Futility Of Fury: War On Iran And The Illusion Of Strategic Victory

A week into the United States and Israeli attacks on Iran there have been lies, damned lies and then contradictions to cover them up. Just as the Oman-mediated negotiations in Geneva showed some breakthrough with the announcement by Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi of Iran’s commitment to zero stockpiling of uranium, the Israelis and the Americans attacked Iran. There was a repeat of the pattern that preceded the 12-day war in June 2025 which had started even as Oman conducted talks to prevent war. The current round of strikes followed a mere eight months after the 12-day war. If the US was successful in obliterating Iran’s nuclear ambitions as Trump claimed back in June 2025, then this attack gives the lie to that earlier claim.

Did the Israelis force the hands of the Americans to attack Iran? President Trump was quick to dismiss the idea. This was followed by a statement by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio which became problematic. Rubio said that the Israelis were about to attack Iran, which meant that the Iranians would anyway strike, so the Americans decided to strike first. Rubio’s statement had a strange circular logic and seemed to let the cat out of the bag by saying the quiet part out loud.

The fact that Trump has been drawn into this war, despite promises to his MAGA support base, to not begin any new wars, points to the plausibility of the Israelis forcing the hand of the Americans. Trump’s ‘America First’ slogan sounds more like putting Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu first. Influential MAGA figures such as former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green and podcasters Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson have been crying foul at this privileging of Israeli interests over that of America. The thinning MAGA support base and its enthusiasm for Trump is now being stretched to breaking point in this latest round of imperial overreach effected by the president.

Historians poring over the details will piece together the collapse of American imperial overreach, precipitated by the doggedness of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. In Israel, Netanyahu has brought to centrestage the idea of a Greater Israel extending from the ‘river to the river’, the Nile to the Euphrates. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in an interview with Carlson suggested that he was fine if Israel took it all. This territorial overreach will be exposed in all its foolhardiness in the weeks and months ahead. This is really Netanyahu indefinitely extending his political career first by carrying out the genocide in Gaza and now extending the killing spree into Iran where on the first day an elementary school was attacked in Minab, resulting in a death toll of 165 school girls and staff.

There are contradictory projections of how long the war against Iran will last. Trump seemed to want something quick and decisive. There is a hubris to Trump in his breathless second term that has become especially marked after the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Trump modified his position on the Iran offensive by suggesting that the war objectives might take four weeks. US Secretary of War Pete Hesgeth suggested a longer timeframe and on the question of American troops on the ground, added, “We’ll go as far as we need to go.” The Senate and House of Representatives have in vain tried to curtail President Trump’s ability to continue the war without Congressional approval, losing by narrow margins in both houses.

Regime change is the very high bar that the US has set, especially with the elimination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Most experts on Iran suggest that such a possibility is remote and that the Iranian regime will be weakened but will endure on account of the complex structure of the regime crafted by the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution. There is also a lack of understanding within the US administration over the nature of the regime, the civilisational and nationalistic depth of Iranian society and the uncompromising anti-imperialism of Shia Islam in the face of injustice.

In the event of the Iranian regime collapsing, perhaps with the incitement of Kurdish groups eager to fight it, then this would lead to nothing short of the catastrophic that will blow up in the face of the Israelis and the Americans. Recall the chaos that followed the collapse of the Iraqi regime in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion by the US and the United Kingdom and the rise of ISIS. The unleashing of such gargantuan forces will undermine the structure of the global economy and financial system upon which especially, American and Israeli interests rest.

The futility of this latest round of Israeli and American violence arises from the insatiability of Israeli aggression under Netanyahu. Can the Israelis and the Americans really take on the whole of West Asia? Netanyahu’s statement about the ‘radical Shia axis’ that needed to be taken on, followed by ‘the emerging radical Sunni axis’ and a ‘hexagon of alliances’ around or within West Asia is ominously indicative of this dangerous insatiability that will spill over to regions beyond West Asia. Netanyahu’s comments were made while announcing the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. History will record the extremely bad timing of this visit, a few days before the start of the attacks on Iran. It will inevitably be seen as an endorsement of war that jars so much with an earlier statement by Modi after the Russian military actions in Ukraine, when he soberly suggested: “Today’s era is not an era of war.”

The Iranians seem to be isolated in this fight with the US and Israel which many commentators, perhaps not wrongly, have billed as ‘existential’ for the country. Allies such as the Russians and the Chinese have not been very forthcoming in offering support. The Russian response seemed to be more robust in terms of its disapproval of American and Israeli actions. The Chinese response seemed to be far more attenuated. It has generally reflected badly on China in terms of its lack of imaginativeness, keeping in mind the widespread understanding that the Chinese are waiting in the wings to step into the role of the global hegemon that the US is gradually stepping out of. Five days into the war, the Chinese National People’s Congress met and projected one of the lowest growth rates for the economy since 1991, adding to the pall of uncertainty about China as the next global hegemon, that this crisis in the Gulf has suddenly and unexpectedly created for the Asian giant.

The question remains how this will end. The map of West Asia is likely to be redrawn, not in the way that Israel imagines, but in terms of the unpredictably ricocheting effects that US and Israeli actions will have in the coming months and years. The US and Israel through their military actions are out of control. The outcomes of their actions in the form of reconfiguring the map of West Asia will also likely be beyond their control.

Europe is divided in its response. At last year’s Munich Security Conference, US Vice-President J.D. Vance came to harangue the Europeans. This year Rubio seemed to offer a hand after the harangue to the Europeans by talking about the need to revive the West. European powers like the UK, Germany and France don’t seem to know whether to accept the US hand after the harangue. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was the most supportive of US military actions, suggesting that Iran had to be reined in, overlooking in the process who was attacked by whom. French President Emmanuel Macron stated that the US and Israeli military actions were ‘outside international law’. UK PM Keir Starmer was guarded in his refusal to participate in the military strikes and offered British military bases to the US for defensive purposes. Trump handed out another rebuke to Starmer by suggesting he was no Winston Churchill. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was the most forthright in his stance of ‘no to war’ and Trump’s bluster of cutting off trade ties.

Other allies like the Australians were quick to offer support. Canadian PM Mark Carney who came to power because his country was so disgusted by the idea of becoming the 51st state of the US, seemed initially to offer support, then added that international law was violated, while leaving open the possibility of Canadian military participation.

The Ghostly Shadow of Jeffrey Epstein

These developments unfold under the ghostly shadow of Epstein. The heavily redacted revelations of the Epstein files have not really ensured any accountability beyond a resignation here and a stripping of a royal title there. If the US and Israeli military actions succeed, a gruesome grin will play across that haggard and unshaven face that was captured in one of the last photographs of Epstein. It should haunt the world from wherever beyond the grave he lies.

(Views expressed are personal)

Amir Ali teaches at the Centre for Political Studies, JNU, New Delhi.

This article is part of Outlook 's March 21 issue 'Bombs Do Not Liberate Women' which looks at the conflict in West Asia following US and Israel’s attacks on Iran leading to the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while the world wondered in loud silence, again, Whose War Is It Anyway?