As Netanyahu and Trump weigh their next moves against Iran, the approaching elections raise a difficult question: Is military action driving politics, or is politics driving military action?
Many and varied are the reasons so many people are looking forward to October 28, the day after Israel’s elections, and November 4, the day after the US midterms.
One reason is that election campaigns do not exactly bring out the best in people, and the end of the campaigns in both countries will put an end to bitter partisan rhetoric that only deepens the divides and fuels antagonism.
Campaigns are not great unifiers, and both countries could use more unity. If that is too much to ask, then a little less divisiveness would also be welcome.
Another reason is that war and elections do not go well together. When the two overlap, it becomes difficult to tell what is driving what: Are electoral considerations shaping military decisions, or are battlefield developments shaping the elections?
Sometimes, both.
The first question is particularly pertinent in Israel, where any military action taken now, justified or not, will be viewed through the prism of the campaign. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launches an attack against Iran because of steps it is taking or contemplating, a significant part of the country will inevitably see it as an attempt to sway the vote.
Netanyahu pushed Trump to resume strikes on Iran before elections
Consider Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, just over three weeks before that year’s election. The operation was successful, but Labor leader Shimon Peres accused prime minister Menachem Begin of timing it to boost Likud’s electoral prospects. Its proximity to the vote cast a political shadow over an extremely consequential military decision.
Conflicting reports of discussions between Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump illustrate the problem.
On Tuesday, Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu had repeatedly urged Trump to renew attacks on Iran before Israel’s October 27 election and the US midterms a week later. According to the report, Netanyahu cited concerning Iranian nuclear developments, while American officials came away with the impression that he wanted action before the elections.
The Prime Minister’s Office denied that Netanyahu was seeking to start a war before the vote. Netanyahu reportedly told Israeli security chiefs that Trump, not he, had initiated the discussion about renewed fighting before the elections.
A Maariv report over the weekend presented another version: Washington had pressed Israel to strike Iran alone, leaving Israel to assume the political risks of an operation that could have negative consequences for Trump ahead of the midterms.
According to that report, American officials believed Israel would be interested in striking before its own election. The report also said Washington had since backed away from the proposal.
Who was pushing whom? For what reason? And why before the elections?
The reports do not provide a settled answer. They do, however, show how thoroughly the electoral calendar has become entangled with discussion of military action.
There is another layer. Channel 12 reported that Israeli security officials saw no change in the intelligence assessment of Iran that would justify a joint operation in the coming two to three weeks. The same report said IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir warned that renewed fighting could postpone the Israeli elections.
That possibility adds fuel to an already combustible debate. Netanyahu’s opponents have long warned that he might initiate a major military campaign to delay the vote.
And the problem is not confined to Iran.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu visited the seam line in the West Bank and warned that Israel’s enemies were thinking of testing it before the elections. He said the military was prepared for various scenarios, including Palestinian security forces turning their weapons against Israel.
That is a serious threat, one the military needs to prepare for regardless of the date. But when the prime minister explicitly links a security warning to the approaching elections, the political interpretations quickly follow.
Is he deterring an attack? Demonstrating his security credentials? Preparing the public for military action?
Those possibilities are not mutually exclusive. That is precisely what makes the mix so difficult to sort out.
Then there is a question often lost in the argument: Would an Israeli-initiated military operation necessarily help Netanyahu?
Danger comes when every security decision is viewed as a campaign maneuver
If it were successful, it could reinforce one of his strongest electoral assets: his record of confronting Iran. But if it went badly, brought Israeli casualties or dragged the country into another prolonged conflict, the political effect could be very different.
Starting a military operation doesn’t guarantee an electoral dividend. Its outcome matters, as does whether the public believes it was necessary.
Still, until the vote is behind us, any major operation will face an additional question alongside the military ones: Why now?
That question is legitimate. The danger comes when suspicion overshadows everything else, and when every security decision or warning is seen as a campaign maneuver. Israel’s enemies do not suspend their activities because Israelis are going to the polls. On the contrary, they sometimes step up their activities.
A government must remain able to respond, but it must also be able to explain why a response is necessary now.
Then there is the other direction of influence: military action designed to affect an election – an overriding concern now in the US.
Trump has said he will not resume attacks on Iran before the November 3 midterms, ostensibly to avoid shocks to the oil market. The last thing he needs before Americans vote is a sharp rise in gasoline prices.
Iran understands that vulnerability as well.
Reuters reported Wednesday, citing two senior Iranian officials, that Iran was deploying new tactics to target ships sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, seeking to keep oil prices high and influence the US election.
The Iranians would plainly welcome a Republican drubbing and Democratic control of Congress, hoping that a strengthened opposition would make it more difficult for Trump to pursue the war against them.
According to Reuters, Iranian officials are explicitly linking pressure on shipping to the American electoral calendar. The aim is to have developments in the Gulf felt at the American gasoline pump, and then at the ballot box.
Which brings us back to those eagerly awaited mornings after the elections.
October 28 and November 4 will not remove politics from decisions about war. Nor will they resolve the threats posed by Iran or Israel’s other enemies.
They will, however, remove the immediate electoral deadline that now hangs over those decisions and over every interpretation of them.
Until then, voters need to keep two questions in mind: Is military action necessary, and is it happening now because an election is approaching?
The answer could be both, but in the heat of an election campaign and amid heightened regional tensions, the two become difficult to untangle.