Trump’s reckless gambit
THE US-Israeli assault on Iran has sparked a regional conflict which has plunged the Middle East into chaos. The widening war has engulfed the entire region and has global consequences. Israel has also launched attacks in Lebanon. Washington’s war of choice has exposed Gulf states to retaliatory attacks by Iran, which have inflicted widespread damage. If President Donald Trump thought military action against Iran would be a quick win leading to regime collapse that hasn’t happened — as if governments can be toppled from the air. His administration certainly did not expect Iran’s fierce response and its painful blows to GCC countries.
Trump’s Middle East gamble is a throwback to America’s past imperial forays — in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere — that sought to ‘remake’ the region to serve American interests, but which ended in disaster. The lessons of regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been learnt. This regime-change war is likely to meet the same fate but at higher cost to the region and world.
The US-Israeli action laid bare that Washington negotiated in bad faith with Tehran before it attacked Iran. This was a replay of last year when the US joined Israel in bombing Iranian nuclear installations in the midst of negotiations with Tehran. The foreign minister of Oman, mediating indirect talks this time, said a deal was “within reach”. Instead, Trump opted for war. The Iranian side made significant, unprecedented nuclear concessions including the commitment not to possess material to make a nuclear weapon. But Trump had other objectives. The talks were used as a smokescreen to complete military preparations for an assault that the massive buildup near Iran indicated in previous weeks. There is little doubt that one of the lessons the world will draw from this is whether the US under Trump can be trusted in negotiations.
Trump and his team offered shifting, sometimes conflicting justifications for the strike against Iran, an act of brazen aggression in defiance of international law. At times they said it was a response to an imminent threat from Iran when there was no such threat. In briefings to Congress, Pentagon officials acknowledged the lack of intelligence to show Iran was about to attack US forces. Similarly, the Israeli claim that its attack was to pre-empt an Iranian strike was a canard.
Lessons have not been learnt from past US interventions that ended in disaster.
At various times, Trump said the war objective was to destroy Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities, aid Iranian demonstrators and eliminate a state that backed terrorism. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested Israel’s decision to attack forced the US hand, Trump publicly contradicted this. In fact, Trump’s statements indicated his end goal is regime change. Deeming Iran to be at its weakest with its regional allies degraded and also emboldened by his action in Venezuela, Trump figured this was an opportune moment to strike, egged on by Israel. The strategy of decapitating Iranian leaders obviously aimed at regime change.
Trump’s shifting rationale for the war was questioned by his Congressional opponents, who also criticised him for sidelining Congress. Senator Bernie Saunders assailed the war as “illegal, premeditated and unconstitutional”. Senator Chris Van Hollen described it as “a regime-change war” that would leave America less secure. Other critics said Trump neither had a strategy nor an endgame. Conservative and MAGA voices warned of political repercussions in mid-term Congressional elections later this year. Trump narrowly won votes in the Senate and House in moves to halt the war. Public opinion is far from supportive of Trump’s reckless action. The majority of Americans oppose the war according to several polls including the latest Ipsos/Reuters poll.
Iran’s retaliatory strategy has been to expand the conflict by striking Israel as well as US bases and installations in GCC countries with waves of drone and missile attacks. The US and Israel miscalculated the scope and intensity of Iran’s counteroffensive, especially its targeting of the energy and civilian infrastructure of Gulf states. This included attacks on Saudi Arabia’s biggest refinery and Qatar’s liquefied natural gas plant — the world’s largest export facility — forcing it to cease production. In fact, Iran hit and damaged the core business model of GCC states, built on security, tax-free ease of doing business and of being tourism, financial and transportation hubs. It has used low-cost, hard-to-intercept drones to deplete the more expensive missile stockpiles of Gulf states. US defence officials acknowledge this is a “major challenge”.
The aim of Iran’s strategy is to raise the costs of war and reshape US calculations by inflicting damage that becomes hard for Gulf states to bear, forcing them to urge Washington to de-escalate and agree to a ceasefire. The strategy resulted in Qatar and UAE lobbying Arab allies to persuade Trump to find an off-ramp from military operations and resume diplomacy.
Although Iran has now called a halt to strikes against Gulf states unless attacks originate from them, how far its strategy has already worked is an open question. For now, Iranian actions have meant oil has stopped flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. The oil price has surged, which if sustained, can also hit the American economy and drive inflation despite the US being largely self-sufficient. Gas prices have spiked, rising in Europe by over 50 per cent. Global markets have been shaken by fears of an energy price shock while uncertainty about how long the war will last is driving market volatility. Qatar’s energy minister has warned the war could “bring down the economies of the world” and stop all Gulf energy exports within days if the war doesn’t end soon. This shows how Washington is losing control of events.
Meanwhile, the US and Israel have intensified the bombing campaign targeting residential buildings, hospitals and schools in Tehran. Their move to arm Iranian Kurdish militants based in Iraq to launch a ground incursion into Iran to spark an internal uprising not only shows the limits of an air war but is also a reckless policy to open a new front aimed at regime change. Demanding Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, Trump made the outrageous statement that he must have a say in who runs Iran. All this makes the endpoint of the escalating crisis hard to predict. What is certain is the region’s spreading war and destabilisation will have far-reaching ramifications, which will shape the Middle East’s future.
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.
Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2026