12-day war

Express Tribune

26-06-2025

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If we take a step backwards and look at the United States' general strategic design over the decades, post-WWII, we find it unconcerned with winning or losing its wars. Rather its purpose has been just to keep starting new wars. If that is correct, no amount of calculation would have stopped the US from attacking Iran.
The US has lost half of the wars it has been involved in, in the Cold War era, like in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon and Cuba; while most of the wars it was involved in post-Cold War were utter failures, like in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. In the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the US does not seem to be winning either. Yet, in the face of unfinished wars, and the colossal destructions they are delivering, the US President comes out and says he is weighing a US attack on Iran.
The US has a long playlist of around 200 interventions, post-WWII, in the name of removing dictators, bringing democracy and countering terrorism. There have been similar playbooks in Iraq, Libya and Syria, wherein leadership was decapitated — with the help of sanctions, economic sabotage, internal revolts and western media propaganda. A playbook that brings all-destruction and no-construction, and the nation ceases to exist as a nation guarded by the state, anymore!
But, as yet, this same playbook has been unsuccessful in Iran, though it has been tried many times. The 2009 Iranian Green Movement, aimed at the removal of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is deemed to be a colour revolution orchestrated by the West. Several dissident Iranians have been allowed to operate political parties in France, Albania and other European states. They are being readied to take the reins of the power in Iran once the Ayatollahs have been compromised. But will Iran face a similar fate?
To the West's chagrin, Iran has learnt from the examples of others. It has successfully undermined colour revolutions against it; disallowed the penetration of foreign-funded militant on its soil; kept dissidents in check; and beaten Western sanction by building indigenous civilian and defence industries and by finding ways to trade with its friends. Iran has rather taken the leap of harbouring its own militias around the Middle East theater, which gives it a regional presence rather than a national one.
So, when the US attacked Iran's nuclear sites with B2-bombers, Iran attacked Israel and a US base in Qatar the very next day. Later Trump announced a ceasefire! Both the Israeli goals of ending Iran's nuclear capabilities and carrying out regime change were abandoned. But what everyone is thinking is, has the war ended or is this just a pause?
Regime change seems to be a daydream, because Ayatollah is not a person, it is an institution that produces, nurtures and educates an assembly of candidates that are potential Ayatollahs. Therefore, removal of one Ayatollah will only bring forth a younger, more energetic Ayatollah.
The people of Iran, who have stood with their leadership in the long decades of sanctions and global isolation, have resolved for themselves that they have to survive this unpredictive West-dominated environment, and believe that they are alone and need to stand united. They have prepared for this war, with long hardships of producing indigenous defence capabilities, including naval ships, fighter jets, missiles and drone. And they have prepared well, by securing their defence and nuclear arsenal in huge tunnels deep down the soil. They have a second tier fighting force in the form of militias that are spread around the country and also beyond borders.
So, when the Americans attack from air, it can bring minimal damage to Iran's underground arsenal hidden in undisclosed locations; if they puts boots on the ground, they will soon be surrounded by revengeful militias; and if they dare attack by sea, they will find the Persian Gulf teeming with small and big Iranian vessels, that will compromise billion-dollar US carriers with their cheaply made missiles.
Moreover, a prolonged war like this would push the US to economic strangulation in an already weak post-2008 recession era. Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, cutting of global oil trade supply, jamming world economy. And it will attack US bases in the region — in Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia — breaking the façade of the global military prowess of the US.
On one side, the US would be attacking Iran, which is a limited, definite, predictable target; whereas on the other, Iran's retaliation would be unpredictable, wide-ranging and potentially destabilising across the region.
Having all this at the back of our minds, we should also consider that this is a new era, a new time. It is not 2001, when the US entered Afghanistan, stayed for 20 years, with the Fed relentlessly churning out dollars, and the US boastful of its superpower status. Now, 25 years later, states around the world are beginning to circumvent the dollar, regional power centres challenging the US have emerged, Western economies are in decline, and the US has been rendered practically irrelevant in most global matters.
At home, the American public is already feeling the pain of unfruitful trade wars and economic isolation, and the burden of a military state. Trump's entry would add the burdens of high oil prices and inflation.
So, what strategic thinking had led the US to enter the war by attacking Iran? If you look at it from their standpoint, they may be thinking that in Iraq, Syria and Libya they have successfully obliterated national cohesion needed to rebuild the political framework and infrastructure of the state. So maybe just by relentlessly bombing all Iranian cities and razing them to the ground they would throw Iran back into the stone age, and with the leftover broken society they would be able to dictate its will and even take out the oil. And Israel would be safer!
The irony is that the US and Israel think they can only feel safe and powerful when others are destroyed and suffering.
So, if Iran shows restraint, it will be for the sake of peace in the wider region and in Asia. But Israel's falling in line with the ceasefire will be due to its embarrassing defeat and heralding an ill-fate for Netanyahu.