The new world (dis)order

The United States didn’t just bomb Iran, it shattered what little remained of international law and diplomacy in a dark new world order born from Gaza’s ruins.

The central tenets of this order are hypocrisy and the blatant and unchecked use of might. No extreme is unacceptable, no lie too great and no atrocity too appalling if it is in service to the Empire. And the Empire knows no allies, only vassals and subjects; those who do not bend the knee will be broken and expected to be thankful for it.

Consider that Iran had signed on to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), agreeing to limit its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief and other provisions. Trump nixed it. Iran also signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and allowed inspections only to have Israel (which has not and does not intend to sign the NPT) launch unprovoked and illegal assaults. Iran was at the negotiating table when the US bombed that very table, and then blamed Iran for being intransigent. All warfare is based on deception, yes, but in this case even that word is doing some heavy lifting. All the while the US called on Iran to comply, and with Trump seemingly deciding whether to strike, military assets were being readied. Truly is it said that when trying to determine if war is coming, you must not focus on what is being said, you must focus on where the military is being sent.

And then there is an insult that is added to injury as Western leaders — hollow men and women in suits — trot out their bot-like statements condemning Iran and labelling it the primary threat to ‘international security,’ whatever that even means. In doing so they hope to appease the Empire and protect their colonial outpost of Israel (as they have done throughout the genocide) without any regard to the fact that the myth of Western morality also lies buried with the dead of Gaza or that the very institutions they created have been destroyed by their own hands.

Europe’s desperate attempts to claw back some semblance of relevance in a changing world are as pathetic as they are doomed to fail. Much the same could be said for Western media which is once again cheerleading a war in the Middle East and assuring us that this time it will be different, that this war, as per Time magazine itself “could usher in a new dawn for peace and prosperity in the Middle East.” The script remains the same, with talk of democracy, freedom, and human rights while supporting mass murder and lawlessness. Yes, there are fewer buyers of such lies now, but outrage cannot, and will not, stop the bombs from falling.

The post-October 7 world has been unkind to Iran: its network of allies and proxies lie devastated. Hezbollah is struggling to survive and rebuild, having seen its cadres and leadership badly damaged in its conflict with Israel. Syria has fallen, cutting off a crucial link in the chain that Iran had forged throughout the region. Iran’s control or influence over a few Iraqi militias is hardly a strategic threat, which leaves only the Houthis, who are, against all odds, still managing to disrupt Israel. But this is more an irritant than a danger, and undoubtedly the Empire will turn its focus there once Iran is ‘dealt with’.

Iran itself is friendless and defenceless in the face of a combined Israeli/US assault: its air defences and air force are non-existent and its only real option is to somehow keep up a sporadic missile barrage against Israel while seeking to protect its remaining military assets, a feat that is made incredibly difficult due to lack of control over its own airspace and the fact that Israel can and is being endlessly resupplied by the West. A decades-old project to expand Iranian influence now lies in ruins.

And the next step is, of course, regime change. There was never any doubt about this final solution — but now, we have Trump saying out loud what Netanyahu has been pleading for, for decades: the removal of the Iranian leadership and the neutering of Iran itself.

If we look at the patterns of the Israeli bombardment, we see that Israel has attempted, with considerable success, to eliminate Iran’s military leadership as well as its scientific elite and has reserved the right to similarly target Iran’s political leadership and even its supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The latest bombings have targeted what can only be defined as symbols of the state: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) internal HQ and ideology centres have been hit as have power supply systems and the Evin prison where many political opponents are imprisoned. The goal is thus to degrade not just Iran’s military and civilian infrastructure but also to loosen the grip of the Iranian state. In tandem, we see that Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah of Iran is given ample air time to sell himself as the next best hope for Iran while Israeli ministers openly talk about their ‘contacts’ with the Iranian opposition.

Certainly, there is no shortage of groups inside and outside Iran who would happily throw their hats in the ring when it comes to destabilising Iran. Apart from Pahlavi and his entirely pro-Israel monarchist coterie, there are the Mujahideen-e-Khalq who, while they enjoy little to no support inside Iran, are nevertheless capable of carrying out terrorist attacks with the aid and support of Israel and the US. Then there are insurgent groups like the Jaish-al-adl who, like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) in the recent Pakistan-India war, have announced their support of the aggressor. There is already talk of establishing a Kurdish zone in the north of Iran, a repeat of previous attempts at the de-facto balkanisation of other regional states.

Indeed, a scenario in which a tattered Iranian regime is beset internally by an alphabet soup of armed groups and movements, all the while having Israel dominate the air and destroy remaining military capabilities, would be sufficient to please the imperial powers.

After all, the same blueprint worked well enough in Iraq and Libya and also in Syria and in Iran this model would not even require the deployment of ground troops; the proxies would do their work well enough. Now one can argue that such interventions have proved costly for America, but another view is that despite the damage to America’s coffers and global standing, the real purpose was indeed achieved: Saddam is gone and the current Iraq will never be able to challenge Israeli dominance. Gaddafi was eliminated and Libya is now no longer even a viable state. The same model can and will be applied to Iran.

Meanwhile, the regional Arab states have already gladly signed on to the new security infrastructure being put in place, an infrastructure that has Israel at its centre, backed by unrelenting US might.

The lesson for the rest of the world is clear: power and alliances are all that matter and having a nuclear deterrent is not a luxury, it is an absolute necessity because you simply don’t know who will come after you next in a world where no agreement, no deal and no international convention, no matter how sacrosanct, is worth the paper it is written on.

Zarrar Khuhro is a Pakistani journalist who co-hosts a talk show and has written for several local and international publications. He posts on X @ZarrarKhuhro

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