By Feroze Mithiborwala
Trump latest warning to Iran:
“A massive armada is heading towards Iran. It is moving with great speed, enthusiasm, and purpose. This fleet, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, is larger than the one that went to Venezuela and is prepared to launch an attack like the one in Venezuela if necessary. I hope you will sit down at the table and make a fair and equitable agreement. No nuclear weapons, that will be good for everyone. Time is running out. I gave them a final warning, they didn’t listen, and they experienced massive destruction with Operation Midnight Hammer. The next attack will be much worse.”
Imperial Theatre and the Language of Decline
Donald Trump’s latest threats against Iran—complete with armadas, ultimatums, and apocalyptic language—are less a demonstration of strength than a symptom of imperial exhaustion. The spectacle is familiar: exaggerated danger, selective legality, and the ritual invocation of “nuclear weapons” to justify coercion against a state that has neither built nor deployed them. What is new is how naked the strategy has become—and how little credibility remains behind it.
The Nuclear Inversion: Iran Demonized, Israel Exempted
Iran, unlike Israel, has publicly and consistently rejected nuclear weapons. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s binding religious decree (fatwa) prohibiting weapons of mass destruction has been reiterated for decades and remains official state policy.¹ Israel, by contrast, maintains a clandestine nuclear arsenal—estimated at 80–200 warheads—while refusing any international inspection regime.²
Yet Washington speaks only of Iran as a threat.
Manipulating International Law
This inversion of reality rests on the systematic manipulation of international law. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), placing its nuclear programme—however contested—within a legal framework.³ Israel is not.
Still, it is Iran that faces sanctions, sabotage, assassinations of scientists, cyberattacks, and open threats of annihilation.
Uranium Enrichment and the JCPOA Reality
Even within this constrained framework, Iran’s uranium enrichment has remained legally defensible. The 3.67 percent enrichment limit established under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was explicitly civilian—suitable for energy generation, research reactors, and medical isotopes used in cancer treatment.⁴
Nothing in international law prohibits such enrichment. The United States itself acknowledged this when it signed the JCPOA in 2015—before unilaterally tearing it up under Trump in 2018.⁵
The Real Target: Deterrence, Not Nukes
The fixation on enrichment levels obscures the real objective. The campaign against Iran has never been about preventing a bomb.
It is about:
- Destroying Iran’s peaceful nuclear infrastructure
- Neutralizing Iran’s missile deterrent⁶
Missiles—not hypothetical nuclear warheads—are Iran’s primary means of defence against US and Israeli air superiority. Removing that capability would render Iran strategically naked, a condition no sovereign state would accept.
Iran’s Long Preparation for its Strategic Défense and Survival
Iran has prepared for this confrontation for decades—not because it seeks war, but because it has been systematically targeted since the 1979 revolution. Sanctions, cyberwarfare, assassinations, and economic strangulation have failed to break the state.⁷
Unlike Iraq or Libya, Iran possesses strategic depth, domestic legitimacy, and an integrated defence doctrine designed for attritional conflict rather than rapid capitulation.
Israel’s Strategic Dependence on Washington
Israel understands this reality all too well. Unable to fight a prolonged regional war on its own, Tel Aviv has repeatedly sought to outsource confrontation to Washington. From the Iraq War to the “maximum pressure” campaign, Israeli leaders have pressed the United States to do what Israel cannot.⁸
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current lobbying blitz reflects Israel’s strategic dependency—not confidence.
Trump and the Crisis of American Power
Trump’s role in this dynamic is revealing. His rhetoric masks a deeper vulnerability: a political system shaped by Jewish Zionist Israel First Oligarchs and Lobbies, pressure of blackmail due to the Epstein Files and the paedophile sex-racket, Zionist donor influence, and fear of death by assassination. Trump is way too vulnerable.
The United States today is less an autonomous imperial actor than a fragmented power lurching between crises—resorting to theatrical displays of force precisely because it lacks the capacity for sustained war.
Yemeni Ansarullah Government in Sana are Close Allies of Iran
A Regional War, Not a Surgical Strike
Crucially, Iran is not isolated. Any military escalation would immediately regionalize the conflict, heading for a full-scale war.
Yemen: Ansarallah has demonstrated the ability to disrupt and control the Red Sea shipping and challenge Western naval dominance.¹⁰
Iraq: The Hashd-al-Shabi or the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Kataib Hezbollah aligned with the Iraqi state, will target US bases across the country and beyond.¹¹ More importantly, Nour al Maliki, is set to become the PM of Iraq and he is a close ally of Iran and committed to the Axis of Resistance.
