Iran Bloodied, Israel Scourged — US Prepares for War
The Pentagon’s Gamble • Global Order’s Crucible
By the iron law of repetition — Gaza razed, Yemen pounded, Syria splintered, Iraq neutered, West Bank cowed, Hezbollah decapitated — a nuclear armed Israel, deluded by its own prepotence and led by a leader with Faustian ambition, gambled all; launching a war against Iran, ostensibly over Tehran’s civilian nuclear programme.
Yet this war transcends a contest for regional hegemony. The world order now balances on the arête of Iran’s survival — a death knell for Western hegemony, already reeling from NATO’s defeat in Ukraine, or a hammer blow to the rising multipolar world. For the great powers — America, China, Russia — the stakes are decisive.
The current operational picture remains obscured by the fog of war; the full scope of destruction may never be known. That said, confirmed Israeli strikes have systematically targeted Iran’s critical sectors: nuclear research facilities, energy infrastructure (South Pars, Fajr Jam, Shahran, Shahr Rey), and national transport and trade nodes — ports and airports.
Concurrently, military infrastructure is clearly being targeted — radar arrays and mobile missile launchers, amplified by persistent decapitation operations against senior military leadership, intelligence command echelons, and nuclear scientists.
Targeting Iran's state broadcaster mirrors Israel’s nihilistic war doctrine — contra jus gentium — honed in the Levant.
Yet the cost to Israel has been arguably higher. Whilst Israel heavily censors international journalists covering Iranian missile strikes, images still emerged indicating the destruction of strategic assets.
The power plant, oil refinery, and chemical complex in and around Haifa sustained critical damage, halting operations — alongside countless military, intelligence, and industrial assets nationwide — exposing the failure of vaunted Raytheon and Boeing missile interceptors to defend Israel’s core national infrastructure.
This is not a war for territory, rather a totalising contest to see who can dismantle the other’s nationhood first.
This phase of the war hinges on attrition — whether Iran’s ballistic missile stockpiles or Israel’s interceptors and precision-guided air munitions deplete first. In parallel, runs the proxy war’s tempo — can Western-backed sabotage networks inside Iran sustain drone attacks and ground-launched Spike missile strikes — an anti-tank weapon repurposed for its beyond-line-of-sight (NLOS) capabilities — against critical infrastructure, or will Tehran’s security forces dismantle them?
For now, the conflict remains locked in a reciprocal targeting cycle — but no one assumes this will hold.
That’s because Iran faces a coalition waging war through legal alchemy — a regime-change operation fuelled by laundered sovereignty and outsourced violence. Iraqi and Syrian airspace is weaponised without consent; British Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus and Azeri air corridors serve as near-untouchable platforms; whilst Gulf states publicly forbid attacks from their soil even as their radar networks guide missile interceptors targeting Iranian retaliation.
This is warfare through a jurisdictional shell game; every element — fuel from NATO tankers, bases on borrowed territory, targeting data from 'neutral' partners — forges a kill chain Tehran cannot disrupt without striking sovereign soil and inviting catastrophic escalation. Israel and its patrons thus fight with subcontractors and legal cover, forcing Iran to either absorb attrition or launch aggression against third nations.
The chain reaction detonation for Israel and Iran is whether the US will escalate to direct strikes. Trump’s fork-tongued rhetoric — demanding Iran’s unconditional surrender one moment, dangling negotiations the next — likely reflects strategic ambiguity or necessary appeasement of his party’s extremist war hawks.
Historian Gilbert Doctorow frames Trump’s operating environment as a world of "jackals and depraved elites: ”European leaders ("save Hungary and Slovakia") and Washington’s "war-mongering Congress." In such a world, "judging Trump requires acknowledging this brutality."
Deployments eclipse words as the US military buildup in the Middle East continues apace. At least 28 aerial refuelling aircraft, among them KC-135R Stratotankers and KC-46 Pegasus, relocated from bases across the US to forward operating bases in Europe and the Middle East. Two carrier strike groups — the USS Nimitz and the USS Carl Vinson — have deployed to the eastern Mediterranean, reinforced by three guided missile destroyers and multiple squadrons of fighter jets.
Europe mirrors this posture with two carrier strike groups in the region, the UK’s, HMS Prince of Wales and Italy’s ITS Cavour, positioning to double Western carrier strike capacity.
Unconfirmed reports suggest Pakistani military hardware is crossing into Iran by land, whilst a Chinese PLA transport aircraft — payload unknown — has touched down in Iran. Russia, too, may be transferring ELINT/SIGINT capabilities, significantly bolstering Iran’s defence — consistent with their 47-article partnership treaty.
The PLA flight could potentially explain Tehran’s rapid replacement of destroyed radar systems at the Subashi site, which provides critical coverage over Western Iran.
Whilst China and Russia may be providing advisory support, intelligence, and security assistance, direct transfers of advanced military hardware remain unlikely in the short-to-medium term — fielding new systems demands significant time. Time Iran does not have.
That acknowledged, the threshold for escalation remains increasingly perilous. The prospect of NATO engagement — whether through layered proxy conflict or calibrated confrontation — against an emergent, if informal, coalition supporting Tehran cannot be discounted. Amidst consolidating alignment between Moscow, Beijing, and Islamabad, will Washington pause — to weigh cascading consequences — or march into another war? History suggests the latter.
Iran’s defeat would undermine multipolarity — dealing a strategic blow to China and Russia — reinforcing Lebanese Jaafari Mufti Ahmad Qabalan’s ultimatum: “Unite with Iran now in this existential fight or forfeit your last chance for regional salvation against Western domination.”
The stakes are clear; the opportunity for Washington lies beyond temptation. Iran’s geographic significance defies simplification: it borders seven states, commands the Strait of Hormuz — a global energy chokepoint — and dominates the Caspian littoral alongside four northern powers.
As Eurasia’s indispensable crossroads (rivaled only by Turkey), Iran controls land corridors to Ankara, Islamabad, and Central Asia — with Afghanistan’s passes threading into Xinjiang. Maritime reach extends to the Arabian Peninsula, Mediterranean, Africa, and Russia’s southern flank. All anchored by hydrocarbon reserves on a planetary scale.
Why delay? War with Iran presents a profound cost calculus — can Washington absorb them?
Failure would end Trump’s presidency midterm, devastate Israel further, and destabilise global markets.
Can he launch performative strikes, claim victory, and walk away? No. The die is cast.
He faces the altar of consequences he built.
