The current ongoing US-Israeli War against Iran has mostly been discussed from the various strategic frames. This ranges from the lack of clear objectives for US military intervention, if not for the Israel, and its serious limitations in bringing down the regime in Tehran to the global economic instability caused due to partial defacto closure of the Strait of Hormuz— the waterbody in Persian Gulf that facilitates the movement of 20% of global oil and gas products. This limited strategic, techno-military and geo-political lens misses a larger perspective of complex historical relationship between the West and Islam, which exists in multiple forms and within which micro strategic frames are often located. War is inherently a political and ontological playground; not merely a strategic and techno-military field.
The series of punitive actions including the current war against Iran is deeply shaped through ‘the European historical fear complex’ about Middle Eastern Islamic civilisations (Arab, Persian and Turkish). The ‘anti-Islam outlook’ has historically shaped the European modernity and its reason. The 1973 Oil Shock, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the 9/11 and 7/10 has further reinforced the fear complex of the Europe vis-a- Vis Middle Eastern Islam in particular and Muslims in general. ‘Securitizing’ Islam as well as uninterrupted access to and control over Middle Eastern hydrocarbon products has, therefore, historically been the primary concern for the West. Thus, Kemal Ataturk in Turkey and Reza Shah Palavi became a ‘poster boy’ for the West as they attempted to eliminate Islam from historical memory of its people in the name of modernizing their nations. The democratic governments in the West rolled back its policies of ‘limited multiculturalism’, asserted its old classic assimilationist model of integration and increased the ‘policing’ and ‘surveillance’ over Muslim lives and neighborhood, when faced with assertion and visibility of Muslim citizenry and immigrants in the Western public sphere and threat of Sunni Islamicist terrorism, Many Western nations relied heavily on the surveillance techniques and technologies of Israel for this purpose.
Both USA and Israel are extensions of ‘modern European reason’ and therefore a large number of its populace and policy makers suffer from various forms of Islamophobic tendencies. Not surprisingly, they continued the European policies of ‘securitization and militarization of the region’ and keeping the Islamic Middle Eastern nations a militarily and politically weak entity through directly and indirectly shaping the ‘forces of war’ or ‘economic sanction’ or ‘civic strife’ or sustaining the non-participatory political system, unlike other geographies of the world. The current USA-Israeli war against Iran represents this long tradition of Western hostility towards the ‘assertive Islam’- as symbolized by Islamic Republic of Iran with its legacy of ‘popular mass Islamic revolution’(1979) and its resilience to counter the relentless Western pressure of heavy economic sanctions, war, regional isolation, USA -Israeli assassination of many of its scientists and IRGC commanders. Given the historical interface between Islam and the West, it is not difficult to understand as to why ‘Islamic Iran’ has become a ‘bad boy’ for the West despite the fact its’ nuclear policy and search for regional hegemony only reflects a continuation of its predecessor regime, the Reza Shah Pahlavi (1925 -1979)-a regime that came into existence through CIA operation.
The transition from what was hailed as ‘modernizing and secularizing Iran’ to an ‘Islamic’ Iran posed not only a theoretical challenges to the paradigm of modern western social sciences, particularly its modernization models, but it also fundamentally changed the US-Israeli approach and priority in the region: ‘containing Iran’ first through ‘USA-GCC-backed Iraqi invasion’ (1980-1989), ‘stringent economic sanctions’, and building of military bases (which is approximately 19 ) in the region. The ‘Islamic Iran’ not only managed to circumvent all western-Israeli ploys but also strengthen its military capability and increase the political influence in the region. A politically stable and militarily strong Iran posed the toughest challenges to US- Israeli leadership and its core Islamophobic support bases of Christian Zionist and Jewish Zionists to realize their long-term goal of Greater Israel. The idea of Greater Israel comprises from ‘Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates’ covering 500,000 km (25 times greater of the existing Israel) comprises entire occupied Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem, Golan Height (comprising 27,000 km), Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and parts of Egypt and Saudi Arabia -almost touching the border of Iran.
The Protestant Christian Zionist movement ( approximately 50 millions in USA) and Jewish Zionists (3-4 millions out of 15 millions) grew in strength in 1990s. They are the most significant groups within the ‘Israeli Lobby’, whose influence in shaping the US policies, particularly towards Israel and Middle East is well documented. They focused on the redrawing the political map of Islamic Middle East in the post-Soviet world. The intended transformation of Islamic Middle East was articulated through the new discourse of ‘Greater Middle East’ and ‘New Middle East’- the process of which had already begun with the 1991 ‘Operation Desert Storm’ under the late President Bush I and ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ (2003) Under the President Bush II. Gradually the West including Israel moved from the ‘doctrine of containment’ to the idea of regime change against Iran. As a result, the western propaganda industry and megaphone created the global hype as to how ‘nuclear Iran’ posed an existential threat to Israel and a long-term threat to the West.
