The Next War: Why Israel May Strike Iran Before Winter.
by Jaffa Levy
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Published
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The air is thick with inevitability. The question is not whether war with Iran will come, but when, and whether Israel can afford the price of its own ambitions.
In Tel Aviv, the language has shifted from “if” to “when.” Israeli newspapers now speak of victory, of a past war already won, of deterrence restored, of a new confidence returning to the nation. Yet beneath the triumphant headlines, Israel remains caught in a dangerous contradiction: a belief that it has pacified its enemies while still surrounded by fronts it cannot close. Gaza has not been subdued; Lebanon remains defiant; Syria, though battered, is hardly pacified. The project is unfinished, but the vision endures, the old dream of a greater Israel, stable only once its periphery is compliant or broken.
Gaza, in particular, haunts Israeli planners. Despite devastation on a scale unseen in decades, Hamas remains operational, if diminished. Gaza, they say privately, must be pacified as Germany was after 1945, or more aptly, as Japan was, through complete psychological defeat. Anything less is considered temporary. Lebanon follows in that logic: Hezbollah must be drawn into submission, or at least rendered irrelevant, before Israel can turn fully to Iran. Syria has already been pacified through exhaustion and tacit acceptance of its paralysis. Only Iran remains, the ideological and logistical engine behind all resistance.
Inside the Israeli establishment, this sequence is now treated as almost axiomatic: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran. One follows from the other. Neutralising Tehran, they argue, is the only way to secure what the Abraham Accords began, a regional order where every capital from Amman to Abu Dhabi normalises with Israel. Now that Damascus is in the bag, there are whispers of Beirut eventually joining. What once sounded fanciful, Lebanon signing peace, has been openly entertained by figures close to Trump’s former advisers.
The weather is not a side note. It is the operational clock. If there is to be a strike, the clear skies of autumn are the final margin before the campaign must stand down until spring.
That thinking has seeped deep into Washington’s old networks. Within Trump’s circle, figures like Tom Barrack and a man referred to by insiders as Whitcock have long framed the Iran question as the central obstacle to Middle Eastern peace. In private conversations, they told Trump that the Abraham Accords could only be completed once Iran was sorted out. They spoke of Gaza and Hamas as peripheral symptoms of a larger disease, Tehran’s influence. Barrack reportedly said that without that, you cannot finish the problem Israel faces. Whitcock, speaking to Tucker Carlson, extended the logic further: even the current Syrian regime, he suggested, could be brought into the Accords, because they are now aligned. The message to Trump was consistent, pacify Iran and the region will fall into alignment.
It is no coincidence that Netanyahu echoes the same script. He has spoken repeatedly of Iran’s missile threat, seven thousand kilometres today, ten thousand tomorrow, warning that even New York or Mar a Lago could be within range. This exaggeration is deliberate. It internationalises Israel’s quarrel, transforming a regional contest into a global one. Trump, who oscillates between isolationism and bravado, hears in it both validation and flattery. The Iran obsession has become a shared theology binding Washington’s populist right to Israel’s security establishment.
Signals to watch in the coming weeks
A second American aircraft carrier or amphibious group sliding into the Eastern Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf. Such a move would indicate a tightening readiness posture and preparation for sustained air operations.
A visible uptick in Aegis-class destroyers transiting the Suez Canal or operating off the coasts of Haifa and Jordanian waters. These ships provide advanced missile defence and could serve as forward shields against Iranian retaliation.
A further influx of U.S. aerial refuelling tankers—KC-135 and KC-46 aircraft—into bases in Qatar and other Gulf states, enabling long-range strike capacity for both U.S. and allied aircraft.
Increased reservist call-ups or sudden training freezes within Israel tied to force readiness levels.
Additional intelligence flights and reconnaissance operations clustering near Iranian airspace.
Currently, the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group is deployed in the Mediterranean with its full air wing, supported by destroyers and logistics vessels. The positioning gives Washington the ability to project air power across the Levant and into the Northern Arabian Sea if required. However, these ships cannot remain on station indefinitely. If no escalation occurs, they will have to rotate back for refuelling, maintenance, and crew rotation before winter closes the operational window.
There are, however, limits even to faith. The skies themselves are one. Those who have flown the northern front know that by late November the weather turns. Fog and rain make air operations treacherous; sortie rates fall; precision degrades. Israeli pilots dislike those skies. The 2006 Lebanon war proved it, as did the Iranian air crash that killed its president. If a strike is to come, it must come before the mists close in. After that, readiness wanes, crews must rotate, and the fleet stands down for winter. The next feasible window will not open until spring.
That meteorological fact has become an operational clock. Every sign of preparation, the repositioning of American tankers in Qatar, the loading of ships in Haifa, the tightening of secrecy around Israeli nuclear submarines, suggests a compressed timeline. The Iranians, for their part, know it too. They have shifted away from GPS reliance to China’s BeiDou navigation system to counter spoofing and targeting. Their dispersal of key assets signals not fear, but readiness for survival.
Israel’s leadership now faces a paradox: it claims victory but behaves like a nation preparing for another round. The public is being conditioned for war through the language of triumph. Gaza’s pacification is cast as precedent, not cautionary tale. Lebanon’s turn is assumed. Iran’s turn is promised. Yet Israel’s internal divisions, economic fragility, and fatigue tell a different story.
If the strike does not come by November, the weather and perhaps the world will shift. Spring will bring new elections, new crises, and maybe new limits on ambition. For now, the horizon remains open, but narrowing fast.
The clock is ticking not only over Tehran’s nuclear sites but over Israel’s own credibility. It must decide whether to strike while the sky is clear or admit that victory, like peace, is something it can no longer define.
