EDITORIAL: War Against Iran, Day 31 — Netanyahu Calls It “Halftime”; the World Asks, “When Will the Final Whistle Blow?”

The lower end of the range has been reached

When Donald Trump gave the green light to this operation, he had mentioned a timeframe of four to six weeks. We are now on day 31—four and a half weeks. The lower end of the range is behind us. The upper end is barreling toward us like a freight train. And the only official response, from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is a remarkably elastic phrase: “Weeks, not months.”

Weeks. How many? Two? Twelve? The plural form of “weeks” covers a vast range. Vast enough that this phrase could be held up as evidence of clarity or as evidence of deception, depending on how events unfold.

In politics, as in war, vague words are never innocent. “Weeks, not months” is a phrase designed to reassure without promising anything—and that is exactly what should alarm us.

America is starting to take notice

At the gas pump, Americans are seeing prices climb. In the markets, the nervousness is palpable. India’s Sensex plunged by more than 1,000 points in a single trading session. Asian stock markets are faltering. The whole world is footing the bill for this confrontation, including those who asked for none of it. The American public, which largely supported the idea of neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program, is beginning to ask the only question that really matters: How much longer?

Rumors Like Missiles

The rumors of Netanyahu’s death were not spontaneous. They had the structure, timing, and coordination of an influence operation. They appeared on anonymous accounts. They were amplified by intermediaries identified as close to Iranian intelligence services. They were reposted via pro-Russian networks on Telegram. They went viral on X and TikTok. Within a few hours, Netanyahu’s absence had become his elimination.

The objective was crystal clear: to destabilize the Israeli chain of command in the eyes of the world. To sow doubt among allies. To fuel panic in the markets. Iran’s information warfare—honed for years alongside Kremlin propaganda—had struck with precision.

The danger posed by a regime cannot be measured solely by its missiles. It is also measured by its ability to turn silence into panic, absence into disappearance, and doubt into certainty. Iran has mastered this dark art.

Newsmax as a Battlefield

By choosing Newsmax over CNN or the BBC, Netanyahu sent a threefold message. To the conservative American public: I am your ally, alive and fighting. To the Trump base: this war is as much yours as it is mine. To the Iranian regime: your influence operations have failed. Three messages in a single choice of platform. Pure Netanyahu.

Twenty-one percent of the world’s oil flows through a 34-kilometer-wide corridor

The Strait of Hormuz. Thirty-four kilometers wide. Twenty-one percent of the world’s oil passes through it every day. It is the Achilles’ heel of the global economy, and Iran has always known it. Trump recently claimed that Tehran had cleared 20 ships from the strait “as a sign of respect.” Pakistan immediately disputed this, asserting that the ships belonged to it.

Anecdotal? No. Revealing. Because this confusion over 20 ships illustrates just how much the Strait of Hormuz has become a zone of constant friction where every move is interpreted, overinterpreted, and exploited. A single incident—a stray missile, a tanker hit, a floating mine—and crude oil prices skyrocket beyond all control.

Hormuz is a silk thread upon which the global economy rests. Every day of war in Iran brings a pair of scissors closer to that thread. And no one has a safety net.

The USS Abraham Lincoln: Guardian and Target

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been patrolling the Persian Gulf since the first day of operations. One hundred thousand metric tons of steel. Squadrons of F-35s. A full carrier strike group. Its mission: to protect maritime traffic, project American power, and deter any Iranian escalation. But its presence also makes it the ultimate symbolic target for a regime backed into a corner. Iran cannot sink it. But attempting to do so would be the escalation that everyone fears.

Putin Loses His Backup Arsenal

Vladimir Putin doesn’t appear anywhere in Netanyahu’s interview. Yet he is everywhere in this war. The Shahed drones that were falling on Ukraine came from the same factories that are now burning in Iran. The Tehran-Moscow logistics route, which transported components, technologies, and weapons in both directions, has been disrupted. The arc of anti-Western resistance that Putin had patiently assembled—Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang—is cracking under U.S.-Israeli strikes.

The Kremlin cannot intervene directly. Sending weapons to Iran would amount to a direct challenge to Washington at a time when Russia is already bogged down in Ukraine. Putin is reduced to the role of a spectator. And for a man who dreams of being the architect of a new world order, watching his ally get pounded without being able to lift a finger is a humiliation of rare intensity.

The axis of autocracies is solid only in rhetoric. When the bombs fall, it’s every man for himself. Putin will not come to Tehran’s rescue. Tehran will not come to Putin’s rescue. This is the structural weakness of any alliance founded on shared hatred rather than shared values.

Ukraine, the silent beneficiary

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not commented on this war. He doesn’t need to. Every Shahed production line taken out of commission eases the pressure on Ukraine’s air defenses. Every Iranian missile used to defend the territory is a missile that will never reach Russia. The war in Iran, through a strategic ripple effect, directly serves Kyiv’s interests. And Zelenskyy knows this perfectly well.

