Over the years, the US-led West and Israel have consistently maintained an ominously contrived imbalance of power in the Middle East (ME), much to Israel’s advantage. The ultimate strategic objective of this policy is to pre-empt and neutralise all threats to Israel; existential or otherwise, imminent or projected, real or imagined, and to sustain it as the unchallenged hegemon and dominant, overwhelming military force of the region. Period.

The US-led West and Israel have thus far combined to neutralise most, if not all, immediate, near-distance, and far-distance threats to Israel in the region. Its immediate neighbours, Egypt and Jordan, have signed peace agreements, while Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank stand largely subdued under relentless attacks and occupation by the Israel Defence Force (IDF). Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance stands quashed – erstwhile President Assad’s regime in Syria, Hizbollah, Hamas and the Houthis have all been dealt fatal or near-fatal blows. However, the US-led West and Israel persist with their relentless, heartless genocide of the hapless Gazans–Palestinians.

In the near distance, the Gulf Arab states have been neutralised by a mixture of diplomatic, economic, and military coercion, with some incentives such as rudimentary military sales thrown in, and threatened by the latent albeit imminent spectre of democracy, à la the Arab Spring. Realistically, they do not threaten Israel militarily. Some have willingly joined the Abraham Accords.

The far-distance threats from Iraq, Libya, and Iran were dealt with differently. Iraq and Iran were lured and embroiled in a mutually destructive eight-year war (1980–88). Both sides were provided with a steady supply of arms and weapon systems by the US-led West. Consequently, two of the Muslim world’s most formidable militaries fought themselves to near annihilation. Potential threats to Israel were thus reduced. Thereafter, Iraq was attacked twice (1990–91 and 2003) and the coup de main delivered – its military was completely destroyed. President Saddam Hussein was sent to the gallows, rather ignominiously. Iran survived. Libya was attacked by the UK and France (the US “led from behind”) and dealt a deathly blow. President Qaddafi too, was killed in a rather undignified manner. Today, Israel dominates the rather overwhelmed ME region quite emphatically. Gaza and Iran, however, emerge as the “unfinished agenda” in establishing, beyond doubt and challenge, Israel’s hegemony, dominance, and audacious freedom of action right across the ME.

The US-led West and Israel consider Iran’s nuclear programme an existential threat to the latter and have attacked it relentlessly. In 2015, the Obama Administration consummated a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between the P-5+1 (Germany), the EU, and Iran. The objectives of this JCPOA were essentially to limit Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. This meant reduced uranium enrichment for Iran (not beyond 3.67 per cent, thus extending “the breakout time” – to create enough weapons-grade enriched uranium – to 12 months) and IAEA monitoring to ensure exclusively peaceful nuclear activity. Iran agreed to limit the number of its centrifuges, its enrichment levels, to redesign the Arak heavy water reactor, and to accept continuous IAEA monitoring. In turn, Iran was promised the lifting of UN, US, and EU nuclear-related sanctions and restrictions. However, President Trump thought otherwise, and the US withdrew from this agreement in 2018. Under wanton, uninhibited attacks and sanctions, and unrestrained by any agreement, Iran enriched its uranium, reportedly up to 60 per cent – curiously, neither here nor there.

In June 2025, Israel sabotaged the ongoing US–Iran talks by attacking Iran, which responded with missile and drone barrages. Israel failed to overwhelm Iran, beseeched the US for help, and promptly drew it into the war. The US used its long-range strategic bombers and bunker-buster GBU-57 bombs to target Iran’s nuclear facilities at Isfahan, Fordow, and Natanz. It brought the war to a quick albeit inconclusive end. The US has claimed the complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, while Iran maintains a meaningful silence over it.

The overall US–Israel combine’s strategic plan has now emerged quite comprehensively. Apparently, it was a two-phase plan. In Phase One, Israel and later the US attacked Iran in June 2025 to destroy or severely impede its nuclear programme. In Phase Two, now under way, the US has employed a multi-directional approach. It initially engineered a collapse of the Iranian currency, which caused rampant inflation and an expected social upheaval that even clamoured for regime change. While the Iranian inner front threatened to implode, the US positioned its aircraft carrier group(s) in the Arabian Sea region to militarily coerce Iran into submission on its nuclear programme, amongst other demands.

Talks between the US and Iran have since ensued but remain hostage to the most basic, albeit complex, disputed, and conflicted issue – the agenda. Iran insists that the talks must concern the nuclear issue only, to the exclusion of all other matters. The US (under Israel’s insistence), however, has a list of demands: one, Iran to give up its nuclear programme and ambitions; two, Iran to halt all enrichment of uranium; three, Iran to hand over all its enriched uranium to a third country; four, Iran to wind up its ballistic missile programme; five, Iran to completely demobilise its so-called Axis of Resistance; six, Iran to allow more personal freedoms to its people; seven, Iran to accept suitably enriched uranium for its nuclear power plants from external sources under an international system. These extreme, one-sided demands seek to unilaterally pursue the US–Israel combine’s strategic objectives in the region. They amount not only to defanging Iran and putting it totally at the mercy of the US–Israel combine, but also to crystallising, reinforcing, and cementing the desired imbalance of regional power irrevocably in nuclear Israel’s favour. Predictably, Iran has refused to accept them.

Imran MalikThe writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at im.k846@gmail.com and tweets @K846Im.

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