The Palestine Chronicle, June 26, 2026
The Iranian-led Axis of Resistance has used its joint power in order to successfully confront all the challenges before it.
The goal of the war on Iran was to pave the way towards “Greater Israel” and total US-Israeli dominance through achieving regime change, yet the outcome of the war may have just buried this project forever.
Hezbollah’s unprecedented comeback, combined with Iran’s impressive performance, has shifted the balance of power so dramatically that the Israelis are being cut back to size.
From the outset of the attack on Iran, it was clear that the goal was to overthrow the Islamic Republic and, by default, achieve the “total victory” across “seven fronts” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pledging to reach for over two years. Very quickly, Iran’s military response, followed by its carefully calibrated strategy involving its regional allies, threw the goal of regime change into the meat grinder.
In a recent opinion poll conducted by the Israeli public, roughly 92% of the population said they believe that Iran has emerged as the winner of the war. When we compare this to the various opinion polls conducted following Israel’s initial 12-day war in June of 2025, the outcome couldn’t be more stark. The majority of Israelis not only supported the war on Iran last year, but were also satisfied with the way it was managed.
This time around, Iran is using the threat of continued hostilities and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as its weapons to secure a victory that has become a political nightmare for the Israelis.
Under the current Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the US has ceded to Iran on countless points– Tehran will rake in billions in fees collected from those transiting the Strait of Hormuz, it will get its frozen assets, have all the sanctions lifted, and even get access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund.
If these pledges were to be met by the United States, then Iran would be able to thrive economically for the first time since its Islamic Revolution in 1979. However, the economic benefits are not even the biggest achievement.
While the Israelis managed to ride on the wave of delusion, in using their blows dealt to Hezbollah back in 2024 as evidence of a historic victory against the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance, this narrative has now collapsed. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has managed over the past months to effectively deter Israeli actions inside Lebanon through the threat of force. Even if the Israelis seek to challenge this, it has for now successfully achieved a deterrence equation whereby Tel Aviv fears bombing the Lebanese Capital.
On the ground, Hezbollah has managed to deal devastating blows to the Israeli military, dragging it deep into southern Lebanon and using asymmetric warfare tactics that have left the Israeli public disgusted with its leadership and led to a loss of confidence in the army’s ability to defend the northern settlements.
A reality that has now started to set in, as Israel repeatedly fails to capture areas such as the Ali Al-Taher Hills, instead resorting to figuring out a method that will allow them to extract the charred remains of their soldiers, trapped inside destroyed tanks that still remain inside Hezbollah-controlled territory.
The Iranian-led Axis of Resistance has used its joint power in order to successfully confront all the challenges before it. This includes the coordination with Yemen’s Ansarallah to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait to Israeli shipping, even threatening to blockade it completely in the event of the war escalating once again.
Arab Gulf States have also taken notice of the changes in regional power dynamics, with the neighboring nations attempting to repair their relations with Tehran. This even appears to be including the UAE, which was actively bombing Iran only months ago. Now the model of Oman, which remained somewhat neutral – some may say they leaned towards Iran – during the conflict, appears to be the most favorable one amongst the GCC States.
Israel had hoped that the war would collapse, or at the very least severely weaken the Iranian State, which would lead to all of the Arab States lining up to normalize and build closer relations with it. Instead, this war appears to be deterring future normalisation efforts.
The Greater Israel Project, of expanding the borders of the Israeli regime, depended upon the collapse of the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance, or at the very least its weakening. The only real option that could help Israel survive today is securing a Two-State Solution, but even that could lead to internal chaos because of how radicalized Israeli society has become.
The Two-State Solution is the pro-Israel outcome. The only other option is that they continue to fight endless wars they cannot win, until they reach the point of total collapse, whether that be at the hands of resistance forces or their own public. Any sane nation would see the writing on the wall and embrace diplomacy, but we are not dealing with a sane nation.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Tags: Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, politics
Peace and Justice Post 
Leave a comment