Iran vs. Israel: return of the 'Spider Web' theory

Iran scored a political and psychological victory against Israel, but failed to achieve deterrence

By Max Blumenthal

Iran's greatest achievement in its 12 day war with Israel was in reving the Spider Web theory Hasan Nasrallah introduced after Israel's 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon. During his speech proclaiming victory over the Israeli occupiers, the late Hezbollah General Secretary argued that because of its colonial nature, Jewish Israeli society would fracture under sustained military pressure, forcing serious concessions from its elite in order to survive.

When Israel assassinated Nasrallah and forced a ceasefire with Hezbollah in September 2024, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed the death of his theory as well. “Our enemies thought we were like a spider web. That’s what one of them used to say,” said Netanyahu. “What spider web are they talking about? We have tendons of steel — both of will and power.”

Three months later, as Trump entered office, Netanyahu’s coalition remained solid, Jewish Israeli society had recovered its confidence since the shock of October 7, and Tel Aviv believed Washington was firmly under its thumb. Israel’s military was now ready to turn its attention to Iran.

When Israel launched its inevitable assault on Iran this June 13, Iran seemed unprepared. It lost much of its senior IRGC leadership in the initial moments of the raid, along with nine nuclear scientists and valuable military assets. But after the painful opening moments, Iran demonstrated that it could turn the tables, penetrate Israel's Iron Dome, and force Israelis to choose between a sweaty night in cramped shelters or a version of the rubble-strewn horrors they had imposed on Gaza, while hitting a few high value targets from the Defense Ministry to the Weizmann Institute. Despite the degradation of its air defenses, which prevented larger ballistic missile volleys and limited the use of more advanced missiles, Iran managed to score a last minute buzzer beater with a damaging strike on the Israeli city of Beersheba moments before today's ceasefire went into effect. The final moments of Iran’s Operation True Promise 3 completed a political achievement that punctured the colonial psyche of Israel.

Modern Zionism is constructed on the promise that, as Ehud Barak once said, Israelis will experience life in “a villa in the middle the jungle.” Yet just when they thought they had snuffed out the jungle-dwellers of Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen, the walls of their colonial villa began to crack again, and in unprecedented fashion. Billions of dollars of US and EU investment in Israel’s multi-layered air defense system had failed to prevent a mostly older stock of domestically-developed Iranian ballistic missiles from slipping through, piercing the delusions fed to a population accustomed to waging one-sided wars of extermination. Days before the ceasefire, Israel’s Yedioth Ahranoth reported that the country’s supply of interceptor missiles was becoming exhausted, corroborating reports in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post days earlier.

The image of Iranian missiles hitting Microsoft’s office in the Gav-Yam tech park in Beersheva was iconic. Israel’s tech sector forms the backbone of its economy, sustaining its upper middle class, generating valuable start-ups and providing veterans of its military’s vast Unit 8200 with in-country employment after their service ends. While continuous warfare and occupation have fueled the innovation of Israel’s death-tech, its tech sector depends on a supposedly impenetrable air defense system to sustain a stable environment for foreign direct investment. Yet even before it initiated war with Iran, Israel’s foreign direct investment levels were at their lowest point since 2023, and the self-proclaimed “Start Up Nation” was facing yet another credit downgrade. As Israel lifts the official veil of censorship on the destruction it withstood from Iranian strikes, these trends are likely to accelerate.

Perhaps the worst damage Israel suffered was to its image inside the United States, where a large segment of the population (correctly) held its responsible for committing genocide in Gaza. Only about 18% of the US public supported threatening Iran with a US strike, yet Trump went ahead with it anyway, and never even bothered to explain why to the American public. Along the way, he was accused of betrayal by the intellectual architects of America First, Tucker Carlon and Steve Bannon (co-founder of the right-wing outlet, Breitbart, whose launch was inspired by a 2007 meeting in Jerusalem with Netanyahu), while finding his most voluble defenders among Never Trump neocons like the AM radio carnival barker Mark Levin. Only 20% of Republicans under the age of 45 expressed enthusiasm for Trump’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

In an apparent attempt to recover his dignity, Trump erupted with rage at Israel after it violated the ceasefire he claimed credit for engineering. “I’m not happy with Israel,” the president raged as he left the White House on June 24. “When I say, ok, you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them.” He continued, “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard, they basically don’t know what they fuck they’re doing.”

To anyone paying attention, Israel’s overwhelming, malign influence over the US government has become impossible to deny. Regardless of which party controls the White House, the daylight between Washington and Tel Aviv will only widen in the years ahead.

The political damage was not limited to Israel’s traditional base of support in the US. Inside Iran, where Israel had hoped to incite regime change riots by mauling the IRGC and symbols of the Islamic Republic, diverse sectors of the public rallied around the flag. In Tehran, residents handed out watermelon and treats to those queuing in cars for gasoline, while massive rallies erupted across the country in support of the war. Young women delivered viral tirades of defiance, including one hijabless Iranian declaring, “Death to Israel! Fuck Netanyahu!” and even professional, US-funded regime change activists like Masih Alinejad reacted with dismay at Israel’s targeting of Iranian civilians. “Shah” Reza Pahlavi, the failson of the Iran’s last king, who eagerly embraced Israeli support in his bid for regime change, has been discredited as a viable contender. If Ayatollah Ali Khameini reappears to address his country during upcoming Muharram observances, his words will reverberate with unprecedented power across the Muslim world.

To be sure, Israel delivered heavy blows to Iran’s military leadership, its air defenses and economy. Yet Israel’s assassinations of a swath of top IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists did not affect Iran’s ability to hit back, or alter the calculus of its plans. The Islamic Republic has demonstrated the resiliency of a system that has trained thousands of cadres to replace leaders eliminated in war, and which maintains viable institutions despite decades of sanctions. In the end, Iran fulfilled its defensive doctrine by withstanding the initial onslaught, responding against militarily superior foes without falling into an escalatory trap, and avoiding major political concessions.

But as the dust clears, Iran faces some pressing questions: Can it can improve its air defense systems to prevent Israel from attacking at will as it does in Lebanon and Syria? And can the uranium stockpile it supposedly removed from its Fordow facility in the days before the US strike be transferred to a safe facility, where the enrichment process can continue?

Iran may have scored a political and psychological victory against Israel, but it failed to achieve deterrence. The ceasefire is therefore likely to serve as an interregnum, as Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir acknowledged when he stated, “The war is not over. A new phase lies ahead.” This means more assassinations, and further acts of sabotage like the explosions witnessed at Shahid Rajaee port this April.

Israel’s military-intelligence elite clearly believe they are in a race against time. After 21 months of grinding conflict, a political upheaval could be just over the horizon, unraveling the spider web that surrounds them.