While the nuclear agreement with Tehran was sold to the American people through elaborate deceptions, writes Ben Cohen, its effects are all too real. Among them is the fact that eight years of efforts to realign the U.S. with the Islamic Republic have created policies that will be difficult to reverse:

The expectation that the [deal] would lead to a new era of Iranian power has come to pass. The Iranians do not have carte blanche to do as they please, but any restraints on them are likely to be imposed by the Russians rather than the Americans.

What started as a delusion stoked by the Obama administration has now become a strategic point of departure. The two key measures for dealing with Iranian aggression—robust sanctions and military action—have virtually disappeared at a time when the war in Syria is intensifying and fears of a new Hizballah assault on Israel are increasing. For that reason, the question of why so many influential Americans bought into the Iran delusion will be superseded by a much more urgent one: how to stop the Iranian advance during the next American presidency.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.