Qamar Bashir
Since February 28, President Donald Trump has repeatedly declared that a breakthrough agreement with Iran was imminent. The message was consistent: diplomacy was progressing, a deal was close, and Iran would not acquire nuclear weapons. Yet each time Washington and Tehran appeared near the finish line, a new escalation pulled them back from the edge of agreement to the edge of war. In the eyes of many observers, Israel repeatedly emerged as the decisive spoiler, throwing a spanner into the diplomatic process whenever the United States and Iran seemed close to sealing a deal. What could have become a major diplomatic achievement has instead returned to full-scale confrontation.
The latest crisis has again exposed the contradiction at the heart of American policy. Washington says it wants a deal, but its military posture keeps expanding. It speaks of diplomacy, yet continues to rely on air power, naval deployments, missile strikes, sanctions, and military threats. The result is not peace, not victory, and not a settlement. It is simply a return to square one.
The downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter in the Persian Gulf has now become a symbol of this dangerous drift. The Apache is not just a helicopter; it is an emblem of American military power. Its presence near Iran raises a simple but powerful question: what was an American war machine doing thousands of miles away from the United States, operating so close to Iranian waters and territory? If an Iranian helicopter were hovering near American shores, Washington would never describe it as harmless. Yet when U.S. assets operate near Iran, any Iranian response is immediately labeled aggression.
This is where the language of “self-defense” has been turned upside down. When Israel attacks Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, or Iran, it is called self-defense. When the United States strikes Iranian assets, it is called self-defense. But when the targeted country responds, its response is called escalation or aggression. This manipulation of language has become one of the most dangerous weapons of modern war. The attacker claims defense; the defender is branded the aggressor.
The collapse of the latest ceasefire is especially painful because considerable diplomatic effort had gone into preventing a wider war. Pakistan, among others, played a quiet but important mediating role in helping bring the parties back from the brink. Those efforts proved that even bitter adversaries can step away from disaster when diplomacy is given space. But now, once again, that work appears to have been wasted by renewed escalation.
This renewed conflict also comes at the worst possible time for the United States. America jointly with Mexico and Canada is hosting the FIFA World Cup 2026, one of the greatest sporting events in human history. This should have been a moment of celebration, unity, culture, football, and global goodwill. Instead of seeing the world united under the banner of sport, audiences are again watching missiles, military briefings, oil shocks, and fears of regional war.
Football represents everything war destroys. In football, nations compete without killing. They struggle without hatred. They fight for victory within rules accepted by all. Winners celebrate; losers congratulate. The entire world comes together under one umbrella. That is the spirit FIFA brings. But the spirit now emerging from Washington and Tel Aviv is the opposite: domination, escalation, coercion, and destruction.
The deeper issue is that this war is not only about Iran’s nuclear program but a part of a broader regional project in which Israel seeks to reshape the Middle East under the cover of permanent insecurity. The controversy in the United Kingdom over Israeli-linked efforts to market or sell property connected to occupied West Bank settlements while war is still raging in the middle east is therefore not a side issue. It fits into a larger pattern. While war dominates the headlines, land consolidation continues quietly. While the world watches missiles and drones, facts on the ground are created brick by brick, road by road, settlement by settlement.
This is why the West Bank real-estate controversy matters. It shows how occupation is converted into commerce, how captured land is repackaged as investment, and how political control is normalized through private transactions.
In this reading, the project of “Greater Israel” is not pursued only through tanks and aircraft. It is also pursued through land sales, demographic engineering, diplomatic pressure, lobbying, and the gradual normalization of illegal occupation. War becomes the smoke screen; real estate becomes the instrument.
Israel is also laying down the trap for Washington. The United States is being pushed to fight a war whose ultimate benefits may not belong to America at all. If Iran is weakened, isolated, or broken, the greatest strategic winner may be Israel. If Iran’s resources, geography, and regional influence are neutralized, Israel’s dream of uncontested regional supremacy moves closer to reality. America pays the price in money, lives, global reputation, inflation, oil shocks, and military overstretch, while Israel advances its own long-term project.
This reality creates a profound strategic dilemma. For months, the United States and its allies have relied on the same war machinery: air strikes, naval pressure, missile attacks, sanctions, intelligence operations, and threats. These tools have failed to produce decisive political results. Iran remains intact. If the same tactics failed in the first phase of the war, there is little reason to believe that continuing them for another year will produce a different result.
This is why Washington must recognize the danger before it is trapped. Israel and its hawks in Washington are creating conditions in which America will eventually be told that it has only two choices: put boots on Iranian soil or use nukes.
But those are not America’s only choices. The United States can still choose independent judgment. It can separate American national interests from Israeli strategic ambitions. It can refuse to be dragged into a war designed by others and paid for by America.
The lesson is therefore clear: before considering any step that could transform a regional confrontation into a far larger and potentially uncontrollable conflict, American policymakers must carefully ask whether such actions genuinely advance U.S. national interests or merely advance objectives conceived by Israel. The answer to that question may determine not only the future of the current crisis but also the future balance of power across the entire Middle East.
The writer is Press Secretary to the President (Rtd),Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France,Former Press Attaché to Malaysia and Former MD, SRBC.He is living in Michigan, USA.
