Strategic Thinking at a Moment of Iranian Weakening
A great deal is happening at once: renewed pressure on Venezuela, maritime seizures involving Russian assets in the North Atlantic, threats against Greenland, and other actions which may produce results but will be argued over politically, legally, and among allies.
In most cases, the facts are visible while their meaning remains contested.
The weakening of the Islamic Republic is different.
There is broad agreement in the United States and across allied governments not only that it is positive, but that it matters.
That difference is critical because Donald Trump is again at the center of the global stage.
The Iranian situation provides or will provide in the not too distant future, a unique opportunity to declare a success which would not be divisive; it would help consolidate and strengthen a consensus that already exists.
Pressure applied from outside Iran is now having effects inside the country, allowing military action aimed at incapacitation to go beyond deterrence.
From there, attention naturally turns to what follows.
If the Islamic Republic suffers a serious setback — through internal collapse, loss of regional reach, or geopolitical defeat — the focus will shift to succession, alternative authorities, and longer-term outcomes.
Those debates are unavoidable. But what can come first is defining and absorbing the moment, both domestically and globally.
The United States can emphasize that what is happening matters beyond Iran itself — less regional violence, weaker ideological militancy, and a step away from permanent confrontation. Decisions about Iran’s future will take time, but clarity now would make that process easier.
Clarity is reinforced not only by words, but by visible signals.
A meeting of Western leaders at the White House, framed as recognition rather than celebration, would help fix the meaning of events before others attempt to redefine them.
A parallel moment in the Mideast — possibly in Egypt — would reinforce the same message in the region itself: that stability flows from state responsibility and cooperation, not revolutionary ideology.
Any honest account must also confront another reality that has become impossible to ignore: the extent to which hostility toward Israel has become a vehicle for antisemitism, particularly online.
Much of the rhetoric circulating today portrays Israel as destabilizing, aggressive, or morally suspect, while ignoring the role of the Islamic Republic in exporting violence, militancy, and regional disorder.
In that context, openly recognizing Israel's role is not incidental — it is corrective.
Israel has been a central partner in resisting Tehran's regional strategy, bearing costs that others did not and acting when the dangers were still minimized or denied. Acknowledging that role publicly would not inflame tensions; it would restore proportion and truth.
There is a strong case for making this recognition unmistakable.
Inviting Benjamin Netanyahu to participate in these events as a partner in the outcome — and even awarding him a Presidential Medal of Freedom — would send a signal which cuts through abstraction and online distortion.
It would say, clearly, that Israel was not the source of regional instability but one of the principal actors working to contain it.
Extending such an invitation to allied leaders from countries where antisemitism has been allowed to take root — across parts of Europe, as well as in Canada and Australia — would also have a powerful effect, confronting those leaders directly with the gap between their rhetoric and the reality they would be endorsing by their presence.
Such steps would directly confront the narrative ecosystem that fuels antisemitism by tying Israel’s actions to outcomes most observers already recognize as beneficial.
Handled this way, the impact would extend well beyond the immediate diplomatic sphere. It would weaken the credibility of antisemitic claims that present themselves as geopolitical critique and, beyond the harm they cause to Jews, undermine solidarity around shared Western defensive values.
What comes next will matter.
But how this moment is defined — and who is openly associated with its success — will shape how it is understood for years to come.
Mark L. Cohen practices law and was counsel at White & Case starting in 2001, after serving as international lawyer and senior legal consultant for the French aluminum producer Pechiney. Cohen was a senior consultant at a Ford Foundation Commission, an adviser to the PBS television program "The Advocates," and assistant attorney general in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He teaches U.S. history at the business school in Lille l'EDHEC. Read Mark L. Cohen's Reports — More Here.
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