In a sweeping essay published by L’Express, French political scientist Gilles Kepel argues that

In a sweeping essay published by L’Express, French political scientist Gilles Kepel argues that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, both politically weakened after recent election setbacks, could be tempted by what he calls a “flight forward” — a large-scale military strike against Iran, potentially involving a nuclear weapon. Kepel frames the scenario as speculation about what desperate leaders might contemplate, not as a confirmed plan, and he questions whether such a strike would even solve the political problems facing either man.

The essay, which draws on the political fallout of recent elections in Israel and the United States, contends that both leaders find themselves in positions of unusual fragility. Kepel writes that Netanyahu’s Likud party finished first in Israel’s election but failed to secure a governing majority, leaving Arab-Israeli parties — which won 19 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, according to the essay — in a kingmaker role. Forming a coalition around former military chief Gadi Eisenkot would carry such a heavy political price, Kepel argues, that the deadlock could persist. On the American side, the essay notes that Democrats fell short of the two-thirds Senate majority needed to convict in an impeachment trial, leaving Trump protected from removal until the end of his term.

The Strike Scenario Kepel Describes

According to the essay, a caretaker Netanyahu might see a major military strike on Iran as an escape route from political paralysis. Kepel writes that only a nuclear charge, in his telling, could neutralize deeply buried Iranian nuclear facilities — he refers to a site known as the “montagne de la pioche,” which the essay describes as being dug 150 meters into granite. Kepel adds that such an operation could only happen in coordination with Trump, who, in the essay’s account, would have a roughly two-month “window of opportunity” before a new Congress convenes in January 2027.

Kepel is explicit that this is a warning about a temptation, not a report of an imminent operation. No government has announced any such plan. The essay itself emphasizes the catastrophic radioactive consequences for Iran and the region, the lack of certainty that Tehran would capitulate, and the unexamined reactions of nuclear powers Russia and China.

Why Kepel Says the Strike Would Not Fix the Real Problem

The core of the essay’s argument is that even if a strike happened, it would not resolve the impasse for two leaders who, Kepel writes, cling to power all the more because they fear the legal reckoning that may await them once they leave office. He calls their personal stakes crucial but “derisory” when weighed against the apocalypse contemplated — and blind, he argues, to the deeper identity and social upheavals that the recent elections reflect.

Kepel points to the mass electoral mobilization of Arab Israeli citizens — roughly 20 percent of the country’s population, in the essay’s framing — as exposing what he calls the blind spot of mainstream Zionist doctrine: the political impossibility of continuing to ignore the non-Jewish citizens of the state. He warns that if this challenge goes unanswered, Israel’s democratic institutions will malfunction.

The Wider Shifts Kepel Ties to the Moment

The essay closes by tying these anxieties to artificial intelligence, which Kepel says is being used both to enable mass killing and to displace intellectual labor, hollowing out the sense of security and social mobility that education once promised younger generations.

What Kepel Says Comes Next

In the essay’s telling, the immediate horizon is defined by institutional deadlines: a new U.S. Congress convening in January 2027 and the French presidential election in April 2027, both of which Kepel says will be shaped by the identity and security anxieties his essay describes. He warns that a nuclear strike on Iran would not only devastate the Middle East and the Persian Gulf but would act as a powerful accelerant for the identity divisions already tearing at Western societies.

Kepel, author of “Pèlerinage français : comprendre les failles de notre identité” (Albin Michel), published the essay on L’Express. The nuclear-strike scenario remains his analytical warning about political desperation — not a reported government plan.