Before February 28, 2026, (that is about three weeks ago) the main topic of discussion among analysts of geo-politics was on the declining status of the United States of America as global hegemon.
On parameters of judgement including economic performance, global trade and commerce, innovation, research, military power, political and diplomatic influence, analysts across the world were coming round to the conclusion that indeed the US, long the dominant global power, was however being aggressively challenged by a rising new power, the People’s Republic of China. Although there is no agreement among analysts on the exact date that China would eventually overtake the US in all those fields and become the numero uno in the world, the convergence point is that in the not too distant future if China kept its exponential strides in those areas, it stood the chance of toppling the United States of America in global power reckoning.
Then on February 28, President Donald Trump of the United States, perhaps in a wild rush of blood to his head, took the unprecedented and potentially game changing step of attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran thereby handing the Chinese a gilt-edged advantage in the global geo-political race between the two.
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It has been over three weeks now since the United States and Israel launched what he thought was a decapitating strike on the Iranian leadership which he hoped would bring about regime change in the country paving way for the installation of a friendly, malleable government. Yes, the past three weeks have seen quite a remarkable turn of events in Iran; the killing of several leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran including the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as well as hundreds of bombing sorties targeting Iranian military and civil infrastructure designed to “obliterate” the country’s strike capability against the invading American and Israeli forces, and in launching counter attacks at US military bases stationed in the region which the Iranians had threatened to do if attacked.
Keen watchers of the on-going American/Israeli-Iran war have observed the following;
Regime change for different reasons.
Both the US and Israel desire regime change in Iran as an overarching objective. But where they differ significantly is that the US wants to replace the government with a pliant one in order to exert firm control over the vast oil and gas resources of the country. This is a throwback to the 1953 “Operation Ajax” in which a joint CIA and MI6 operation overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government of Mohammed Mosadeqh for daring to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company. Mossadeqh was replaced by the Monarchy of Shah Reza Pahlavi who ruled until 1979 when he was overthrown in a revolution led by the Islamic mullah’s currently in power.
In the current situation, President Trump’s America is alarmed at the close oil deals between Iran and China in which the transaction is done mostly in Chinese currency the Yuan which the Americans see as a threat to the petrodollar denomination of global crude oil sales. A successful regime change in Iran engineered by the Americans would not only halt this trend, but also ensure that China’s access to the vast Iranian oil and gas resources is controlled and determined by the Americans through their puppet regime in Iran. That way, the Americans can cut off the Chinese economy from sources of vital energy resources necessary to sustain its galloping economic growth. This is almost a replay of the Anglo-French measures in the nineteenth century taken to restrict a rapidly industrialising Germany from access to raw materials and energy resources around the world.
The Israelis want regime change in Iran for the purpose of pursuing their dream of Eretz Yisrael or Greater Israel in which all lands in the Middle East will come under the dominance and control of a supra national Israeli State as envisaged by the founder of the World Zionist Movement, Theodor Herzl. The Israelis consider Iran vital to the realisation of this vision. Once Iran is taken, the next target is Turkiye as mentioned by several Israeli leaders like former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet. By the reckoning of Israeli leaders following the capitulation and pacification of virtually all the Arab countries under a joint Americo-Israeli control, Iran and Turkiye remain the only obstacles to be subdued for the goal of “Greater Israel” project to be realised.
Iran’s vigorous counter attack has upped the ante
Three weeks into the American-Israeli war on Iran the goal of regime change envisaged by the Americans and Israelis appear to be going pear shaped.
The Iranians have not only been able to absorb punishing American bombardments and the loss of several leaders in the process, they have struck back tellingly at the military and strategic assets of the US in the region. The Iranians have also subjected Israel to a barrage of missile attacks targeting sensitive infrastructure and several leaders of the Israeli government and military.
Some estimates have it that Iran has substantially wiped out up to 70 per cent of America’s military assets drastically degrading America’s power projection capabilities in the Middle East. In Israel, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and other cities are now reduced to near rubble. This unprecedented development in the history of Israel’s wars in the Middle East has now cast a dark shadow over the arching goal of “Greater Israel” as the cold reality of the present situation forces the state of Israel consider the priority of the survival of the current Israeli state over the grandiose vision of a supra national Israeli state.
From developments in the on-going war in the Middle East, it seems clear now that the expectations of the US and Israel in launching the attack on Iran on the February 28 may not be realised within the relative short time frame envisaged. We may have to expect that the war will be long drawn as the Iranians have so far seized the momentum. Experts expect the US and Israel with their technological superiority to dominate the air space over Iran in the war. But it is the Iranians with their mastery of the missile exchanges that have seized global attention. And this has led to the expectation that the war might bring forth a strategic restructuring/redrawing of the Middle East and the World.
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The immediate observable fallout from the conflict is that while the Americans and Israelis have approached the war mainly from a tactical perspective of regime change through bombing Iran to submission, the Iranians, however, from their missile warfare are focused on the strategic goal of destroying the entire super structure of American military and strategic power projection and enforcement in the Middle east.
In other words, for the Americans and Israelis the goal is not necessarily to remove Iran from the map but to pacify it just as they did Syria, Iraq or Libya where they aim to implant a pliant government that will do their bidding.
But the Iranians do not want to be Syrianized; they instead want to wipe out Israel from the Middle East as they have always threatened. What is more, they want to effectively dismantle all the assets of American power in the region including military bases, oil and gas installations established and run with American assistance as well as structures that had given the US a strategic dominance in the region for decades enabling it to play the role of global hegemon it now enjoys.
How is this likely to play out eventually?
(To be continued)