The new escalation between the US, Israel, and Iran challenges the official explanation for the war as a fight against a nuclear threat and points to a broader strategic calculation – maintaining a regional balance of power in which Israel remains the dominant military power in the Middle East.
Salman Rafi Sheikh
From nuclear deterrence to repeated war
In June 2025, the administration of Donald Trump launched direct strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, marking the first U.S. attack on targets inside Iran in decades. American B-2 bombers and cruise missiles hit major sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, using massive bunker-buster bombs designed to penetrate deeply buried infrastructure. Trump quickly declared that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.” The White House insisted the strikes had decisively neutralized Tehran’s nuclear program. Yet subsequent assessments suggested the outcome was far more limited. A Pentagon damage assessment indicated that the strikes may have set Iran’s program back by roughly two years rather than destroying it outright.
External military pressure has often strengthened regimes by allowing them to rally nationalist sentiment against foreign intervention
The ambiguity surrounding the results did little to slow escalation. By early 2026, the United States had once again entered a new phase of conflict alongside Israel. Joint US–Israeli strikes began in late February 2026 and quickly expanded into a broader war targeting Iranian leadership, missile infrastructure, and military assets. The rhetoric accompanying this escalation suggests that Washington’s objectives have expanded beyond the nuclear issue. Trump has stated that the war will continue until Iran accepts “unconditional surrender,” implying the desire to force the regime to collapse rather than simply ensure nuclear restraint. Meanwhile, the administration has continued to provide extensive military support to Israel, including new munitions transfers approved under emergency authority.
Taken together, these developments raise an uncomfortable question. If the original purpose of military action was to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability, why does Washington now appear committed to a broader campaign against the Iranian state itself?
Israeli Regional Hegemony
Understanding the strategic logic behind the conflict requires examining the balance of power in the Middle East. Iran is the only regional state with the population size, industrial capacity, and geopolitical reach capable of challenging Israel’s military superiority. Its influence stretches through allied networks and partners across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—an arc of influence that Israeli security planners have long viewed as a direct threat. Iran is also a major country that was not carved by the British and the French out of the Ottoman Empire. Hence, it has a very different historical legacy to draw from than its regional rivals, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel. For Israeli policymakers, therefore, the Iranian challenge is not limited to nuclear weapons. It is about the broader balance of power in the region. In this sense, even Guld states, otherwise without any official relations with Israel, also believe in taking the Iranian regime out. The Washington Post confirmed that the Saudis and Israelis pressured the US into attacking Iran. There was, in other words, significant role played by diplomatic blackmail.
This is already clear. Recent statements by American officials suggest that US decision-making is increasingly shaped by the Israeli security perspective of regional hegemony. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, acknowledged that Washington knew Israel was preparing to strike Iran and decided to act preemptively in anticipation of Iranian retaliation (to ensure that Israel remains protected). In other remarks, Rubio suggested that the conflict might ultimately end with the collapse of Iran’s governing system, stating that the US would welcome such an outcome if the Iranian people overthrew their government. Even if that does not happen, the objective, i.e., a total destruction of Iranian political regime and society, remains in place to ensure that the country never acquires the means to challenge any regional states, who seem equally vested in the idea of Israeli hegemony in the Middle East going forward. It is for this reason that these states, instead of condemning the US and Israel for attacking Iran once again, condemned Iran for its retaliation against US bases in Gulf states. Global (US) and regional (Gulf) resources are, therefore, directed towards Israel.
Why they are doing this may have multiple reasons. However, within the current geopolitical context where key Gulf states are also fighting each other, support for Israel is also part of their efforts to buttress their respective influence vis-à-vis competitors. The calculation seems to be that a state tied geopolitically to Israel will have more chances of dominating the Gulf, i.e., as Israel’s partner but also as geopolitically superior to other Arab states.
What comes next?
The emerging trajectory of the conflict suggests that the Middle East may be entering a new and unstable strategic phase. If the war continues to expand, the most immediate risk is regional escalation. Iran has already demonstrated its ability to retaliate through missile strikes and attacks on US bases across the region. Even US media reports show that it has been successful. Such dynamics raise the possibility of a prolonged war that stretches from the Persian Gulf to the Levant.
Another possibility is the gradual weakening of the Iranian state. Some policymakers in Washington appear to believe that sustained military pressure could trigger internal political collapse in Tehran. Yet the historical record offers mixed lessons. External military pressure has often strengthened regimes by allowing them to rally nationalist sentiment against foreign intervention.
A third possibility is that the conflict reshapes the regional order in ways that extend far beyond Iran. If Tehran’s power is significantly reduced, Israel would emerge as the undisputed military hegemon of the Middle East, supported by unmatched American military backing and Gulf states. Such an outcome would represent a profound transformation of the region’s balance of power.
For the United States, the implications are equally complex. Trump’s original political appeal rested on a promise to avoid costly foreign wars and focus on domestic renewal. Yet Washington now finds itself deeply entangled in another Middle Eastern conflict with uncertain end goals. 59% Americans oppose the war, which means Trump and his party are politically losing on the domestic front. Its reason is that this could become one of the so-called “endless wars” the US has been fighting since the 1960s.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affair
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