Based on the media I consume, the United States and Israel are not exactly running the table in Iran right now. Far from it. The vibe coming off the analysts I listen to – people who track logistics and force posture instead of doing cable-news shadow boxing – is that Washington and Tel Aviv have stretched themselves mad thin. Overextended, oversubscribed, and suddenly discovering that geopolitics is not a video game with infinite ammo and respawns.

Perhaps the most obvious problem – one that even casual observers clock straight away – is the anti-air situation. The United States, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain are all running the same defensive kit. Same systems, same interceptors, same production lines. And those munitions? They’re pricey, slow to manufacture, and already burning down at a reckless pace. Analysts are saying the cupboard could be looking bare by around day twelve or fourteen of a serious war – even if Washington starts yanking batteries from other commands and redeploying them to the Gulf like a desperate shell game.

So, what happens when Uncle Sam can’t keep the sky locked anymore? What happens when the interceptors run dry and the Iranian projectiles start arriving like unwanted parcels? If the United States strips other theatres bare to keep its Gulf friends covered, then someone else in the world suddenly finds themselves standing outside without an umbrella in a storm. South Korea’s already seeing batteries quietly shuffled away, for instance. And inside the Pentagon? You can bet the various commands are already scrapping behind the scenes for those dwindling resources like mandem arguing over who rides shotgun.

Meanwhile the Gulf monarchies – Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain – are sitting on hydrocarbon wealth but not necessarily on deep wells of domestic legitimacy when things start going sideways. Oil money can buy skyscrapers, fighter jets, and Formula One races, but it can’t always buy the kind of popular resilience needed when missiles start landing and infrastructure begins catching serious licks. Reports suggest Washington is already brushing off Gulf requests for more interceptors. Not out of cruelty, necessarily, but out of simple arithmetic: there just aren’t enough to go around.

The sheer folly of this Israeli / American adventure is visible to anyone not sealed inside the Netanyahu-Trump echo chamber. Iran is four times the size of Ukraine and roughly two hundred and seventy times larger than the combined postage stamps of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel spent months flattening the Palestinian territories and still never managed to eradicate Hamas. Russia – one of the largest militaries on Earth (and who switched over to a military economy) – has spent years throwing men and metal into Ukraine without achieving the decisive victory it imagined.

Yet somehow Netanyahu and Trump appear to believe they can humble a country the size of Iran without boots on the ground. It’s a level of strategic optimism that borders on delusion. And even if they convince the Kurds to open a ground front inside Iran, what exactly are a few thousand non-Persian fighters meant to accomplish inside a country that vast? That’s not a plan. That’s not even a concept of a plan.

At some point the international community needs to clock the situation properly and start adjusting its posture. Continuing business as usual with the United States and Israel while Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are steering the ship feels less like diplomacy and more like enabling reckless drivers on the motorway. These are leaders who rule through impulse and grievance, who lean on threats and violence because swinging fists is always easier than doing the slow, boring graft of diplomacy and cooperation.

And perhaps – just perhaps – it is time the global community begins holding them to the same standards that other leaders have faced at The Hague. Because without justice, without accountability, without any meaningful repercussions, the cycle simply continues. Power runs wild, precedent erodes, and the rest of the world is left standing there like civilians in the splash zone, forever at the mercy of leaders who mistake aggression for strength.