they believed that this was some sort of victory. And of course, their leadership was telling them that they had taken out, you know,

a large percentage, 70% or so of Iran's missile launchers and all of these statistics they threw around. which again later turned out to be utter nonsense. Numbers plucked out of thin air. But the Israelis believed it. They were on their high horses and the leadership began to get arrogant. What we saw at the start of 26 was that the Israelis, very obviously and they admitted as such on social media, and you can track it back, attempted to launch a color revolution inside of Iran. This failed.

It was put down very quick and very brutally because there were, of course, militant factions that were engaged in fighting and killing police officers and doing all sorts of things inside of Iran. That was put down, and the protests were no more, but Israel wanted to keep pushing. And of course, Israel knew from its first exchange with Iran that alone could not defeat the Iranians' ordeal a significant enough blow in order to weaken Iran, sufficiently for their aims. And their overarching aims in the region have been stated since October 7, 2023. Benyman Netanyahu has been very public about the fact that he's fighting a

seven-front war and seeks to achieve total victory and to reshape the Middle East. That's what he wants. And so this was what that war was about. And this goes against US interest because the US wanted the Gulf states to be, of course, aligned with it, continue to invest. This is something that Trump has spoken about on copious amounts of occasions, he has brought up the fact of Gulf investment into the trillions he proclaims, but we'll see how that actually manifests, especially now. And so this was not a war actually in U.S. interests if the U.S. are trying to solidify their hegemony in the region.

This was for the Israelis and their expansionist endeavor. And for those who don't know, the originate, Odid Yunnan plan, which was put forth in an academic article, was proposing a greater Israel, yes, between the Euphrates and the Nile River, but not in terms of what Israel currently looks like today. It wanted an empire, which means that they had to divide up the region into warring ethno-states, sectarian regimes that hate each other and that, of course, will completely collapse the modern nation states that grew out of the region and were created in the region. They wanted to destroy all of those states, and so they sought to do this.

And in many cases, they partially have achieved those objectives. They have turned a number of states into failed states, of course, with the collaboration of the U.S. and their European Western allies. So they have succeeded on some fronts in terms of what they've been able to get away with, and they wanted to go all the way. What has happened now is that they've found that Iran has successfully resisted, which is why, again, I'm getting back to the opinion polls. Ninety-two percent of Israelis recently polled said that they believe Iran won the recent war,

which we are told has ended with the memorandum of understanding. Now, that is a big shift between the majority, not only approving of the war, right, in numbers going up to 70 plus percent in 2025, and then afterwards expressing gratitude in an Israeli population that, you know, if you do look at the opinion polls, there is a large chunk of the population that opposes Netanyahu, But on the war with Iran, there was agreement that what was done there was good for Israel.

Not this time. And the reason why is because the reality has come back. They haven't actually defeated Hezbollah. Hezbollah came back on March 2nd. It started firing on the Israelis. Retaliatory strikes for the 15,400 ceasefire violations documented by UNIFIL, which is the UN peacekeeping forces stationed in Lebanon. So not documented by the Lebanese.

government or documented by Hezbollah itself, documented by UN peacekeeping forces, they responded to this and they responded in a major way. And they dragged the Israelis deeper into Lebanon than they have been since 2006 when Hezbollah also defeated the Israelis and forced them to retreat from Lebanese territory, although it took a lot longer for the Israelis to get deep into Lebanon like they did in 2006. And of course, they haven't even taken a lot of this territory, which they claim to take. This all being said, the Israelis are now currently in a very tough position. They cannot defeat Hezbollah.

They don't have the troops necessary because they have been fighting for over two years in the Gaza Strip. And again, they haven't achieved a victory over any single Palestinian armed group in Gaza. All of them are still there. They have failed to actually destroy them. them. So, of course, they inflicted a genocide in Gaza and they never wanted to have to sacrifice the troops necessary to go after and dismantle groups like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and others that are based in Gaza. They didn't want to actually engage in, you know, ground battles against the Palestinian armed groups. They

wanted to fight from a distance and blow up all of the civilian buildings, which is exactly what they have done. They wanted to implement a strategy similar inside of South Lebanon. It didn't work. The American attack on Iran didn't work. In fact, what's happened now is that the Arab Gulf states, which have always been on the side of the United States, are now pivoting in terms of who they are gravitating towards as the regional power. Before that was the Israelis. And a large part of that was because of American power that they were pivoting towards the Israeli side. Now they are understanding that the power of Iran is significant. And the Americans had failed to inflict any sort of regime change, any sort of defeat for various different tactics that

were employed, including attempts at stirring a color revolution at the beginning before they actually launched a full-scale war. And as the Strait of Hormuz was closed for a moment, months on end, it became apparent that the impacts to the global economy were growing more and more severe. And Trump had to do something about this, and it looked like although the Trump administration, which was funded by the Israel lobby and really captured by the Israel lobby, suddenly was jolted back into reality and forced by what you may call even the deep state inside of the United States to at least do something.

that is going to act as a remedy for the pending economic catastrophe which was coming. And so, in that situation, even if this memorandum of understanding is to collapse and the Israel lobby is to get its way eventually, what's happened is Israel's found itself in a position where instead of collapsing Iran, because in order to have this greater Israel, you cannot have Iran, especially a strong Iran, which now not only is it continuing to support its allies in the region from Yemen to Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq, and even beyond in some cases. It used to obviously have a base of operations in ally in Syria, but that has, of course, changed, although there are some groups that appear still to be in that Iranian severe of influence that did fire from Syrian territory on the Israelis during the 40-day war period that

we just had just some months ago. But the Israelis being contended by the Iranians, they cannot have the Iranians there. They needed to destroy the Iranians or at least deal such a blow that Iran would be economically devastated. And eventually they hoped that would lead to a failed state scenario. That didn't happen. The Israelis overplayed their hand. And so instead of being able to expand their territory and achieve this great empire in the region that even the Israeli opposition leader, Yer Lepid, spoke about taking all the way into Iraqi territory, seizing Iraqi territory, which is insanity. But they're now not able to achieve that.

