The domino doctrine by John Kato

In a recent Fox News interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu peeled back the diplomatic mask with unsettling clarity. Speaking not in veiled terms or strategic ambiguity, but with the assured tone of a man reciting fate, Netanyahu revealed a chilling simplicity: Iran’s future is of no interest to him beyond its dismemberment. The goal, as he framed it, is nothing short of weakening, destabilizing, and ultimately puppeteering a regional rival. Not through engagement or diplomacy, but through brute force and calculated erosion. Not just a doctrine of deterrence, but one of domination. But perhaps most troubling isn’t the content, it’s the precedent.

When Netanyahu speaks, others listen. Not out of admiration, but calculation. He is a political survivor, a Machiavellian chess player with decades of experience navigating war, peace, and the murky in-betweens. And now, with this public display of hubris dressed as strategy, he has offered more than a geopolitical confession. He has provided a blueprint. Call it the “Domino Doctrine.”

Picture this: Narendra Modi watches Netanyahu and thinks, “If he can openly say it, why can’t I?” Why not apply the same template to Pakistan? Frame it as preemptive security, stoke nationalism, rewrite red lines. After all, the world shrugs and scrolls. China, already tiptoeing along the straits, may see Netanyahu’s words not as a threat, but an endorsement. Why bother convincing the world of your legitimacy when the world no longer demands justification?

North Korea never needed a green light—but even they must appreciate the sudden normalization of brinkmanship-as-policy. And then there’s Putin. Not theorizing. Not fantasizing. But doing. Ukraine burns as Europe tiptoes, and Netanyahu’s words echo comfortably in Kremlin corridors. And looming in the background like a half-remembered prophecy is Donald J. Trump.

What will his next move be, should the electoral pendulum swing back his way? He doesn’t have to start a war. He only needs to let one happen. In this new age, inaction can be as powerful as intervention. Or worse, what if he decides to play kingmaker again? Who will be “lucky” enough to be reshaped, destabilized, made an example of? Eastern Europe? The Balkans? A quiet Baltic nation with the wrong border?

Netanyahu’s interview did more than outline Israeli policy. It cracked open a dangerous philosophical door. It wasn't merely about Iran, it was about power, legacy, and the audacity of acting without consequence. He spoke like a man who believes history will vindicate him because he will be the one to write it. And in that cold arithmetic, every rival is fair game, every cost justified.

But history isn’t written by victors, it’s judged by survivors. And what Netanyahu, Modi, Xi, Putin, and others forget is that every empire built on fear, surveillance, and suppression eventually becomes a cautionary tale in a high school textbook.

Netanyahu has not only revealed his intent, he’s modeled a new political cynicism. One where sovereignty is optional, borders are fluid, and the only real crime is losing. In this world, international law is a joke, diplomacy is weakness, and the only sin is failing to act with ruthless efficiency.

We should be terrified. Because in the age of the Domino Doctrine, today’s silence becomes tomorrow’s complicity.