Understanding the attack on Iran
Trump is merely a useful pawn in long-standing deep state plans for regional and energy geopolitics in the Middle East
The United States and Israel have again launched attacks on Iran, reportedly killing the Minister of Defence, the army chief of staff, the head of nuclear research, the head of emergency command intelligence, and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini. I previously emphasised the error in underestimating the military and intelligence capabilities of Israel and the United States.
The attack should not come as a surprise. And it has very little to do with Donald Trump, who is merely a useful functionary for a long-standing desire to assert full US control over the Middle East.
As revealed by General Wesley Clark, the plan to remove the Iranian ‘regime’ was hatched by the neoconservatives of the Bush era:1
About that, I wrote previously:
It took longer than five years, but whether through Bush Jr (Iraq, Afghanistan), or Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama (Libya, Yemen, Somalia), or Biden (Lebanon/Hezbollah, Syria), everything is going to plan… When originally revealing the list of 7 countries, Wesley Clark instead pointed his finger at Pakistan, Egypt and Saudia Arabia, but the US — under both Democrats and Republicans — has instead chosen to establish close alliances with these countries despite two of them being outright dictatorships.4
The claims from some commentators that Trump would be genuinely anti-war, restrain the deep state, or restrain warmongering by US proxies has turned out, as I predicted, to be hopelessly misplaced.
Given the usual propaganda that is put out around war time, it is useful to revisit the basic history of Iran since WWII and the pivotal role of Western countries in destroying its democracy.
The recent history of Iran in one paragraph
In the 1950s, Iran had a democratic, secular government under Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh was a social democrat and realised that with British control of Iranian oil there was little prospect of improving the well-being of the population. With the British unwilling to negotiate the terms of their colonial-era agreement with the Shah, Mosaddegh nationalised Iran’s oil reserves. Shortly thereafter, British and US foreign intelligence (MI6 and CIA) successfully instigated a coup, working with the Shah, local ‘strongmen’ and factions within the military. They reinstalled the Shah who re-established foreign control over Iranian oil and governed as a brutal dictator for more than two decades. Leaders of the previous democratic government were imprisoned, tortured and in some cases executed. In 1979 the Shah was overthrown with broad popular support. However, an Islamist grouping led by Ayatollah Khomeini took control of the post-Shah state. Under his control, leaders of other opposition groups were purged and executed, and Iran became an Islamic Republic. Under this system, there is an Islamic Supreme Leader who is unelected and a president who is elected every four years - but the candidates for election are subject to approval by the Supreme Leader and Guardian Council. The recently assassinated Ayatollah Khameini succeeded the first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1989.
In short: Iran had democracy until the US and UK destroyed it. They had no qualms about Iran being governed by a brutal dictator provided it was one who served their geopolitical and economic interests.
Revisiting earlier predictions
Before I summarise the main strategic reasons behind these recent attacks, let me revisit what I wrote in previous articles to show how these developments were easy to foresee - provided you ignored deliberately misleading propaganda from the likes of Glenn Greenwald about Trump and Gabbard as being ‘the best chance we have of peace’, and the false narrative of declining US hegemony that I have critiqued before [here, here and here].
In June 2025, after the last series of air strikes on Iran, I wrote:
The Iranians were caught by surprise because they were busy in negotiations with the US and its European allies for a new nuclear non-proliferation treaty. But this is the (evil?) genius of the current approach of the US deep state: it uses one grouping within the US, or indeed its trans-Atlantic alliances, to dupe its enemies1 into a false sense of security.
It seems that strategy repeated itself. In case you didn’t know: in recent weeks Iran has been in negotiations with the United States facilitated by Oman, along with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey. Oman announced positive progress just before Israel launched the strikes that killed Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Khameini. A similar tactic was employed to kill numerous Hamas leaders, when Israeli missiles hit targets in Qatar where negotiations were taking place.
I had also previously noted that contrary to the narrative about a shift to multipolarity, the US had been quietly strengthening its allegiances in the Middle East and that the likes of Erdogan in Turkey had played a useful double game for the US against both Russia and Iran.
In February 2025, writing about what to expect from Trump’s second term, I said:
[Trump] is potentially, a major asset to the US deep state in ways that are already becoming apparent at this early stage…the people who direct Trump’s actions can take advantage of this to promote their own strategic agendas. One important example of this from Trump’s first term was the assassination of Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani was a senior Iranian military leader who was assassinated in Iraq at the instruction of Donald Trump. If a president like Obama had taken the same action, it could well have set off a direct conflict in the Middle East between Iran and the United States. It would also have fundamentally undermined the US’s positioning in global affairs, showing up the Obama administration to be grossly hypocritical in violating international law when convenient. But when Trump did it there was no direct response, largely because he is seen as such a wildcard that it can be claimed he does not represent the US more broadly…So my overall point is this: Trump creates as many opportunities as threats for the ‘deep state’ he is supposedly dismantling, and they are far more sophisticated operators than he is.
Moreover, I also argued that the likes of Tulsi Gabbard - who prior to joining the Trump administration had claimed to be against a war with Iran - were deceptive operators whose stances should not be trusted.
In short: cutting through the deception and propaganda to the raw facts, the events of the last 24 hours are no surprise at all and entirely in line with my analysis since Trump came into office.
The reasons for attacking Iran
To keep this analysis short, I will just list the main reasons behind the attack on Iran and attempt to force ‘regime change’:
The US has sought full geopolitical control of the Middle East for decades and Iran has been the last major obstacle to doing so since the fall of Syria to US-backed al-Qaeda and ISIS leader Ahmed el-Sharaa.
Destabilising or gaining control of Iran is a precursor to placing more pressure on Russia and confronting China, which are the deep state’s overriding geopolitical goals.