And Netanyahu looks very weak because when Iran threatens to bomb the Israelis in retaliation for action in Lebanon, such as the strikes on. Beirut, the Israelis are forced to not strike those targets. They're forced to back down. That is something that is a deterrent equation that Iran was never able to achieve before. So really what has happened is the Israelis have made themselves weaker since October 7, despite trying to now enact this plan to conquer more territory, to be the most powerful powerful player in the region, they have gone from October 7 to the most hated entity on the planet

that is hated by all of the world's population, essentially, and that still has influence because of its lobbying efforts in Western capitals, but even that is beginning to somewhat fade. and a country that now is not viewed as dominant as the way it was before. Now it appears that there is a military option to defeating Israel, to putting Israel in its place, that Israel cannot defeat its enemies, that Israel cannot defend itself, right? Of course, it's not actually engaging in itself defense, it's engaging in offensive wars in order to see territory and create failed states. But now Israel is in a difficult position. Benjamin Netanyahu, who is coming up to an election, it seems like he's just secured that election to take place in

October. So he's got a little bit of time to work with now. Is in a desperate position. Now, one option perhaps he could take is to bow out of politics completely and take a plea deal where he bows out of politics in return for his corruption trial going away. But if he does that then there's no more Netanyahu and also his right wing camp his ultra-ultra right-wing camp in Israel is going to

take a hit and not be able to maintain power the opposition will come in so there is a high likelihood that Netanyahu will act out of desperation if he cannot get his way through lobbying efforts and the United States will

try and stick to the Memorandum of Understanding, which again is not certain, but if it is forced to because of the reality on the ground, as Iran has demonstrated even recently, it still has the missile capabilities to hit U.S. bases with great precision throughout the region, and therefore it could hit, you know, oil assets, power plants, desalination, facilities, etc., if the war. got to that stage. And the only real options that the Israelis and the Americans have are to go after Iran's infrastructure. And if you want to go after their infrastructure, for example, there's around 400 power plants throughout Iran. That's no small number. And a lot of them are built, of course,

with war in mind. And so destroying them is not as easy as just firing a missile or two into them. they have to be subjected to repeated attacks. And that's just the power plants. There's, of course, many other targets. If that happens, though, at the same time, the entire region is going to be lit up, which means all those allies of the United States in the Gulf, including allies where Donald Trump himself has personal investments at stake,

are going to be obliterated too. And the idea for Israel is that this would go as long as Israel can continue to take the punishment that it gets. But that's not a good option for the United States. That's a terrible option for the United States. And it will drain more of its strategic arsenal, drain more of its cruise missile arsenal, which has already been greatly depleted. I mean, half of its air defense munitions have been completely defundated. defeated so they can barely even defend their own bases.

And a lot of those air defenses, of course, are transferred over to the Israelis to protect the Israelis over U.S. service members. Again, not a very good scenario. If you capture an island in the Persian Gulf, if you manage to capture it, which will not be with Israeli ground forces, it will be with Americans who will die to take Harg Island or, you know, greater or lesser, a tomb, or, or, Abu Musa, these smaller islands or Qishim, something like that, this is not going to change the reality that Iran can still fire missiles and close down the Strait of Hormuz. Like, for instance, Yemen's Ansar Allah was able to withstand a month and half of a US attack and they weren't able to open up Babid Mandab for to allow for free passage of ships through the Red Sea.

So if you can't defeat Yemen and open up the Red Sea, you can't open up the Persian Gulf for sure, especially not by occupying an island. It's symbolic at best. So the Trump administration is caught in a difficult position to say the least, and the Israelis now are in a position where Beny Menetanyahu is going to come to a make-or-break moment and we'll have to watch to see whether he is going to try and drag the United States into war again through some sort of trickery. But something to take into account here, the Israelis really have no real options left to achieve this greater Israel project. And so now with that defeated, it can either enter into forever wars, just on and off war, until eventually either it uses nuclear weapons or it's completely destroyed.

Or it can pull back from Lebanese territory, from Syrian territory, and it can engage in an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, which will do an agreement with it, and get and try and get a so-called two-state solution. And of course, the two-state solution is not favorable to the Palestinians, it's favorable to the Israelis. It is a pro-Israel solution. The pro-Israel solution here is a two-state solution. That means giving up territory. And the real question here is, with the Israeli public being so incredibly radicalized, will they be able to take such a concession? And the answer to that question is probably no. So Israel is on a downwards trajectory here.

And this is why I would say we should expect them to do some pretty dangerous things and unpredictable things as well in the near future. Because their very existence perhaps depends upon this. And this is all due to their actions. This is all because of what they have done to the region and the genocide that they have carried out. The position they are in now is because they believed they were the superpower. They believed they were invincible. And I don't believe they're going to let that go without some kind of fight. So we do have to continue to monitor this because there could be a few more tricks up their sleeves.

But until something like that does happen, this is it for this. episode of foreign policy with me Robert in Lekash for The Last American Vagabond. And we'll see you in the next episode.