By Qamar Bashir
Press Secretary to the President (Rtd)
Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France
Former Press Attaché to Malaysia
Former MD, SRBC | Michigan, USA
The Iran war began with the expectation that overwhelming American and Israeli firepower would bring Tehran to its knees within days. Instead, the conflict has entered its sixth month. While the United States and Israel continue to claim tactical victories, Iran appears to be winning strategically.
Political scientist Professor Robert Pape draws a clear distinction between tactical destruction and strategic success. He argues that Iran is winning because it retains decisive leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and has demonstrated its ability to threaten and disable American military installations throughout the region.
Pape’s most provocative assessment is that the war is transforming Iran into a potential “fourth center of global power,” alongside the United States, China and Russia. His argument rests not on the number of aircraft, ships or military bases Iran possesses, but on Tehran’s demonstrated ability to absorb massive attacks, preserve its political system, continue retaliating and deny a superpower the achievement of its declared objectives.
The underlying lesson is difficult to dismiss: a middle power has absorbed immense punishment while preventing the world’s most powerful military alliance from forcing it into submission. If Iran can withstand such pressure, the consequences for the credibility of American power become even more profound when one imagines a future confrontation with China, or with China and Russia acting together.
Ironically, as happened during an earlier phase when the United States reportedly faced shortages of critical weapons and ammunition, Washington has once again paused its attacks. Critics and analysts believe that this pause may not represent a genuine change of policy, but an attempt to gain time, replenish depleted stocks, complete military preparations and prepare for another escalation.
Iran, meanwhile, has made the United States largely irrelevant to the discussions currently taking place between Tehran and Muscat. Iran has characterized these negotiations as bilateral talks with Oman concerning a mechanism for managing maritime passage through the Strait of Hormuz. This places Tehran at the center of any workable arrangement, with Oman as its negotiating partner, while Washington remains outside the formal discussions and dependent upon regional mediators.
The Gulf governments have also discovered the limitations of relying upon American military bases for their security. Those bases were established to deter aggression, project American power and reassure their host governments. Instead, they became magnets for Iranian missiles and drones. After witnessing their vulnerability, the Gulf states are now asking a disturbing question: if these American bases cannot defend themselves, how can they be expected to defend their host countries?
This vulnerability helps explain why Gulf leaders reportedly pressed President Donald Trump to postpone further attacks on Iran. They understood that American strikes against Iranian power grids, desalination plants, oil installations and civilian infrastructure could invite retaliation against comparable facilities throughout the Arabian Peninsula.
Nevertheless, concerns remain about President Trump’s intentions. Russian security officials have warned that Washington and Israel may be contemplating a ground operation under the cover of ceasefire diplomacy. According to this assessment, negotiations could be used to keep Iran and the wider region relatively calm while the Pentagon completes its military buildup.
Widely circulated reports claim that more than 50,000 American troops, including approximately 2,500 Marines, over 1,200 personnel from the 82nd Airborne Division and specialized forces, have been positioned in the region. The same reports cite hundreds of military aircraft and more than 20 naval vessels deployed near Iran. These figures have been presented by the analysts and outlets reporting the alleged preparations for a possible ground campaign.
Pape describes the resulting American dilemma as an “escalation trap.” If Washington continues fighting, it risks further casualties, regional retaliation, economic disruption and horizontal expansion of the conflict. If it withdraws without achieving its declared objectives, it must acknowledge that overwhelming military force failed to produce political submission. Pressure for a ground intervention may therefore increase precisely because the air campaign has not delivered a decisive strategic outcome.
The war has also reached American homes through economic disruption and, potentially, cyberspace. Federal investigators have examined cyberattacks against water systems in seven American states, with Iran reportedly among the suspected perpetrators.
Representative Seth Moulton, a retired Marine and member of the House Armed Services Committee, described such an attack—if Iranian responsibility is established—as “an escalation of war.” He argued that Iran’s cyber capabilities were predictable and that Washington should have protected critical American infrastructure before entering a war against a state capable of retaliating through unconventional means.
The verified domestic economic damage is already serious. A Reuters/Ipsos survey placed Trump’s approval rating at 35 percent, near the lowest point of his presidency. American gasoline prices have risen by more than 25 percent since the war began, while Democrats have moved narrowly ahead of Republicans on the question of economic management.
The World Bank has reduced its projected global growth rate for 2026 from 2.9 percent to 2.5 percent, citing the Middle East conflict, rising energy prices, inflation and higher borrowing costs. The European Central Bank has similarly reported that the war has depressed household confidence and consumption across the eurozone. Thus, countries that neither initiated nor participated in the conflict are nevertheless being forced to pay its economic price.
Washington must therefore confront the question it has repeatedly avoided: whose strategic objectives is America now serving?
Benjamin Netanyahu spent decades warning against Iran and pressing successive American administrations to dismantle its nuclear, missile and regional capabilities. Israel initiated the confrontation that Washington subsequently embraced, yet the United States now carries much of its military, economic, diplomatic and political burden.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s government continues its operations in Gaza, entrenches Israeli control in the West Bank and pursues its objectives in southern Lebanon. As the United States remains consumed by the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz crisis, Israel continues advancing the territorial and ideological objectives associated by its critics with the project of a “Greater Israel.”
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants alleging that Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant bear criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The warrants have intensified demands that Netanyahu be held legally accountable for Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has acknowledged that his city lacks the independent legal authority to execute the ICC warrant. He has therefore called upon the federal government to arrest Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister enters the United States.
Tucker Carlson has amplified Mamdani’s broader argument, declaring that Netanyahu has become a liability to both Israel and the United States and that Washington’s “blank cheque” policy must end. Carlson has urged other American politicians to show similar courage and reconsider a relationship in which American taxpayers finance Israeli policies while the United States bears the military, diplomatic and economic consequences.
Mamdani’s intervention expresses a widening demand for accountability: an alliance must not mean immunity, and friendship must not require one country to inherit another government’s wars. In this interpretation, Netanyahu’s removal or prosecution would not by itself resolve every regional dispute, but it could remove a major driver of continuing escalation.
America’s choice is no longer between victory and negotiation. It is between negotiated de-escalation and an expanding war in which every participant loses—even if Israel, at least for the moment, loses the least.
