AS hostilities continue following the Israeli-American joint aggression against Iran, there seems to be no visible pathway to de-escalation. Instead, as US President Donald Trump reiterated yesterday, the attacks may go on for weeks or longer.

This ominous pronouncement should set off alarm bells worldwide, as a notoriously erratic US administration, in tandem with its Zionist allies, has launched another doomed regime change operation, even though the Pentagon chief, in typically intemperate fashion, said on Monday that this is not “a regime change war”. Not content with the brutal assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the warmongers in Washington and Tel Aviv are seeking total capitulation from Tehran. But as the past few days have shown, despite painful blows, Iran is still functioning.

The current aggression has many parallels to another American war in the Middle East: the 2003 Iraq invasion, though the Pentagon chief claimed this is “not Iraq”. In that scenario too, cooked-up ‘evidence’ was used as a casus belli to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Iraq was virtually destroyed in the process. In that instance, George W. Bush had cited Saddam Hussein’s imaginary weapons of mass destruction as justification for war.

In the present situation, Iran’s phantom nukes, its suppression of internal dissent, and missile capability have all been cited as reasons for fresh aggression. In fact, as per media reports, Pentagon officials have told Congress there were no signs that the Iranians were going to attack American forces, contradicting Mr Trump’s warning of an “imminent” Iranian threat.

The actual reason to go after Iran seems to be more sinister: to bring to heel a country that has, for over four decades, refused to toe the American line. In fact, the desire to ‘punish’ Iran for its stubbornness has been shared by earlier US administrations too. As Gen Wesley Clark, former commander of Nato forces in Europe, has written, he was told by a US military official after the 9/11 attacks that several Muslim countries needed to be ‘taken out’; he has mentioned Iraq, Syria, Libya and Iran. Is it a matter of mere coincidence that all of these states have been ‘taken out’, while Iran is fighting an existential war as we speak?

It seems that Mr Trump’s motivation, and that of the American deep state and the Zionists that have a stranglehold over the US political system, is to project Pax Americana in the ugliest way possible way across the globe, and bring a recalcitrant regime to its knees. They seem unperturbed that while pursuing their dark goals they have shredded all international norms, and set the stage for a regional conflagration. Meanwhile, the silence of the US Congress is disturbing, as American lawmakers have made no practical attempt to control their wayward executive.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2026