Only a ‘diplomatic child’ could question Israel’s action against Iran
The Israelis are trying to end the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program. If they’d listened to feckless Western politicians, the war with Iranian proxies would just go on.
This was inevitable. The determination of the Iranian theocratic leadership to eliminate the Jewish state could only end in one of two ways. Either Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian Supreme Leader, and the hardliners in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps would listen to the advice of moderates in the regime or there would be war.
In the last few months there has been a power struggle between the moderate and hard-line elements of the IRGC and others in senior leadership positions. The moderates wanted to re-establish constructive relations with the West, including a reduction in the rigorous sanctions regime the US and its allies have imposed on Iran. First and foremost, they were in favour of concluding a nuclear agreement with the US.
From nuclear sites to air defense systems, we’ve dismantled some of Iran’s most dangerous military assets.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) June 14, 2025
Here’s a breakdown of the key targets struck across Iran: pic.twitter.com/ppRJzwW8uz
I was at a conference last month in Beijing with one of the moderates, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who had been, until March this year, the vice president of Iran and was the foreign minister who negotiated for the Iranians the nuclear agreement in 2015.
Zarif is a man of urbane charm and common sense. He also has a sensitivity for where the Iranian public are at on these issues. Zarif thought a nuclear agreement with the Americans was necessary, but that Iran should not give up altogether its enrichment capacity; after all, Iran wanted to maintain the option of developing a civil nuclear program. He had been proposing the enrichment facilities by a consortium of countries, which would include Iran and some of the Gulf States.
This would’ve been a practical outcome which, possibly, the Trump administration could have accepted. The Iranian moderates have also judged that the public are tiring of the expensive support the regime is giving to the so-called Palestinian resistance.
Palestinians are Sunni Muslims and the Iranians Shia. Significant sections of the Iranian public cannot understand why the Shia theocracy is supporting Sunni assaults on Israel. The Iranian moderates have been willing to pull back support for Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and several militias in Iraq.
But not the hardliners.
They were determined to press on with the nuclear weapons program, rebuild Iran’s air defences, increase the production of missiles and maintain support for Iranian proxy organisations who form the Palestinian resistance.
Though I can’t prove this I do think the eviction of Zarif from the vice presidency in March was a clear indication that the hardliners were gaining the upper hand.
No doubt the Israelis have watched all this much more closely than we ever could. The Iranian hardliners, led by the supreme leader himself, are dedicated to the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. They are part of the “river to the sea” crowd. As negotiations between the Americans and the Iranians on nuclear weapons stalled, what should Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet do now?
For its very survival, Israel needs to change the status quo. It has to destroy the capacity of its foes to continue to inflict pain and damage.
Ultimately, to achieve that, Israel has to deal with Iran. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and various other extremist organisations would not be able to threaten Israel if they were not backed by Iran. Those organisations are Iranian proxies.
Let’s think about this from the perspective of the Jewish people. Six million of them were killed during the Holocaust in the last century. They continue to be abused and persecuted, including in recent times in Western countries. They are endlessly condemned by resolutions in the UN. And they have a near neighbour who has a nuclear weapons program and a leader who has vowed to destroy Israel. As I often ask people, what would you do in this situation?
Right now the Israelis have taken the opportunity to fix this problem once and for all. If they took the advice of feckless Western politicians such as those in our own government then the war with Iranian proxies would go on and on. In Jerusalem, I’m sure they’ve received the advice that they should conclude a two-state agreement with the Palestinians. They’ve heard that 10,000 times.
They also know, however, there is no prospect of achieving a two-state solution when the Palestinian resistance is funded, armed and supported by an Iranian regime that wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. Only a diplomatic child would think it was possible to reach an agreement with such people.
We have to hope that the Israelis have sufficiently damaged Iran’s nuclear program to set it back for years. But let’s expand our hopes a bit further. Let’s hope the hardliners realise that a war with Israel is never going to lead anywhere good.
And beyond that, let’s ask ourselves what the Iranian people as distinct from the leaders of the theocracy think about all of this. I’ve asked several people who have lived in Iran in recent times what the reaction to the Israeli strikes would be. Their answers are surprising. First, they are frightened. Second, those who do not support the regime – and that is most people in Iran – hope that the attacks on the regime will be successful.
More than that, this war between Israel and Iran opens a faint prospect that the regime in Tehran could be overthrown by its own people, fed up with the impact of the sanctions on their living standards, fed up with constant wars, fed up with supporting Sunni Palestinians in a fruitless but bloody attempt to destroy Israel. They want to get on with a quiet and easy life like anybody would.
As Australians, let’s ask ourselves what we would want? We would want to see the end of Iran’s nuclear program, we would want Israel to live in peace within recognised borders, rather than being subject to periodic and often very violent assaults from Palestinian extremists.
For that to happen, we should make it clear to the Iranians that the war should end and they should change tack and be prepared to live in harmony with Israel. By the way, only when Iran recognises Israel’s right to exist will there be any hope of a two-state solution.
So, in future, our government might send that message to the Iranian hardliners instead of always attacking the Israelis.
Alexander Downer was foreign minister from 1996 to 2007 and high commissioner to the UK from 2014 to 2018. He is chair of UK think tank Policy Exchange.
