The End of the Game
By starting this war, Israel has risked its existence
“If this scenario is right, Israel fails. She brings down the Philistine temple, but hers is the only death, a suicide.”
—Yours truly
This is a Unified Field Theory of the Israel-Iran War. I think I know where it’s going, where it will likely (but not certainly) end, and why. Let’s take a look.
Note: This doesn’t present what I think will happen. It presents what I think is most likely. Please read in that light.
Background: Players and Goals
The players involved have these goals.
Israel wants Iran’s permanent destruction. This means all of the following:
The war must run until Iran surrenders, and any ceasefire must work entirely to Israel’s advantage.
U.S. military must stay engaged to the end.
All other potential regional threats must be neutered.
Iran wants an enforceable end to Israeli and U.S. attack. This means all of the following:
Withdrawal of the U.S. military from the whole Middle East
Permanent Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz (like Egypt or Panama’s control of their own canals)
A ceasefire with Israel that Israel cannot break
Iran’s additional goals, like reparations and sanctions relief, may be negotiable.
The U.S. is mixed in its wants:
Neocons want to break Iran to secure control of all Middle East oil.
Zionists like House Speaker Johnson want to bring on imagined “end times.”
Most people with ongoing state power — like military and intelligence pros — want to avoid a loss that will end the Empire.
President Trump wants all of following:
To enrich himself and his family
To not be exposed via release of Epstein files and tapes
To not be labeled a loser (one of his great fears)
To live to the end in “a state of insatiable self-worship”
Players and wants, some of which overlap. Keep this in mind as you read on.
What Would End the Fighting? Only Defeat
For the war to end, all players must stop fighting. What does that mean in practice?
Iran must meet all of its goals before it will stop. Otherwise, there’s no guarantee the attacks won’t restart. Yet for Israel to stop, Iran must be completely defeated.
This alone guarantees that the fighting will go on until one of these two collapses — either Iran loses the ability to fight and its government surrenders, or Israel collapses as a state and a secular Palestine rises from what remains.
This could be the last big Middle East war for years. Its outcome could remake the world.
For Israel to Survive
If it’s true that Israel is on track to lose the war — I’m certain that’s true — what must it do to survive?
First, the U.S. must stay engaged to the bitter end. This means Israel must keep Trump in the war till the war is decided. It’s the only hope Israel has. It will still likely lose, but Israel will certainly lose if Trump withdraws.
Second, Israel must keep the Israeli state intact. It’s not hard to imagine an Israel without population, a nation of emigrants, of lost fleeing souls. I’ve seen several reports like this:
A proposal backed by a former Israeli defense minister to acquire Greek islands for use as an emergency evacuation site has sparked debate in Tel Aviv. … The initiative [suggests] a strategic effort to establish a foothold outside Israel’s borders in preparation for worst-case security scenarios.
According to the Forward, an independent Jewish publication, more than 25% of Israelis wanted to leave Israel as of April 2025. That’s two million people. What must that number be now?
An Israel without Israelis is Israel no more. It’s Palestine: multi-ethnic, diverse, and secular. No guarantees the region will stabilize, but it will be different and far less genocidal.
The Trap for Trump
The fact that Israel needs Trump puts Trump in a trap. He can exit with no invasion and lose the Gulf for good as a U.S. domain; or invade, as Israel wants, and face certain disaster.
If Trump backs out now, he’s a loser; no doubt about it. The U.S. surrenders the Gulf and proves, by this loss and retreat, its decline as a power. The American sun starts to set, Israel fails, and America is disgraced.
But if Trump puts boots on the ground — American boots — a thousand American bodies come back in a box. Zionists and neocons like Lindsey Graham aside, no American wants this. The price would be the end of his presidency, and his life as a man. I think it’s clear Trump wants a way to back out.
What Israel Wants
But Trump may not have a choice. First, there’s Zionist money. Miriam Adelson alone gave $250 million to fund his campaign. The Zionists want what they bought — endless Israeli defense.
Now add in blackmail. If Israel has blackmail material — Ian Welsh, among others, makes that case vigorously — Trump has a terrible choice: see tapes released of him doing the unspeakable; or order, in full view of the world, his troops to their death.
Trump was Epstein’s best friend for years, and Epstein’s properties were all saturated with video cameras. Epstein clearly worked for Israel.
