Khadim Hussain
25 June 23, 2025
On the hot summer day of 13 June 2025 while nuclear talks between the Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei-led government of Islamic Republic of Iran and the President Donald J. Trump-led government of the United States of America (US) were underway, the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-led government of Israel launched unexpected attacks on the military assets, uranium enrichment facilities, oil production sources, communication systems and strategic defense production facilities of Iran. Israel codenamed the operation against Iran as Rising Lion which many around the globe thought as unwarranted and unprovoked.
The conflict due to Isreal’s strikes and Iran’s
Map of Israel Strikes on Iran since 13 June 2025. Source: Aljazeera
counter-strikes have so far cost 430 lives and 3,500 injured in Iran and 24 lives and 1,272 injured in Israel, according to local authorities. Independent observers place the death toll within Iran at over 600.
The complex history of friendly and antagonistic relations between Iran and Israel can be traced back to several decades during which both the states have navigated through several ups and downs in their bilateral relations. Iran was one of the members of the 11-member committee formed in 1947 to find a workable solution to the intricate and delicate issue of Palestine in the Middle East. Iran was also one of the three Muslim majority countries—the other two being Egypt and Türkiye—which recognised Israel back in 1948.
In their chapter entitled ‘Iranian Perceptions of and Policies toward Israel’, of the book Israel and Iran: A Dangerous Rivalry published by RAND Corporation in 2011, authors Dalia Dassa Kaye, Alireza Nader and Parisa Roshan are of the view that Israel welcomed relations with Iran more openly after the 1956 Suez war. As author Avi Shlaim asserts, “the Suez War did not produce permanent territorial changes in the Middle East, but it had profound repercussions for the balance of power between Israel and the Arab world, between East and West, and between the conservative and radical forces within the Arab world.” It was at this time, the authors think, that Gamal Abdel Nasser became the leading voice of Pan-Arabism and Palestinian liberation, forcing Israel to assess regional shifts and align itself accordingly. Non-Arab countries such as Israel, Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia shared a common fear of Nasser’s Pan-Arabism and Soviet influence, facilitating the emergence of the periphery alliance, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Alireza Nader and Parisa Roshan expound. Iran and Israel also viewed Iraq as a common threat, providing another rationale for cooperation. By the 1960s, Israel was supporting Iraqi Kurds fighting the central regime; Iran also viewed the Iraqi Kurds as the Iraqi regime’s Achilles’ heel. Thus, the Mossad and the SAVAK, Israel’s and Iran’s intelligence organizations, joined forces in aiding the Kurds in their struggle against the Iraqi central government, the authors reveal. The Mossad created a formal trilateral intelligence alliance (code-named Trident) with Iran and Turkey in 1958; the three countries exchanged intelligence and performed joint counterintelligence operations, the authors assert. Iranian-Israeli ties, driven by Ben-Gurion and the Shah of Iran, solidified by early 1959, and Tehran and Tel Aviv developed a close military and intelligence relationship that would continue to expand until the Islamic revolution, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Alireza Nader and Parisa Roshan reveal.
Elaborating on the Iran-Israel close ties, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Alireza Nader and Parisa Roshan write that Iran’s expectation of drawing itself closer to the United States through Israel had an important role in its decision to expand ties with Israel. By the mid-1960s, the Shah of Iran had permitted a permanent Israeli delegation to Iran that constituted a de facto embassy in Tehran. However, he did not grant Israel more than de facto recognition, and his public statements on Israel only grew more critical after the 1967 war. Though Iranian popular disapproval of Israel surged, the Shah continued to deepen relations with the state of Israel after he witnessed Israel’s victory over the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armies. He believed that Israel’s rising status would strengthen Iran’s position as a major regional power as well, the authors think.
Revealing close economic and military ties between Iran and Israel in the 1970s, the authors Dalia Dassa Kaye, Alireza Nader and Parisa Roshan elaborate further that the Iranian-Israeli alliance resulted in extensive economic and energy cooperation. To conceal their tracks, Iran and Israel established new companies in Panama and Switzerland under a central legal entity known as Trans-Asiatic Oil, which served as the operating base of the top-secret partnership that existed between Israel and the National Iranian Oil Company in the late 1970s. The Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company, which provided Iranian oil to Israel, grew as a subsidiary of Trans-Asiatic Oil, the authors decipher.
The Iran-Israel trajectory of bilateral ties radically altered after the Islamic Revolution in Iran was consummated in 1979. Subsequently, the architect of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, purportedly called the United States of America (USA) as the “big devil” and Israel as “the small devil” though some clandestine weapon trade with Israel is said to have continued during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980s. The putative involvement of Iran in asymmetrical warfare in the Middle East at large and against Israel in particular through its purported proxies during the 1990s and 2000s is well documented but the escalation between Irael and Iran remained indirect and below the threshold of active conflagration.
