The grand strategic design of the US-Israel combine to dominate and overwhelm the Greater Middle East Region (GMER) was emphatic, focused, multi-phased and well executed. It aimed to address Israel’s abiding insecurities and neutralise all its present, potential, real and imagined existential threats. Israel’s overwhelming military preponderance, sphere of influence and strategic reach were to be emphatically established. Its audacious freedom of action, movement and manoeuvre across any/all borders within the region was to be reinforced. This status quo was to be imposed and maintained, imperiously. No challenges to any of the above were to be tolerated from any quarter whatsoever. Thus, Israel’s pre-eminence as the sole hegemon and only nuclear weapon state (NWS) was to become the defining, overwhelming paradigm of the GMER’s strategic environment. In the current war scenario, the unequivocally declared desired end state was to deny Iran all capabilities and capacities to become a competing NWS; the costs in human and material resources thereof, notwithstanding. Israel rode roughshod over all possible ramifications of the consequent regional instability and the worsening geopolitical, geoeconomic and geostrategic paradigms.
This policy perhaps visualised a gradual reduction of Iran’s strategic reach in the GMER by systematically attenuating and neutralising its proxies. Israel’s northern flank was secured by the removal of President Assad’s regime and the installation of a handpicked new Syrian Government. The IDF occupied territories in southern Lebanon and Syria. Hizbollah and Hamas were decapitated and their capacities to launch militant attacks reduced to nought. The Houthis struck a deal with the US and stopped their attacks in the Red Sea/Bab al-Mandab chokepoint, without prejudice to launching missiles at Israel. The overall reduction of Iran’s proxies drastically dwindled its ability to project power in the region and threaten Israel from multiple directions. This encouraged Israel’s freedom of action within the GMER. Earlier, the Israeli Air Force had already done considerable damage to its air defence systems. Iran was thus deemed to be isolated, vulnerable and conditioned for decisive military operations/aggression by the IDF; in effect, the US-Israel combine.
On 13 June 2025, Israel launched its Operation Rising Lion: a multi-domain war effort against Iran. The strategic environment had already been created by the US through a two-pronged deception plan. It distracted and literally blindsided Iran from Israel’s warmongering by embroiling it in unending negotiations on its nuclear programme, while maintaining plausible deniability of any role in the current war. Iran was apparently taken in by the US’s negotiations and naively did not expect any Israeli attack while the talks were on. However, they were surprised by the timing, operational strategy and tactics employed, and the ferocity of the Israeli attack. The Israeli Air Force/IDF initially suppressed and then attacked to destroy the Iranian air defence systems. Thereafter, they attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, especially its uranium enrichment/centrifuge plants and ballistic missile positions. The IDF had already infiltrated its commando/intelligence teams/sleeper cells into Iran, which launched drone attacks on Iranian military installations, air defence and ballistic missile positions from within Iran. As it had done with Hizbollah and Hamas, Israel went in for decapitating the Iranian Army, IRGC, intelligence services, leading nuclear scientists, and some political advisers/leaders too (a new normal?). All these actions were backed by cyber and electronic warfare measures. PM Netanyahu even made an unsuccessful bid to destabilise Iran’s inner front and instigate its public to rise against its own government.
Two major hypotheses emerge. One, the current war ends in a stalemate with neither belligerent attaining its strategic objectives. Israel fails to eliminate Iran’s nuclear programme in totality, while Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain unsatiated. Generally, the current status quo prevails. The US/US-led West supports Israel’s war effort without getting directly embroiled in operations. Two, the US decides to bring the war to a quick and favourable closure by getting directly involved itself. It moves to bludgeon Iran into submission by employing its Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) or the GBU-57 bunker busters to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and especially the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Fordow, thereby dealing it an ostensible fait accompli. The Fordow plant is ensconced deep beneath a mountain near Qom and beyond Israel’s current capacity to destroy it. Any employment of the MOP/GBU-57 also carries with it the dangers of radioactive fallout and nuclear contamination. Could the emergence of dirty bombs be discarded outright? Iran’s nuclear programme could at best get delayed, and yet threaten revival, recuperation. Furthermore, Iran could retaliate by attacking US bases and troops in the Persian Gulf region, oil installations on the Arabian Peninsula/Persian Gulf, and by blocking the Hormuz Straits. The war could rapidly swerve up the escalation ladder to embroil regional–extra-regional players too. PM Netanyahu’s war may yet have unintended consequences for the region, the world and global economies. Negotiations might yet be the preferred way out of this imbroglio.
Iran recovered quite well from the initial shock of the Israeli offensive and within a few hours launched its counter-offensive through incessant missile and drone attacks. It has dented Israel’s confidence in its Iron Dome, as many of its ballistic missiles have managed to hit their targets. The slugfest, however, continues with no clear winner in sight thus far. Will this stalemate—Israel’s inability to overcome Iran—then force President Trump’s hand to bring the war to an expeditious, favourable, decisive closure?
Armageddon is at Iran’s doorstep. (The Creeping Armageddon and Armageddon Creeps On, by this scribe, The Nation, 06 & 15 February 2020 and 30 October & 01 November 2023, respectively). It is truly on the prowl now! The spectre of this Armageddon creeping forth east of Iran (imagined threat) has ominous tidings for the region and beyond!
Imran Malik
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at im.k846@gmail.com and tweets@K846Im.