By Ameer Ali –

Dr. Ameer Ali

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is proud to be the target of the rage of the world’s greatest Satan” (Ali Khamenei)

“If the invaders reach Iran the country will turn into a burning hell for them” (Mohamed Khatami)

Iran–Israel aerial military confrontation is the latest and potentially the most dangerous act in the post-World War I mega-plot to redesign the Middle East to serve the imperial aspirations of Western powers. It was the American naval geographer Alfred Thayer Mahan who launched the phrase Middle East along with two other the Near East and Far East, and Zionism was planted in Palestine as the centrepiece of the choreographed reordering of that entire region after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 was a secret plot hatched by Britain and France with tacit agreement from Imperial Russia to carve out the middle eastern enclaves of the fallen Ottoman Empire into respective zones of influence for the two imperial powers. After World War II the caesarean birth of Israel in 1948 was an essential part of that choreography. Once the imperial leadership changed hands from Britain to US, Israel became the gatekeeper of the new imperial master, and it was surreptitiously assisted by US to acquire nuclear weapons although John F. Kennedy came to regret that assistance later.

The long-awaited aerial military showdown between Iran and Israel has begun in earnest with the usual dish of misinformation and propaganda served by the Western media including Al-Jazeera. As Chris Hedges noted in his column to Counter Punch (16 June 2025), while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was saying that US was “not involved in strikes against Iran” Israel claimed that every phase of the attack was “closely coordinated with Pentagon” and that US provided “exquisite intelligence” to Israel. Trump urging millions of Iranians to evacuate their residences in Tehran reveals that he was informed by Israel what was going to happen. Therefore, Israel’s bombing attack was a carefully coordinated piece endorsed by Pentagon. Yet, Netanyahu’s claim that Israel has total control over Iranian sky does not explain why Iranian missiles are still falling on Tel Aviv and why Israelis are leaving their country by sea.  Israeli air defence system is reported to be crumbling according to Palestinian sources and unless US replenish with new stock Israel will not be able to hold long. Netanyahu is now desperately pleading for Trump to enter the war directly. Although Trump has called for “unconditional surrender” from Iran he should realise that Iran is not a walk over to any power.   

There is also another view that Israel started this bombing partly because Netanyahu and his Zionist cabal wanted to sabotage the US-Iran nuclear talks which was progressing smoothly and partly to divert world’s attention from Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Israel is also reported to have reduced its military personnel from Gaza to take care of possible attacks from Iran-backed Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and militias from Syria.      

Iran, the 17^th largest country in the world with a population of around 90 million with strategic military alliances with Russia and China is not an easy prey like Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Libya or Syria for Israel and or US to subdue. Iran has no nuclear weapons yet. But nuclear facilities are developed in three sites Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan. By 2024, Iran was reported to have reached a level of 60% uranium enrichment with 90% purity required to produce nuclear weapons. This is why Israel considers Iran an existential threat. But no power on earth could stop that country from developing its own nuclear strength. If Israel could possess nuclear weapons on what logic or rationale could US or any power disallow other countries in Middle East to possess such weapons to maintain balance of power? In fact, Iran’s nuclear program was initiated by US during the puppet regime of the Shah. At that time Israel did not raise any objection. It was the 1979 Islamic Revolution which crippled that link and the country started developing its own independent nuclear defence system with assistance from other sources.

If the current confrontation between Iran and the US-Israel duo continues there are three possible but dangerous global consequences as Manoj Joshi explains in “Trump, Iran and the Nuclear Deal: A Slow-Motion Crisis” published in Observer Research Foundation (4 April 2025). Firstly, there is no assurance that the duo could neutralise all Iranian facilities, which will paradoxically increase Iran’s resolve to make and use nuclear weapons. Secondly, if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz the artery which allows 20% of world oil supply and one-fifth of LNG to pass through, energy prices would skyrocket and the cost-of-living pandemic which has afflicted almost every economy in the world would certainly worsen. And thirdly, there could be humanitarian consequences arising from radioactive contamination if nuclear facilities were to be struck.

In addition to these consequences, there is also a possibility of another wave of Islamic resurgence to emerge as happened soon after the Iranian Revolution. In the 1980s, when the capitalist world was in the grip of stagflation a new generation of educated Muslims from several parts of the Muslim world agitated for an end to the ruling World Order and demanded a new one based on Islamic values or norms. That movement had a natural death partly because the new Islamic world order did not have a blueprint and partly because US and its allies were able to exploit quite successfully the historic Shia-Sunni division in Islam and kept on drumming the fact that the Iranian Revolution and the subsequent wave of resurgence were a Shia inspired phenomenon and that the Sunni majority must stick to its peaceful and reformist path for change. All that happened at the end was the establishment of a few Islamic banks operating without an Islamic Central Bank and the opening of a few Islamic universities. The more committed of the Islamists however resorted to violent means to achieve their objective and were portrayed by the West as terrorists. The term terrorism thus owes its origin to the Islamic Revolution.

The genocide unleashed by Israel in Gaza and Israel’s bombing of Iran has been justified by G7 countries as “self-defence” for political reasons. In fact, the entire Global North along with puppet Arab regimes shed crocodile tears for the calculated death of tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children with starvation as a premeditated weapon. Donald Trump wants to destroy Iran at any cost. So far Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansarullah and other pro-Palestinian and pro-Iranian outfits have not coordinated their response to the Iran-Israel-US confrontation, and only Pakistan from the Sunni world has openly declared its support to Iran. The silence of the pro-Iranian outfits is potentially more dangerous than their open tit for tat retaliation. If the war continues a second wave of Islamic resurgence to destabilize the Sunni Muslim regimes in the Middle East is a strong possibility.   

Above all, events in the Middle East exposes the weakness of a declining superpower and the moral bankruptcy of the world order. US is declining economically, politically, culturally and even morally. This why Trump is panicking to hold on to his world leadership amidst cracks appearing in G7, AUKUS and other Western alliances. How China and Russia are going to play their cards in the Middle East crisis is not clear. Trump’s domestic crisis should not be isolated from the systemic crisis engulfing the world order. If Trump foolishly enters the Iran-Israeli confrontation on behalf of Israel that could bring incalculable consequences and thankfully could provide the catalyst for a systemic change and birth of a new world order.

Finally, Netanyahu claims that Israel’s war against Iran is partly to topple Iran’s ruling regime. Ironically if the war continues it will be the regime in Tel Aviv that would become the casualty.