This indirect belligerence took a sharp turn last year in 2024 when the two states exchanged barrages of missile and air firepower against each other after Israel is said have degraded Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Yemen. The 13 June 2025 surprise attack by the government of Israel on Iran seems be the fiercest of all the armed engagements between Israel and Iran which Prime Minister Netanyahu declared to be in “self-defense” and “pre-emptive strikes” against the “Iranian nuclear bomb” that PM Netanyahu claimed would be used against the state of Israel. Talking to a US based satellite media outlet following the strikes against Iran, PM Netanyahu claimed that Iran was going to heat up its uranium enrichment to a nuclear bomb within days and that the strikes against Iran would continue to unfold for several days to come.
Iran strikes on Israel since 13 June 2025. Source: Daily Mail.
It is pertinent to note that the United States and other world powers had reached an agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, in 2015, which was revoked by President Donald J. Trump during his first tenure as the president of the United States in 2018. Iran had stopped its uranium enrichment programme after the JCPOA in return of relief in sanctions some ten years ago restarting it only after the agreement was rescinded by the United States.
Iran has, since then, not only shown flexibility to enter into dialogue with the United States regarding its nuclear programme recently but has also made progress in mending diplomatic relations with its Middle Eastern arch-rival, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabi (KSA), after the 2016 diplomatic meltdown. The normalisation of diplomatic relations between Iran and KSA has been made possible at the behest of the Peoples’ Republic of China which has a high stake in the Middle Eastern region due to its substantial trade relations with the countries of the region amounting to nearly $229 billion exports to the region (in 2022) and $278 billion imports from the region. With a history of rivalry and proxy wars between Iran and KSA in Lebanon, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Libya for several decades, the rapprochement that started with the visit of President of the Peoples’ Republic of China, Xi Jinping, to Saudi Arabia on 7 December 2022 and then the Iranian President’s official visit to China in February 2023 could have significant impacts for the whole of Middle East, including Israel and Palestine, if it were not for the Hamas-Israel conflict that started in Oct 2023.
The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of Israel has justified the surprise attack against Iran as ‘preemptive strikes’ claiming that it was a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival. But were the strikes really preemptive is a question that has since been asked by many international Middle Eastern experts. Iran has reiterated several times that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only besides the purported existence of a Fatwa (religious decree) issued by Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, banning all weapons of mass destruction (WMD), nuclear weapons in particular.
Just three months ago on 25 March 2025, the USA’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, while testifying to Congress had said that Iran had not restarted a nuclear weapons program it halted in 2003. President Donald Trump disavowed Gabbard’s take on Iran’s nuclear programme on 20 June 2025 and consequently Gabbard had to retract claiming that her testimony had been taken out of context by “dishonest media”. The division within the US administration regarding Iran’s Nuclear Programme is, although, said to be manifest from the episode. In an interview with CNN, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, said that while it was possible that there were operations being kept secret from regulators, reports that Iran had not been actively pursuing a nuclear weapon since 2003 were accurate, lending yet more evidence contradicting PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of Israel’s “self-defense” narrative for its war on Iran.
Another discourse that is generated for the consumption of the public in Israel and the common people of the global north is the narrative of ‘regime change’ in Iran which is projected to lead to de-escalation in the Middle East and guarantee the defense of Isreal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly told the US based Fox News on Sunday that regime change in Iran “could certainly be the result” of Israel’s operation there, because, he said, the Iranian government was “very weak.” Strikes against Iran have so far targeted the Iran’s military chain of command, production sources, uranium enrichment facilities, defense structures and communication systems to apparently make just the point of Iran’s weakness, decimate Iran’s public will power and demoralise the common people of Iran while projecting the impression of Israel’s strength of firepower and intelligence network, but that appears to have the opposite effects.
A number of lacunae could be identified in the narrative of a “regime change” in Iran. First, external threat to the sovereignty of Iran might work as a unifying factor instead of strengthening the perception of the regime weakness. While many Iranians undoubtedly oppose the current regime and take exception to numerous policies adopted by the “rigid fundamentalist” Ayatollahs that presently lead the government in Iran, they seem to avoid rising up against the regime in the wake external aggression against their country. Second, externally triggered regime change might bring disastrous consequences as is evident from the examples of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya in the recent past. Third, externally imposed regime-change is against the international law and international norms of sovereignty. Few people and governments around the globe, despite perceiving Islamic Republic of Iran as a threat to the global north, would like to see that the externally triggered regime-change earn a normative value in international relations with toxic consequences for international state system.
The “regime change” narrative has been complemented with the idea of ‘decapitation’ of the Iranian current political leadership including the supreme leader Ayatullah Sayyad Ali Khamanei. The Iran’s Supreme Leader has reportedly picked up three replacements in case he is killed. But even then, so far there is neither any sign of a popular uprising in Iran to seize power nor is there any signal of revolt against the Supreme Leader .
