Netanyahu and Khamenei find themselves in a tightening vice

The writer is author of ‘Black Wave’, distinguished fellow at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics and an FT contributing editor

They have nothing in common except their hatred of each other, their skills and longevity as leaders, their unyielding battle for political survival — and, now, stunning simultaneous blows. 

On Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced accusations of war crimes by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Earlier that day, it was announced that Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had lost a protégé and potential successor, a key pillar in his careful choreography to ensure a smooth handover. President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash will ripple through the circles of power in Iran — but also through the region, as the war in Gaza reaches an inflection point.

Beyond the mechanics of choosing Iran’s next president and the fallout from the ICC’s prosecutor decision, this week’s events put in sharp relief how the Middle East finds itself stuck between Khamenei and Netanyahu, both clinging to power at the expense of their countries and the region. 

Netanyahu has been doubling down on war and defying US President Joe Biden to save his political career. On Sunday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan tried again to sell him on a vision for the Middle East that would provide Israel with sustainable security and regional integration via normalisation with Saudi Arabia. However, the cost to Israel — tangible steps towards a Palestinian state — is still too high for Netanyahu. 

For his part, Khamenei has balanced restraint of Iran’s regional proxy militias with displays of force since October 7, while increasing repression and the power of hardliners at home. As Iran gears up for a sudden presidential election, his ability to project control will be severely tested.

While the focus should remain on Israel’s destructive military campaign in Gaza and the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, the increasingly fraught regional context matters just as much. The enmity between Iran and Israel, long in the shadows, erupted into the open last month with the direct exchange of missiles and drones. This was a stark reminder of how much worse tensions can become and how some of the larger dynamics in play are now driven by domestic political calculations. 

The shadow war between the pair continues. Last week, reports emerged that Jordan had foiled a suspected plot by Iranian-backed militias in Syria to smuggle weapons into the country, some on their way to the occupied West Bank, some to conduct acts of sabotage inside Jordan.

The rapprochement initiated in March last year between the Saudis and Iran is also being tested. The kingdom prefers the protection of a US defence pact and normalisation with Israel combined with a path towards a Palestinian state — a package which would shield Riyadh from Iran’s fire and pull the rug from under Tehran’s claim that it alone upholds the Palestinian cause.  

But after courting the Saudis for years, Netanyahu doesn’t seem interested anymore. And so the House of Saud sits between Iran’s missiles and militias and Netanyahu’s intransigence on discussing the “day after” the war in Gaza. 

The Israeli premier has been insisting on war until “total victory”, echoing the self-deluding slogan chanted in revolutionary Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Ironically, both Netanyahu and Khamenei were around then — one as Israel’s deputy ambassador in Washington, the other as Iran’s president.

Netanyahu may have forgotten that Israel sold several hundred tons of weapons to Iran to help it fend off Iraqi advances, leading to a bloody stalemate. Israeli officials then hoped to engage moderate elements in the newly established Islamic Republic. Iran and Turkey had been the first two Muslim countries to recognise Israel after its founding in 1948 and Israel relied on these ties to reduce its isolation in a hostile Arab world. 

The opposite is true today: Israel now sees ties with Arab countries as a shield against Iran. But Netanyahu doesn’t seem to understand his new Arab friends are not interested in confrontation with Tehran. Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who also perished in the crash, summed up the current relationship between the two countries in December by saying “the only thing that Iran and Israel have in common is that neither of them believes in a two-state solution”. 

Yet this is the one thing which, if acquiesced to by Khamenei and Netanyahu, could bring their countries some respite from international pressure.