As has been the case for much of the war, the outcome of the conflict in Iran hangs on US President Donald Trump’s decision on how much longer he wants to keep fighting.

Anyone familiar with Trump’s style knows that getting a read on his thinking is a notoriously difficult task. He often contradicts himself, intentionally speaks in ways that invite multiple interpretations, and likes to leave his options open.

There have been reports throughout the war that Trump is eager to end the fighting, especially as energy prices rise and the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the president told aides he is willing to end the military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz isn’t opened.

The White House has come to the conclusion, according to the report, that a mission to reopen the waterway would extend the length of the war past Trump’s four- to six-week timeline.

At the same time, Trump has ordered thousands of troops to the region over the past week in what has been described as preparation for a potential ground operation, though the buildup could also be aimed at pressuring Iran into accepting Washington’s ceasefire terms.

The leaks about Trump wanting to pull the US out of the military campaign could themselves be part of an elaborate ruse meant to lull Tehran into letting its guard down before the launch of a ground push.

At the same time, the unpopularity of the war at home and its impact on the economy give the president serious reasons to want out.

Whether Israel’s government wants to keep fighting or is also interested in ending the war under certain conditions, there’s no guarantee that it would be able to change Trump’s mind once the president himself has made it up.

But it does have the ability to alter its operations to maximize the time remaining, plan for the future, and do whatever it can to make sure Iran’s ability to threaten it in the coming years is as limited as possible.

The ‘completion phase’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains vague about when Israel might be willing to end its military campaign or what conditions it would want to see met.

“It’s definitely beyond the halfway point,” he said in an interview on Monday. “But I don’t want to put a schedule on it.”

Even if Netanyahu cannot pencil in a firm end date for the war, Israel should still have a clear end state in mind, and a military plan for getting there — even if that plan must remain flexible and adaptive in order to react to a rapidly changing situation.

What Israel’s desired end state might be continues to be a question, more than a month into the war.

There is no doubt that much has been accomplished so far. Key Iranian leaders are dead, Tehran’s conventional military capabilities have been decimated, and it likely can’t rebuild quickly.

It is less clear, however, how long the achievements will last before Iran manages to reconstitute its threat to Israel, and develop new ones.

The IDF has nearly completed bombing all of the targets it defined for itself before the war, and has now been ordered by Netanyahu to shift to hitting “economic” targets, The Times of Israel learned on Monday.

On Saturday, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said that “within a few days” the military would complete targeting all of the “critical” assets of Iran’s military production industries, sites used to develop weapons that threaten Israel. The military has also said it has taken out most of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers and air defense systems.

Israel’s defense apparatus is now in what it describes as the “completion phase” of the goals it set out at the start of the war: degrading Iran’s military capabilities and “creating the conditions” for the Iranian regime to fall.

Netanyahu changes his message

That second goal seems to have fallen by the wayside in the latter stages of the war.

In the first three weeks of the campaign, Netanyahu stressed repeatedly in prepared remarks that Israel was working to set the stage for the Iranian people to rise up, and even told the Iranian public that the “time is fast approaching” for Israel to “pass the torch” to them to overthrow the regime.

Now, Netanyahu no longer says there will be a signal given to the public, or talks about creating the conditions for regime change. Instead, he makes do with predicting that the regime will collapse.

The US, for its part, seems uninterested in bringing the Islamic Republic down. Worryingly for Israel, Trump argues — in an entirely novel definition of the term — that regime change has already been secured since Iran’s senior leadership has been wiped out.

“The one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead, and the third regime — we’re dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before,” Trump told reporters on Sunday.

And even more problematically for Israel, he calls his Iranian interlocutors “very reasonable.”

That seemingly includes Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a figure closely tied to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Most analysts view him as no less hardline than those who were unwilling to accept US demands to date.

Israel’s goal of removing Iran’s ability to pose a threat likely cannot be achieved without regime change, Israel’s ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter said on the What the Hell is Going on? podcast Monday.

The purpose of the campaign, he said, “is to make sure that we don’t have a power, an entity in Tehran, which is developing nuclear weapons, is developing weapons of mass destruction in terms of these ballistic missiles, and is supporting proxies around the region. That’s what we’re focused on.”

“Now, if that can be done without regime change, okay. Probably can’t though,” he added.

Now, if that can be done without regime change, okay. Probably can’t though.

Now, if that can be done without regime change, okay. Probably can’t though.

If Israel can’t set in motion regime change, he said, at least Israel wants “regime collapse.”

Leiter defined “de facto regime collapse” as a situation in which Iran is not producing ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons, not enriching uranium and not supporting proxies.

The ambassador probably left listeners somewhat confused about what exactly the end of the war looks like for Israel. Iran won’t stop threatening Israel unless the regime collapses, he said, but regime collapse is achieved when Iran stops threatening Israel.

Despite his circular argument, Leiter hinted at something with far-reaching consequences — that Israel has plans for keeping the fight against Iran going in some form even if Trump pulls the plug.

“This isn’t going to end even if at some point the US says, we’ve done our job, we’ve taken out all the production sites, we’ve destroyed them militarily and now we’re wrapping up,” he said.

Some of Israel’s post-war efforts will continue to go after Iranian commanders, he said: “The threat — at least from Israel, of going back to these targeted takeouts of these very bad people — certainly will be a cloud hanging over their heads for a long time. We’re not going to sleep.”

“Israel and her allies will continue to act,” he said, pointing at a new, tighter defense alliance between Israel and Arab states.

“Whether it’s UAE, Bahrain, I think we’ve become closer to the Saudis, closer to the Omanis,” he said. “Closer to the Kuwaitis for crying out loud. They’ve asked us for assistance.”

Netanyahu also indicated as much on Tuesday.

According to the Hebrew-language Maariv daily, he told ministers at a cabinet meeting that new alliances are being formed with leaders of Arab countries who “are talking about fighting together on our side.”

“In the past, I had secret conversations with Arab leaders,” Netanyahu reportedly said. “I told them, ‘As soon as Iran can, it will conquer you and overthrow your kingdoms.’ Back then, they didn’t really internalize things. Today they understand.”

Israel, it seems, is making plans for the distinct possibility that Trump moves on from the war and the Iranian regime survives. It will then be facing a much-weakened Islamic Republic, but one that still commands massive resources to pour into rebuilding and still has armed proxies ready to do its bidding.

The military campaign, in that case, may then be over, but the war will be far from its end.

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