|
Trending Topics
|
The U.S.-Israeli Strategy Against Iran Is Working
(Al Jazeera-Qatar) Muhanad Seloom - When you look at what has actually happened to Iran's principal instruments of power - its ballistic missile arsenal, its nuclear infrastructure, its air defenses, its navy and its proxy command architecture - the picture is not one of U.S. failure. It is one of systematic, phased degradation. I see an adversary whose capacity to project power is collapsing in real time. Iran now faces a strategic dilemma. If it fires its remaining missiles, it exposes launchers that are promptly destroyed. This is a force managing decline, not projecting strength. Much of the criticism of the U.S.-Israeli campaign focuses on its costs while treating the status quo ante as if it were cost-free. It was not. Tehran was less than two weeks away from enriching enough uranium for one nuclear bomb, according to U.S. intelligence assessments. Closing the Strait of Hormuz was always Iran's most visible retaliatory card. About 90% of Iran's own oil exports pass through Kharg Island and then the strait. China, Tehran's largest remaining economic partner, cannot receive Iranian crude while the strait is shut. Every day the blockade continues, Iran severs its own economic lifeline and alienates the one major power that has consistently shielded it. The regional environment that sustained Iran's proxy architecture, including the grudging tolerance by Gulf states fearful of Iranian retaliation, is being replaced by active hostility. Qatar and Bahrain are arresting IRGC operatives. The Iranian threat, if left unchecked, would have produced a nuclear-armed Iran capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz at will, surrounded by proxy forces that could hold the entire region hostage indefinitely. The writer is Assistant Professor of International Politics and Security at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar.