More than 72 hours after the US and Israel launched what they described as a preemptive strike against Iran, the world is waking up to a grim reality: the Middle East has entered a regional war that is rapidly spinning out of control. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have declared regime change as the campaign’s central objective — and achieving it has become the sole measure of victory.
Yet, for all the clarity of that stated goal, the justifications for launching what is fast becoming a globally disruptive regional war remain strikingly thin. Trump accused Iran of failing to meet US demands after three rounds of negotiations, even as Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi — the key mediator in US-Iran nuclear talks — assured Washington that a historic agreement was within reach.
The US president then claimed he had ordered the strikes because Iran was on the verge of launching a preemptive attack of its own. Earlier, he had warned that Iran had developed long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Europe and could soon even strike America.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, told a congressional committee on Monday that the US had joined the campaign because Israel was intent on striking Iran with or without American participation. Last week, he also conceded that Iran had not resumed uranium enrichment.
As US officials struggled to build a credible case for the attacks on Iran, the Israelis were far more candid
Osama Al-Sharif
As US officials struggled to build a credible case for what has been widely dubbed a war of choice, the Israelis were far more candid. Netanyahu acknowledged that he had been working toward this war for decades, recalled his long-held opposition to the 2015 nuclear deal agreed under President Barack Obama and framed Israel’s campaign against Iran in openly existential terms.
That neither the US nor Israel had any legal basis for attacking Iran speaks volumes about how Trump’s unilateral approach to foreign policy operates. On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that the US would not fight a “politically correct” war and would not be bound by international law or rules of engagement — brazenly asserting that, while the US did not start this war, it would finish it. He added, without apparent irony, that while regime change was not the stated objective, the regime in Tehran had nonetheless changed.
The opening strikes decapitated Iran’s political and military leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Yet the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps survived and responded with a barrage of missiles targeting Israel, US bases in the region and sites across several Gulf states. By striking civilian, economic and commercial targets in neighboring Gulf countries, Iran forfeited whatever sympathy it might have commanded as the aggrieved party.
In a single move, Tehran transformed itself from victim to aggressor — a strategic blunder whose consequences will reverberate for years. For Jordan, already bearing the strain of regional displacement and economic fragility, the expansion of the conflict into its airspace and onto its soil marked a dangerous escalation that it neither invited nor can afford.
The sudden expansion of the conflict has sent shock waves across global markets. Energy prices spiked as Iran moved to close the Strait of Hormuz and target oil tankers in Gulf waters. But the economic stakes extend well beyond oil. The Gulf states are today deeply embedded in the architecture of the global economy — as sovereign wealth fund investors, financers of critical industries and, increasingly, as anchor partners in the US technology sector. Saudi, Emirati and Qatari capital has flowed into American artificial intelligence ventures, data infrastructure and strategic industries at a scale that makes regional instability a direct threat to US markets.
A prolonged conflict that destabilizes Gulf economies would not remain a Middle Eastern problem for long; its reverberations would be felt on Wall Street and across the investment landscape that underpins American economic confidence.
Meanwhile, US and Israeli strikes aimed at collapsing the regime have yet to yield decisive results. Military strategists broadly agree that there is no historical precedent for achieving regime change through air power alone. By declaring the destruction of the Islamic Republic as their objective, the US and Israel have guaranteed that Tehran is now fighting its own existential war. Whatever new leadership emerges will be in no position to seek compromise — the IRGC will resist to the end and any attempt at a negotiated settlement, let alone one involving Israel, will be untenable.
Iran’s targeting of Gulf states appears to be a deliberate strategy to cripple the global economy, raise the stakes of the conflict and prolong it long enough to generate a regional and international backlash against Washington and Tel Aviv. The IRGC’s calculus is simple: the only path to victory is to survive the onslaught while driving up the cost of the war for everyone else.
This raises an urgent question: What does Trump do if the conflict drags beyond the four-week timeline he appears to have set for himself? Already, only about one in four Americans support the war. Within the Make America Great Again movement, opinion is divided, with a growing number viewing the campaign as a betrayal of the “no foreign wars” and “America First” principles on which Trump was elected.
For the IRGC, the only path to victory is to survive the onslaught while driving up the cost of the war for everyone else
Osama Al-Sharif
More broadly, American public sentiment is hardening against sacrificing lives and billions of dollars on what many see as Israel’s war, particularly at a time when economic hardship is widespread at home. The political fallout is already being felt. Trump tying his presidency so tightly to Netanyahu’s ambitions risks becoming a defining liability for Republican candidates in the November midterm elections.
Should the war of attrition pass the four-week mark and settle into a stalemate, the consequences would be severe. Continued Iranian attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure could trigger a global economic crisis of the first order. Russia has already warned that the conflict threatens to unleash a new nuclear arms race. The regional fallout would be immense and, in many respects, irreversible.
It would serve Trump well to disentangle himself from Netanyahu, whose ambitions extend well beyond dismantling the Iranian regime. Even a weakened, surviving government in Tehran would likely give way to internal chaos, civil unrest and separatist movements — an outcome Israel may welcome but one that poses grave long-term risks to Gulf stability and regional order.
Israel, moreover, is already moving to consolidate its control over much of southern Lebanon in its drive to eliminate Hezbollah — yet another geopolitical crisis the region can ill afford.
There is little sympathy for the Iranian regime. But this bilateral attack has opened a Pandora’s box and the spillover is already being felt far beyond the region. This is, at its core, a war that no one truly wanted or supported — save Israel, the pro-Israel lobby and a residual faction of hard-liners in Washington.
Trump still has room to pursue a settlement with a weakened Iran, one that could underpin Gulf and regional stability — even over Netanyahu’s objections. He must pause and reckon seriously with what his war of choice is unleashing — for America, for the region and for the world.
- Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News’ point of view
source https://www.arabnews.com/node/2635237
Categories: Arab World, Iran, Iraq, UAE, War, War crimes