What are the odds of no tapes? You do the math.
Trump’s in a trap. Either way, he pays the price. And Trump’s whole game is never paying the price. No wonder he’s acting so lost.
Trump’s Displacement Behavior
This trap, I think, explains Trump’s recent erratic behavior: distracted comments on pens, on furniture costs. He’s not stupid or bored. He’s frightened out of his mind. No matter his choice, he’s dead. He’s a man wearing concrete shoes by the side of a pier, waiting the push, waiting for what he can’t stop.
Displacement activity occurs “when an animal or human experiences high motivation for two or more conflicting behaviours … Birds, for example, may peck at grass when uncertain whether to attack or flee from an opponent.”
Is this displacement activity?
Trump may invade on his own, but if Netanyahu has tapes, the order will come.
If Trump Decides to Invade
The U.S. security state has the last American move. If Trump orders a ground strike, the State might make him stand down. If it does, its choices are these:
Persuasion
The 25th Amendment
Impeachment
His illness or death
A forced removal (a coup)
The first is unlikely, but should not be discounted. The second and third are too slow. The fourth requires a compliant, complicit VP. And the fifth would seem wrong to most (but not all) in the plan — the forms, at least, of self-rule must be preserved.
The State, if it wants to play, has very few moves. It may step aside — most would bet that it will — but the odds aren’t zero. Just saying that for the record.
The End of Israel
If the U.S. invades, it will lose. If the U.S. fails to invade, Israel stands alone.
Either way, Israel falls when its missiles are spent. If Iran holds out till then, Israel, battered and broken, faces defeat. A neutered Israel is Israel no more. What then?
Scenario: Last Moves for Iran and Israel
Here’s what I think will happen when Israel fails:
Israel goes Samson and launches a nuclear strike, ten or fifteen attacks designed to force peace on entirely Israeli terms.
Iran, unbowed, builds its own nuclear weapons if it hasn’t already. It has enough uranium to make ten or eleven bombs in just a few weeks (see here).
The Iranian counter-strike kills Israel as a state. The land remains, though poisoned. The state disappears.
Cool heads prevail in the U.S., Russia and China. They stand down and diplomacy starts. With Israel gone as a threat, the world moves on.
The irony writes itself. If this scenario is right, Israel dies. She brings down the Philistine temple, but hers is the only death, a suicide.
Would Israel Really Use Samson?
Would Israel really execute the Samson Option? By her own admission, Golda Meir would have done it. Quoting from the prologue of Alan Hart’s 2009 book on the subject:
At a point [in my 1971 BBC interview with Golda Meir] I interrupted her to say: “Prime Minister, I want to be sure I understand what you’re saying… You are saying that if ever Israel was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield, it would be prepared to take the region and even the whole world down with it?”
Without the shortest of pauses for reflection, and in the gravel voice that could charm or intimidate American presidents according to need, Golda replied, “Yes, that’s exactly what I am saying.”1
And from the same source:
Three years after Golda’s revelation of her state’s doomsday option, during the early panic on the Israeli side of the 1973 (Yom Kippur) war, two Israeli missiles were armed with nuclear warheads and targeted.
The targets were Cairo and Damascus, the capitals of Egypt and Syria.
Many have repeated this story.
Final Words
None of us wants any of this. But a dispassionate look at the odds — they’re not in our favor, America’s or the world’s. This isn’t Oedipus yet, a story that’s over before the curtain goes up, but it’s pretty darn close.
Still, humans can change, and nations. Events aren’t fixed so long as people can choose. So let me end with a prayer: Let this be wrong.
As president Kennedy said in his peace speech, never leave an enemy without a face-saving option. I'm hopeful there will be a way out but only because the Iranians are careful rational actors, proportionate in their response. Nonetheless I could see a scenario where Israel and/or the US use nucler weapons against "enriichment sites". If Israel uses nukes against Tehran, it will be a fatal mistake.
By the way, 85% of Israeli support the genocide. The prospect of these genociders leaving Israel and let loose on the world to propagate auxillary apartheid states is not something to welcome.
This is brilliant. A beautifully organized and clearly written essay that closely resembles what has been going on in my head since February 28. With more excruciating detail than had ever happened in said head. This had to be incredibly hard to write. Thank you for braving the psychic pain and doing it.