They found their most ardent advocate in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, a proclaimed Jewish Zionist, and President Trump, a proclaimed Christian Zionist. It is reported that Jewish Zionist in close coordination with the office of Netanyahu developed the ‘Clean Break Doctrine’ and ‘Seven War Doctrine’ under which they planned to launch ‘Seven Wars’ with the involvement of the United States. The Clean Break Doctrine advocated the idea of ‘premediated attack’, ‘preemptive strike’, ‘targeted precision assassination of leadership’ and finally the ‘regime change’ with a view to end the ‘very sources’ that fund, trained and provide the logistical support to the ‘global and regional terrorist groups’ to conduct a relentless ‘proxy wars’ against Israel in particular and the west in general. The doctrine of Seven Wars included US military involvement into Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia and now Iran, the toughest to break.
The large Islamophobic segments including the Christian and Jewish Zionist of West and Israel across state bodies and influential segments of civil societies want to redraw the map of Islamic Middle East for three fundamental reasons: (a) they are driven with messianic zeal: protection and establishment of Great Israel is linked with second coming of Jesus as well as recovery of historical Judeo-Christian land from the control of Islam shaped through Muslim Arabs, Persians and Turks. They believe that Muslim Middle East is at the weakest period of its history and hence the redrawing of the Middle Eastern map is both easy and possible. The American Ambassador, Mike Huckabee, to Israel gave a candid statement in Feb 2026 to this effect: Israel has a biblical right to land –spanning from the Nile to the Euphrates — and that it would be ‘fine’ if they took it all”. It has been widely reported that commander in the US troops is propagating that war with Iran was a part of ‘divine plan’ and that President Trump was ‘anointed’ by Jesus to trigger “Armageddon” and make his return. One hears that the Jewish nomenclature ‘Judea and Samaria’ has begun to replace ‘West Bank’ in the some of the official documents of USA. (b) They want to regain the access to and control over the energy resources of the region with a broader objective of re-developing control and increasing its share global trade over more than 60% as the US enjoyed in the first two decades of post WWII. (c) The global economic prosperity and visibility of GCC countries hurts the Islamophobic sentiments in the west. It cannot be the case that while US-Israel was planning their coordinated attack against Iran, they would not take into consideration that Iranian would leverage its geopolitics against the American bases and assets in the Gulf and that the closure of Strait of Hormuz would hurt the GCC countries most. The US’s failure to provide the economic and military security to GCC countries appears to be a calculated strategy to make them economically bleed without even participating in the war. The strictly defensive posture of GCC countries vis a vis Iran has already come under attack by the racist, Christian and Jewish Zionists for two reasons : (a) its refusal to declare war against Iran and be a part of USA-Israel axis and (b) the successful defensive posture of GCC countries against the Iranian missiles and drones is deeply exposing the ‘Israeli Defensive Model’-which does not display any ‘defence’ but only ‘offence’ !
The current war against Iran reflects this assertive Islamophobic including Zionist segments (both Chirstian and the Jews) segments of the West, particularly USA and Israel. Irrespective of the debate on the current US-Israeli War against Iran, the fact of matter is that a decision was taken by USA-Israel to launch the War against Iran and all evidences show that the war has destroyed much of the Iranian military capability, which in combination with its already tottering economy has an effect of seriously limiting the power of Iran in the region for long term —— a goal similar to almost 80 years of limited and large scale wars that Israel conducted in the region since its inception. It may be recalled here that every analyst including the UN inspectors concluded that Iraq did not possess the WMD but that did not prevent the Bush administration and its allies from going ahead with the war against Iraq. The similar is the case with Iranian nuclear programme. The US-Israel decided to attack Iran despite clear verdict was given by the US intelligence department that Iran has not upgraded its nuclear enrichment since its nuclear facilities was ‘obliterated’ in the June 2025 US attack. Trumpism is just an ugly version of Bushism having a more open, racist, shameless, imperialist threatening tone: a symptom of declining power of USA and its desperation to hold its global status through the use of naked force, devoid of any principles and values, and demanding the control of global natural resources through unfair tariffs, unequal treaties, kidnapping and assassination of head of state and government and threat of regime change.
As US-Israeli bombing is raining over Iran, a former Prime Minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett, twitted: ‘Turkey is the new Iran’; indicating Israel ‘s next target in the region ! This was in line with President Netanyahu press statement on 22nd Feb 2026: The intent is to create an axis of nations—–against the radical axes: both the radical Shia axis and the emerging radical Sunni axis. The radical Shia axis represents the combination of Iran, Houtis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and PMF in Iraq-which are currently involved in the War; while the radical Sunni axis represents the state of Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia -the future target of US-Israel attacks to complete the process of redrawing the political map of Middle East ! However, the attempt to redraw the map of Middle East will depend on the outcome of the current war, which is unlikely to go in favour of USA-Israeli axis given the effective resilience of Iran led Islamic resistance Cheristian-Jewish Zionist imperialism, which is forcing the Trump administration for the exit strategy.
(Prof. Anwar Alam is a Distinguished Fellow at Policy Perspectives Foundation & Former Professor at Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Former Director at Centre for West Asian Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi)
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the piece is of the author alone and is no ways reflects the position of organization.
