On the 28th of February 2026, the United States and Israeli Air Forces carried out deadly precision air strikes decapitating the Iranian theocratic cleric regime killing its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 42 other top political and military leaders under the smokescreen of ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran regarding the Iranian nuclear programme. The purported military targets were regime change replacing the hardline Shia regime with a moderate democratic regime friendly to the US and Israel. This was expected to be achieved by effecting an internal uprising by the Iranian population, a large segment of which was already on the streets protesting against the regime’s harsh excesses resulting in the death of thousands of protestors, the Kurdish rebels in the West and Baloch rebels in the East. The Iranian regime had apparently been preparing over the last two decades for such an eventuality as its military machine not only crushed all internal revolts but emerged with its decentralized command structure intact after the devastating combined air strikes by the US and Israel. It responded with a barrage of missile and drone strikes all over the middle east, targeting the US military bases and military and civilian hubs of Israel. Israel was able to absorb the initial shock of Iranian ballistic missiles by its high technology and highly expensive “Iron Dome” but soon its capacity was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of incoming low-cost Iranian missiles and drones. Iran had located its drone and missile production facilities deep inside its far-flung mountainous areas beyond the reach of US and Israeli bunker blaster bombs. Nevertheless, Israeli and US air strikes continued unabated all over Iran, targeting the Iranian Air Force, Navy, Petroleum and Nuclear energy facilities exacting a colossal cost on the Iranian State. The US and Israeli casualties have been relatively light, with a few scores killed and a few hundred injured while the Iranians have suffered over three thousand killed and about twenty-five thousand injured. The material losses in Iran have been a staggering US dollar 300 billion. The middle eastern Arab countries have suffered losses of up to US dollar 150 billion. 17 US bases and a British base have been struck. Israel has suffered losses of over 11 billion US dollars. Thereafter Iran has blockaded the Strait of Hormuz. The US President Donald Trump has been alternately issuing threats and reports of ongoing peace talks which have been periodically denied by the Iranians. Pakistan at the behest of the US has attempted a couple of unsuccessful peace negotiations. While Iran was selectively allowing passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the US Navy has imposed a blockade on those ships. Presently there has been a two-week uneasy lull in the war. The US has claimed victory but it has failed in its military objective of regime change. Ironically a more hardline leadership regime controlled by the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command (IRGC) has taken over. For Israel it has been a partial success at great cost in that it has been able to reduce the military power of the Iranian regime reducing but not eliminating the constant threat from Iran. Needless to say, all sides are using the temporary lull in fighting to replenish their armamentarium.
The middle eastern crisis had begun in 2023 after Israeli intelligence reported that Iran had already accumulated a substantial amount of enriched uranium for assembling thirty or so nuclear bombs though it was yet to acquire the complete technology. In 2024 there was an exchange of missiles between Israel and Iran, and in 2025 there was another 12-day war between the US and Israel on one side and Iran on the other, this time too with a heavy exchange of missiles in which the Iranian Nuclear sites namely Fordow was hit, after which the US claimed it had completely disabled the Iranian nuclear programme. The Israeli intelligence and its Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu were however not satisfied and have continued to allege that Iran had removed its stock of enriched Uranium to some undisclosed site that neither the US nor the Israeli intelligence could locate. The complicating factor has been the Iranian Mullah regime, ever since it came to existence led by its then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini after deposing the Shah of Iran in 1979 has engaged in the aggressive rhetoric about its intent of wiping off Israel from the world map. Not only that, it has extended its influence in the entire middle east through its terrorist proxies, the Hamas in Palestine and Gaza, the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. While the Houthis have been targeting Saudi Arabia and the US bases in the gulf, Hezbollah and Hamas have been a persistent thorn in the East and West of Israel orchestrating a never-ending string of terror attacks through underground tunnels and rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. Matters came to a head on October 7 2023 when Hamas militants armed with Chinese weapons, gliders, motorbikes and vehicles breached the fortified fences across Gaza and attacked Israeli civilians at the Supernova music festival and adjoining localities killing 1800 civilians and kidnapping hundreds of civilians, women, children, young and old men as hostage leaving a horrific trail of arson, murder and rape in its wake. Macabre scenes of bleeding and wounded Israeli hostages being paraded in Gaza amid cheering civilian spectators on TV screens shocked viewers worldwide accompanied by a deafening silence from the politically correct liberal world. Israel retaliated with a fierce artillery barrage and aerial bombardment over Gaza pulverizing its terror infrastructure, located often beneath schools, residential areas and hospitals but this time the Israelis did not pull their punches. After a month of ‘softening up’ Hamas resistance, the Israeli ground troops moved in mopping up the penny packets and tunnels where the Hamas terrorists were holed up. Due to the ‘human shield’ tactics adopted by the Hamas, there were thousands of civilian casualties, and the liberal world led by the UN Chief Antonio Gueterrez was quick to label the Israeli action as ‘genocide’, disregarding the fact that the dividing line between terrorists and civilians is next to impossible to locate, be it Gaza or anywhere else on earth. It is reported that some Hamas militants mentored their Pakistani brethren as they carried out their barbaric attack in Pahalgam a year ago.
The USA’s NATO partners have refused to join the US and Israel in the war, and NATO is practically defunct. The middle eastern countries want the US to remove its military bases from the region. The Baloch rebels have built up their own navy which has started attacking the Pakistani navy. Pakistan no longer controls the west of Indus and is all set to disintegrate. Russia has largely achieved its military objectives in Ukraine, China and India remain unscathed; the US is on the verge of vacating the middle east while Iran has emerged as the regional oil hegemon in control of the Strait of Hormuz through which 25% of global oil shipping passes. Turkey on its part is leaving no stone unturned to emerge as the leader of the Sunni world and Recep Tayyip Erdogan dreams of reviving the Ottoman Caliphate with him as the Caliph. The BRICS countries have moved away from the US dollar and we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the global American hegemony.
“Israel is in a dominant position in West Asia (Rather – The Most) কিন্তু মেঘ উঠেছে, বোধ হয় কালবৈশাখী। কোনো মুসলিম STATEএরই Mature Political process নেই। Coup এবং counter-coupতে ঝাঁঝরা করা সবাই…… ঝড় উঠবে। Arab দের সঙ্গে বোঝাপড়া হয়েও যাবে, যার ফলে সব Arab powers দের মেনে নিতে হবে Israel এর বাস্তবিকতা….. যত odds ই Israel এর বিরুদ্ধে আসুক না কেন, এই প্রাচীন জাতি উচ্চশিরে থাকবে “- Jayasree, January 1999, Oi Mahamanaba Ashe P 312.”