The US is seeking to exert control over global oil supply, but not for the reason it used to. Previously the US sought this for its own energy security and economic benefit, but having become a net exporter of energy [read my post on the importance of that here] its current reason is to exert leverage over China’s oil supply. While China’s supply appears to be diversified, the proportion coming from US ‘allies’ (more accurately characterised as US vassal states on foreign policy) is gradually increasing. With control of Syria and Venezuela, China can only fully rely on Russian and Iranian supply: even that combination is insufficient, but removing Iran would make China extremely vulnerable despite its efforts to move to renewable energy sources.
Iran has been the primary counterweight to Israeli influence in the region and was the primary external supporter of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance: weakening it or achieving ‘regime change’ will likely ensure the complete collapse of those groups, which have already largely been defeated militarily.
A key point I want to counter here is that the attempt at Iranian ‘regime change’ is primarily about Israel. That is false. It is primarily about US geopolitics. While Israel has had disproportionate influence over the US, the tail is not wagging the dog. And I have argued extensively that in fact the US is busy pivoting away from its unconditional support for Israel, even though it may seem otherwise.
Again it is helpful to rewatch this speech by Joe Biden to Congress in the 1980s:
Despite the narrative that the United States is fully under Israeli control, the sentiments expressed by Biden remain a much more accurate descriptor of the nature of the US-Israel relationship.
The old ‘WMD’ justification
One last issue to address is that of ‘weapons of mass destruction’. To justify the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, led by the United States under George W. Bush and the UK under by Blair, the CIA and MI6 manufactured fake evidence of WMDs.2 In somewhat similar fashion, successive US administrations have claimed that their threats to Iran have to do with its nuclear weapons programme. Trump has done the same. However, as many have observed over the years, this does not withstand scrutiny. It is an open secret that Israel has illegal nuclear weapons, but the United States has not only failed to do anything about that but likely supported the development of those weapons. Moreover, if Iran had managed to develop nuclear weapons it would likely not be as vulnerable to military attacks: in that context, one could even argue that its attempts to develop such weapons constituted a legitimate attempt at self-defence.
You will notice that in my list of reasons for the attacks, nuclear weapons did not feature. They are really just a rhetorical excuse for geopolitical actions that would take place regardless. So too is the claim that this has anything to do with democracy.
The hegemony of the US deep state rolls on, unimpeded by any countervailing force.
A postscript on Mark Carney
Last month Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney received a huge amount of positive publicity after speeches in China and at the World Economic Forum where he appeared to commit Canada to a shift away from its alliance with the United States. This narrative was promoted first by widely-read ‘Global South’ commentators3 (like Arnaud Bertrand) and then by the mainstream media internationally as evidence of a decline in US hegemony and shift towards multipolarity. I strongly disagreed. This is what I wrote:
So what is happening? Very simply, two things:
Other (non-US) countries are genuinely seeking to secure their economic and trade interests with China
This is being used to further the false narrative of multi-polarity in order to downplay US strength and make its adversaries complacent.
What Carney is primarily doing is securing Canada’s trade and economic interests, with backchannel permission from US military and intelligence allies. He may also be engaging in subterfuge: seeking to enter into broader, but fake, alliances with China that can be weaponised at a later stage. Neither supports the notion of a pivot away from US hegemony.
Well, shortly after the attacks by the US and Israel, Carney released a statement which included the following remark:
Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.
That clearly demonstrates the accuracy of my critique.
Based on this, and similar examples I have yet to write about, I would strongly advise reconsidering any weight you might place on the commentary of the likes of Bertrand, and the likes of Glenn Greenwald - who strongly pushed the narrative of Trump as likely peacemaker. At best they are extremely naive (so why would you trust their analysis) and at worst deliberately deceptive.4
There is a strong suspicion that some interests supporting the invasion went to the extent of murdering a UK nuclear scientists who published a dissenting view.
Bertrand lives in China but is French, which itself may turn out to be important at a later stage when examining where his real allegiances lie.
For some other (non-exhaustive) reasons to think that Glenn Greenwald may have been ‘turned’ by US intelligence agencies, read this:
This is a strong framing, especially in highlighting that military action is rarely the starting point. It is the visible endpoint of a much longer chain of institutional positioning.
What often gets missed is that strikes like this function less as isolated tactical decisions and more as attempts to reshape the strategic operating environment itself. When the U.S. and Israel conduct coordinated strikes, particularly against nuclear and leadership targets, the objective is not just degradation of capability. It is to alter Iran’s expected future choices by changing its perception of risk, survivability, and escalation credibility.
In that sense, the true battlefield is institutional, not geographic.
The key variable becomes whether the strike successfully weakens Iran’s ability to project influence through its regional network, or whether it instead strengthens internal cohesion and accelerates asymmetric retaliation. Iran’s immediate missile and drone responses illustrate how quickly deterrence dynamics can invert if the targeted state retains operational capacity.
There is also a deeper economic dimension. The moment military risk threatens transit through chokepoints like Hormuz, global energy markets reprice risk almost instantly, with oil jumping sharply on escalation fears. This is where military action stops being purely military and becomes a mechanism that reshapes global economic leverage.
The most important question going forward is not whether this was tactically successful, but whether it produces strategic compression or strategic fragmentation. Compression forces the adversary into constrained choices. Fragmentation expands the conflict into new domains and actors.
History suggests that outcome depends less on the strike itself and more on the institutional capacity of all parties to sustain the escalation ladder that follows.
That is where the real consequences are decided.
This all about Oil, US, and Land, Isreal.... it's got nothing to do with the regime.... oh, and if it's ok to bomb a nation and kill their tyrannical leader, guess we need to brace ourselves.