Soumaya Ghannoushi, a British Tunisian writer and expert in West Asia politics, says that the current war with Iran is the culmination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-standing ideological vision to remake West Asia, a desire now granted by US President Donald Trump. She says the conflict is not truly about nuclear weapons or American national security, but rather about treating the region as a “chessboard” where sovereign borders are negotiable and governments are disposable.
Ghannoushi argues that the justifications for the war mirror the deceptive claims about weapons of mass destruction used by then US President George W Bush and then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. She writes that while Iran was actively negotiating in Oman and Geneva and signalling a willingness to reduce uranium enrichment, diplomacy was used as theatre to cover military mobilisation, culminating in a decapitation strike against Iran’s leadership.
She says Washington is making a profound mistake by assuming a war with Iran will resemble the swift fall of then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s hollowed-out regime. Iran, she notes, is not Iraq; it is a vast, mountainous nation of more than 90 million people with a powerful conventional military, a hardened Revolutionary Guard and a deep national identity forged in historical memory.
She concludes that Trump’s fantasy of a “quick surgical strike” and neat regime change will probably fail, threatening instead to destabilise global energy and financial markets. The conflict, she adds, follows a historical pattern of imperial hubris and could become America’s Suez – an overreach that exposes the limits of its power rather than demonstrating its strength.
Produced by: Middle East Eye
AGENDA RAKYAT - Lima perkara utama
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
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