Lebanon & Palestine: Hezbollah remains the most formidable non-state military actor, whilst all the Palestinian factions, from the Hamas to the PFLP, and Fatah, continue resisting occupation.¹²
Syria: Though battered and weakened, and now out of the Axis of Resistance, yet there are certain forces within aligned with Tehran who too are waiting for the right moment.
China, Russia, and the End of Unipolar Enforcement
Beyond the region, China and Russia have deepened military, economic, and diplomatic ties with Iran. Joint naval drills, energy agreements, and defence cooperation reflect a shared interest in countering US unilateralism.¹³
While neither seeks direct war with Washington, both have a stake in preventing Iran’s destruction. Both China and Russia will ensure that Iran is supported in every way to wage a long war if required. This will prove to be catastrophic for the US and especially for Israel.
Within the US, Trump’s growing unpopularity and lack of popular mandate to wage a war on Iran
More than 70% are opposed to another foreign war, which Americans increasingly understand is being fought for Israel and not for US interests. Trump continues to lose popular support due to his surrender to the Deep State on the Epstein Files, the fact that he is being controlled by the Israel First Jewish Zionist Lobby and the growing anger over ICE. Evidently ICE is Trump’s very own Gestapo and White Supremacist Neo-Nazi army of mercenaries who are facing mass anger and opposition across the US. Trump’s Tariff regime is raising prices within the US and this is leading to his record falling numbers in the polls and is increasing US isolation. A war with Iran will only worsen the situation for Trump, ensuring a massive defeat for the Republican Party in the November midterms.
Its’ a lose-lose situation for Trump with no respite in sight.
Israel’s Structural Limits in a Long War
Israel is structurally incapable of sustaining a prolonged conflict. Its reliance on air power, technological dominance, and US resupply makes it effective in short, high-intensity operations—but dangerously exposed in wars of attrition. Recent confrontations have already revealed limitations in missile defence, ground operations, and domestic resilience.¹⁴
A long war favours Iran and both Israel and the US, are clearly wary on this count.
Civilization Versus Empire
At the civilizational level, the asymmetry is stark. Iran is a nation of over 90 million people, rich in energy resources, industrial capacity, and historical continuity stretching back millennia. It is not a temporary regime or an artificial state to be ‘managed’ or ‘dismantled’ or ‘regime changed’.
The United States and Israel, increasingly isolated diplomatically, now find themselves defending a Global Order, or rather a ‘Dis-Order’, few believe in—and fewer are willing to associate with or die for.
Conclusion: Endurance Over Intimidation
Trump’s armadas and threats may dominate headlines, but they do not alter these fundamentals on the ground. Power today is no longer measured by the ability to threaten destruction, but by the capacity to endure it.
On that terrain, Iran has already proven far more resilient than those who seek its surrender.
References
- Khamenei, Ali. Fatwa on Weapons of Mass Destruction. Tehran, various speeches and official statements.
- Cohen, Avner. Israel and the Bomb. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
- International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA Safeguards Overview. Vienna: IAEA.
- Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Vienna, July 14, 2015.
- United States Department of State. Remarks on the JCPOA Withdrawal. May 8, 2018.
- Fitzpatrick, Mark. “Iran’s Missile Program and Western Policy.” Survival 61, no. 3 (2019).
- Parsi, Trita. Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Yale University Press, 2017.
- Mearsheimer, John, and Stephen Walt. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
- Todd, Emmanuel. After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order. Columbia University Press, 2003.
- Knights, Michael. “Yemen’s Red Sea Strategy.” Washington Institute Policy Notes, 2023.
- Mansour, Renad. Iraq’s Armed Groups and the State. Chatham House, 2018.
- Norton, Augustus Richard. Hezbollah: A Short History. Princeton University Press, 2007.
- Katz, Mark N. “Russia and Iran.” Middle East Policy 29, no. 1 (2022).
- Levy, Yagil. Israel’s Death Hierarchy. NYU Press, 2012.
Feroze Mithiborwala is an expert on West Asian & International Geostrategic issues. He is the Founder-Gen. Sec. of the ‘India Palestine Solidarity Forum’, as well as the ‘India Iran Friendship Forum’ and the ‘Indians for Solidarity with Venezuela’. He was among the key organisers of the First Asian Convoy to Break the Siege of Gaza (2010) and the First Global March to Jerusalem (2012). He is also the Vice-President of Hum Bharat Ke Log, We the People of India, an organisation committed to Communal Harmony, National Unity and Constitutional Democracy.