“Mission Accomplished”—the memory that haunts

May 1, 2003. George W. Bush stands on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln—the same ship, the same irony—under a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished.” The war in Iraq had just “ended.” It would last eight more years. It would cost thousands of American lives. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. It would destabilize the entire Middle East for a generation.

Trump and Netanyahu know this history. They know the cost of a victory declared too soon. But they also know the cost of a never-ending war. The dilemma is the same as in 2003, with one additional variable: this time, the free world is also fighting in Ukraine. The West cannot afford two quagmires at once. Not even one.

The specter of Iraq looms over every decision made in Washington and Jerusalem. To ignore it would be arrogance. To let it paralyze action would be cowardice. The middle ground between the two is called clarity—and that is exactly what this war needs.

Afghanistan: The Other Lesson

Twenty years. That’s how long the Afghan adventure lasted. Launched as a targeted operation against al-Qaeda, it turned into a never-ending nation-building effort, before ending in the debacle at Kabul Airport in August 2021. The images of civilians clinging to departing planes remain etched in the collective memory. Netanyahu and Trump cannot allow Iran to become the next Afghanistan. The Western world would not tolerate it.

88 million people who are not the enemy

Behind every strike, behind every explosion, there are human beings. Ordinary Iranians who did not choose this regime, who have fought against it, who have paid the price of their resistance with their blood. The 2022 protests—“Woman, Life, Freedom”—showed the entire world that a vast portion of the Iranian population yearns for something else: freedom, modernity, and a connection to the Western world rather than to the axis of autocracies.

These people are not acceptable collateral damage. They are potential allies. The way this war is conducted—its precision, its restraint, the distinction between the regime and the people—will determine whether the West wins as much in the aftermath as it does on the day of the conflict.

You do not liberate a people by bombing them indiscriminately. You liberate them by striking their oppressors with a precision that demonstrates—with every strike, every missile, every air sortie—that you know how to distinguish between the victim and the oppressor.

The Risk of Resentment

If civilian casualties mount, if infrastructure essential to daily life is hit, if Iranians begin to perceive this war as an aggression against them rather than against their regime, then the coalition will have lost something infinitely more precious than a battle: it will have lost the hearts of the Iranian people. And winning back a lost heart takes decades.

A man who controls every word

Every syllable of this interview was carefully calibrated. The choice of Newsmax over a mainstream media outlet. The choice of English over Hebrew. The choice to speak of objectives rather than a timeline. Netanyahu is a master communicator of formidable skill. He knows that in a war, the narrative matters as much as the missiles. And he crafts that narrative with the meticulousness of a goldsmith.

But control over the narrative has its limits. You can control the words. You cannot control the facts. You can choose when to speak. You cannot choose when the war ends. And it is precisely this tension between controlled rhetoric and unpredictable reality that makes the current situation so charged.

Netanyahu may be the greatest war communicator since Churchill. But Churchill had a date in mind: the day the guns would fall silent. Netanyahu, on the other hand, refuses to give one. And this difference is anything but trivial.

The Domestic Calculus in Israel

In Israel itself, support for the operation remains high. The Iranian nuclear threat is perceived as existential. But the consensus won’t last forever. Reservists have been mobilized. The economy is idling. The families of deployed soldiers want answers. The question “how long?” echoes in Israeli homes as well, not just in Western newsrooms.

What does “winning” mean?

That is the question that no one—neither in Washington, nor in Jerusalem, nor in any Western capital—is asking with sufficient clarity. What does “winning” mean? A denuclearized but still theocratic Iran? A regime change whose aftermath no one can control? A negotiated ceasefire that leaves the mullahs weakened but still in power? A “Libyan-style” deal, like the one with Gaddafi in 2003, where the regime abandons its nuclear program in exchange for its survival?

Each scenario has its risks. Each scenario has its consequences. And as long as none is clearly articulated, the war rages on in a strategic fog that benefits everyone except the democracies waging it.

A war without a definition of victory is a war that cannot be won—only prolonged. And a prolonged war is a war that democracies always end up losing, not on the battlefield, but in the court of public opinion.

Time is working against the West

Every additional week erodes support. Every additional week drives up oil prices. Every additional week offers Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang the spectacle of a West mired in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. Time is not neutral. Time is an adversary. And Netanyahu, by refusing to set a deadline, gives it an advantage it shouldn’t have.

What Day 31 Tells Us About Day 62

Netanyahu is alive. The rumors were lies. The war is moving forward. Objectives are being met. Iran has been struck, weakened, and degraded. All of this is true.

But the full truth is more uncomfortable. “We’re halfway there,” says the Israeli prime minister. Very well. Then tell us where this path is leading. Tell us what the end looks like. Tell us what Iran will be like the day after. Because free peoples don’t fight for vague objectives. They fight for clear results. And so far, the only result that’s been clearly communicated is that the war continues.

Day 31.

The clock is ticking. The world is waiting. And the only thing more dangerous than a war that drags on is a war where no one knows when—or how—it will end.

Wars don’t end when objectives are achieved. They end when someone has the courage to say: it’s over. Day 31, and that courage is still conspicuously absent from this interview.

Signed, Maxime Marquette