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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Simon Tisdall

Don’t count on the Iran-Israel ceasefire lasting. What Netanyahu really wants is a forever war

A poster in Jerusalem, 27 June 2025.
A poster in Jerusalem, 27 June 2025. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

The war is over! Except it’s not, not by a long chalk. The verbally agreed Iran-Israel ceasefire could be ripped to shreds at any moment. An aggressive theocratic regime still holds power in Tehran. The same is true of Jerusalem. In Washington, a president whose stupidity is matched only by his vanity prattles about making peace, but the angry old men in charge have learned nothing. Meanwhile, hundreds of civilians lie dead, thousands are wounded and millions have been terrorised.

The war is over! Except only the naive believe that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister and prime warmonger, is done fighting. Even if Donald Trump is right and Iran’s nuclear facilities have been “obliterated” (“severely damaged” appears more accurate), its nuclear knowhow and elusive stockpile of enriched uranium have not. At the first sign, real or imagined, of rebuilding, Netanyahu and his cronies will surely attack again. Trump called them off last week. But this is a man who can change his mind three times before he’s even had breakfast.

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