Will Israel adopt the Samson’s option?

In Samson and Delilah, the Hollywood classic created before the purge of all the progressives during the McCarthy era, Sampson –like Orpheus, another mythical character — revelled in carnal pleasures was ultimately betrayed by his beloved the beautiful queen. Blinded by the kings’ men he brought the entire Temple down through his brute strength killing the king, his subjects and dying beneath Temple’s rubble.

In his incisive book “I’ll burn the bridge when I reach there,” Norman Finkelstein fuses the figures of Sampson and Cassandra, a Trojan princess, who spurned the advances of Apollo and cursed by him, she lost the power of convincing people to believe in her true prophecies. Akin to Cassandra, he writes, a woman, an inmate of concentration camp predicted the slaughter of all Jews, but no one believed her. Her prophesy finally came true. Finkelstein prophesies, “Israel being a crazy state is pursuing the Samson’s option”.

It seems Finkelstein’s observation was not far from truth. By attacking Iran, Israel may have cracked open the doors for Sampson’s option. After successive triumphs — from Iraq to Libya to Syria — the US proxy in the Middle East has decided to destroy the last bulwark of resistance, Iran, with the help of its mentor and willing collaborator, the US.

As if the genocide perpetrating by it in the occupied Palestine was not enough the imperialist alliance deceived Iran by engaging it in a dialogue. Before the farce could proceed further, Israel was given the green signal to attack Iran. Emboldened by the outcome of the1967 war, Israel attacked Iran inflicting serious damage to its war machine, killing its nuclear scientists, nearly 80 civilians and inflicting some damage to its nuclear infrastructure in Nantz.

But to its dismay it was neither 1967, nor its opponents were the Arab leaders. Nasser and Hafizul Assad were ensnared by the US assurances of Israeli non-aggression—only to be betrayed in a classic act of US-Israeli duplicity. The ‘pre-emptive’ strike by the US proxy destroyed Egyptian and Syrian airpower. It was the death knell for Arab nationalism. They not only lost Gaza but the West Bank as well, latter a part of Jordan the eternal Israeli collaborator.

The assault on Iran followed the similar script; sudden, unprovoked, launched amid diplomatic negotiations. A rude shock, a blitzkrieg, another massacre no one expected. But killing spree is a favourite pastime of the Zionist entity. Its necrophilia knows no bounds. With the continued genocide in Gaza and the West Bank where, according to Lancet, 400,000 civilians have been assassinated in the cold blood, the 80 plus Iranians were merely a ‘one-time meal’ for the Cyclops. Once again, the US lost its face and credibility, if it ever had any.

After the fall of Assad and after Trump received Golani — a known terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head — as a guest of honour, not only Iran but entire world knew about the next target. Iran standing alone between the Palestinians liberation and imperialism has learned from experience about Israeli tactics of attacking by surprise. It must have dispersed its weapons hidden beyond the reach of US logistics and Israel’s hyped AI surveillance.

Iran was privy to the history of European and American betrayal of Russia. As Angella Merkel admitted that the whole idea behind Minsk agreements was to buy time and prepare Ukraine for a protracted war with Russia. The only difference was that the Minsk accord was concluded but the Oman dialogue was unceremoniously ditched because of Israeli Illegal war on Iran.

When imperialism was celebrating the losses it inflicted on Iran, to their bewilderment Iran retaliated like a wounded lion, hitting devastatingly on Kirya, Israeli equivalents to Pentagon, and its nuclear facilities in Dimona. When Israel started to attack on Iranian oil installation, Iran targeted Haifa that fuels the Israeli war machine.

For the first time in their history Israelis have seen part of Tel Aviv in rubbles, corpses buried beneath the debris. The Israelis have never felt any repentance on the dead and alive Palestinians interred under the rubble of Gaza for they are Amalekites—the expendable ones. Reality has come to haunt them. “There is something in human history like retribution,” Marx says, “and it is a rule of historical retribution that its instrument be forged not by the offended, but by the offender himself.”

No one can predict the outcome of this war, but Iranian attack has changed the asymmetrical balance of force.

David Attenborough has poetically put it, “The strike, deliberate and precise came not with power but with a message. In a single bold operation Iran attacked at the heart of a symbol, a symbol of invincibility, of technological superiority, of pride carefully curated over years of dominance. What was crushed was not merely a facility, or defence system, it was perception. It was the illusion that one nation stood above challenge….”

Iran being a signatory of Non-Proliferation Treaty neither possesses a nuclear bomb nor is it seeking for one. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is a stooge of the US and Israel. Anything open to its inspection is open to the imperialist nexus. It twists the facts, mutilates and adjust them according to the desire of its masters. Its politically motivated resolution censuring Iran over its nuclear programme gave Israel a reason to attack a sovereign nation with impunity.

For Iran it is an existential war. Not a war of regime change, alone, but of balkanization of the state of Iran. Much will depend how long the conflict prolongs. The longer it will last the sign of exhaustion already apparent in Israeli public, its crumbling economy, perpetually living in a state of war will bring bigger fissures in its public afflicted with “chosen people syndrome”. The entity itself could become an unnecessary baggage for the US to piggyback.

Iran has neither started the war nor can prolong or stop it. This will entirely depend upon the US and its western marionettes who unsurprisingly failed to condemn the Israeli aggression against a sovereign state.

Iran is careful not to engage the US directly in the war. Though it seems to be heavily infiltrated by CIA and Mossad, yet the AIPAC and Mirim Adelson — who contributed 100 million to Trump’s election campaign — would like to engage the US in a full-scale war with Iran to protect the apartheid entity.

On Iranian side, Ansarullah in Yemen is already active against the apartheid entity. Hamas continues to inflict causalities on its army. Hezbollah and Iraqi resistance may yet rise. If Iran has indeed destroyed the three F35 planes with its homemade weapons, it’s not only its remarkable achievement but it means the American technology is not invincible.

What other options does Iran have? After fully supporting Russia against Ukraine, supplying the former with thousands of drones that crippled its enemy, it’s time for Russians to repay not in words but in deeds. But Russia has complex ties with Israel though it has strongly condemned the Israeli aggression but how far those words translate into action is anyone’s guess.

China has condemned the attack unequivocally, but China has close partnership with Israel. Right now, it is involved in building the port of Haifa, a port on the hit list of Iran.

Both Russia and China understand that the fall of Iran — especially when the US is relentlessly supplying weapons to Israel — would mean encircling China, a long cherished neo-cons dream. Israel is allegedly attacking Iran using the airbases of Baku in Azerbaijan. If Iran stands at the crossroads of history, so too do Russia and China—for the fall of one may spell encirclement for the others.

No empire — especially a decaying one — bets on a lame Trojan horse. These are relationships of interest, not affection. Ukraine is already becoming a liability for the United States, and Israel appears to be following the same trajectory. When liabilities outweigh strategic value, the US will not hesitate to get rid of its useless assets.

The moment of truth may not have arrived yet—but it will. And when it does, what options will Israel have? It has already become a global pariah. A rogue regime with its back against the wall is capable of anything.

Will it unleash nuclear devastation on Iran, even at the cost of its own annihilation? If so, it would fulfill the terrifying prophecy Finkelstein alluded to, the Samson Option—a final, apocalyptic act of mutual destruction.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025