In his interesting piece at the Conversation website, Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University, Australia, argues that from the Middle East to America, history shows you cannot assassinate your way to peace. Fitzpatrick has referenced the Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman’s book Rise and Kill First who argues assassinations have long sat at the heart of Israeli politics. Fitzpatrick further argues that in the past 75 years, there have been more than 2,700 assassination operations undertaken by Israel. These have, in Bergman’s words, attempted to “stop history” and bypass “statesmanship and political discourse”. Fitzpatrick writes that this normalisation of assassinations has been codified in the Israeli expression of “mowing the grass”. This is, as historian Nadim Rouhana has shown, a metaphor for a politics of constant assassination. Enemy “leadership and military facilities must regularly be hit in order to keep them weak.” Fitzpatrick reveals that the point is not to solve the underlying political questions at issue. Instead, this approach aims to sow fear, dissent and confusion among enemies. Fitzpatrick concludes that thousands of assassination operations have not, however, proved sufficient to resolve the long-running conflict between Israel, its neighbours and the Palestinians. The tactic itself is surely overdue for retirement. Only if the PM Netanyahu’s government in Israel and authoritarian governments elsewhere could heed the lessons of history.
Analysts grapple with the fast-changing events of the last ten days to discover the real reason that might have prompted the PM Netanyahu-led government in Israel to launch surprising strikes against the Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamanei-led government of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 13 June 2025 which have met with retaliation of missile barrage from Iran. One of the major reasons offered by several analysts is that the Israel’s attack on Iran is intended to disrupt nuclear talks between Iran and Israel. There are widespread speculations that Ali Shamkhani, a former defense minister and a close adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was among those targeted and is reported to have been killed, though Iranian state media and government are yet to officially confirm his death. Shamkhani is believed to have been a leading figure in the talks with the United States over the past months. Many argue that the death of Shamkhani can be construed as an attempt to sabotage talks between Iran and the USA. But this does not perfectly sit into the whole scheme of events as the death of Shamkhani may scarcely affect the Iranian plan of uranium enrichment programme.
Then what else drove the PM Benjamin Netanyahu-led government of Israel to launch surprising attack against Iran? Tel Aviv-based independent analyst, Ori Goldberg, has discussed all the possible reasons for attacking Iran and comes to the conclusion that amid the genocidal campaign in Gaza, (PM Benjamin) Netanyahu is very much aware that his government is running out of options. The international community, as well as regional allies, have started to criticise Israel vocally. Some have also been preparing to carry out unilateral measures, like the mass recognition of a Palestinian state.
5500 civilian Palestinians have so far been killed in Gaza as a result of the government of Israel’s use of kinetic force after Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 civilians were taken hostage, prompting the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to engage in aerial campaigns and ground operations within the Gaza Strip. Amnesty International has brought out fresh evidence of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip. The findings of this research indicate a pattern of deliberate destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, including some of Gaza’s most fertile agricultural land, undertaken by Israel as part of a calculated plan to impose on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life designed to bring about their physical destruction, in whole or in part. Amnesty International’s previous research uncovered a pattern of Israeli destruction of civilian areas between December 2023 and May 2024 without imperative military necessity during efforts to expand a “buffer zone” along the eastern perimeter of Gaza.
In addition to this extremely disproportionate punitive action by the PM Bejamin Netanyahu-led government in Israel, aid distribution centres are continuously attacked by the Israel’s army. Among the Palestinian who flock to the aid distribution centres to eschew death out of hunger, some 400 casualties have been so far reported. The Palestinians of Gaza are destined to make a choice between death from a bullet or get a morsel of bread to live a little more. According to the recent estimates of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), just 40% of Gaza’s drinking water-production facilities remain functional. UNICEF said water‑production plants are running on dwindling reserves and warned they could collapse entirely without fuel. “If the current more than 100-day blockade on fuel coming into Gaza does not end, children will begin to die of thirst. Diseases are already advancing, and chaos is tightening its grip,” said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder at a press briefing Friday morning. “Gaza is facing what would amount to a man-made drought. Water systems are collapsing.”
Tel Aviv based independent analyst, Ori Goldberg, harbours no doubt that (PM Benjamin) Netanyahu planned the strike on Iran of 13 June 2025 for years, waiting for just the right time. He thinks that it is a desperate attempt to rally the world behind Israel, just as preparations are made to deny it the absolute impunity it has enjoyed since its creation. Ori Goldberg is of the view that Iran is still considered a potential threat by many leading powers of the Global North. By invoking the known tropes associated with unilateral lethal Israeli action – from divine promises to the Holocaust – (PM Benjamin) Netanyahu hoped to re-establish the status quo; Israel can still do whatever it wants. Hence, the real reason behind the surprise attacks by the current government of Israel against Iran, as demonstrated by Ori Goldberg, seems to be a substantial diversion from the plight of the Gaza and other oppressed regions of Palestine.
When Marjorie Cohn reported in the Truthout on 20 June 2025 that the United States’ current administration weighed deeper involvement in Israel’s attacks against Iran and that President Donald Trump was reportedly considering joining Israel in its strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, several analysts, including this writer, thought it might be a wild imagination as the US policy makers of the current administration might not be naïve enough not to foresee the dangerous implications of such an eventuality. Marjorie Cohn had reported that earlier that week, the U.S. military moved at least 30 tanker aircraft used to refuel jets and bombers from bases in the U.S. to Europe. The U.S. had also transferred F-16, F-22, and F-35 fighter jets to bases in the Middle East. And it deployed an aircraft carrier from the South China Sea toward the Middle East. But this was not just wild imagination after all. Sharon Zhang of the Truthout had even hinted in her report of 20 June 2025 that the US reportedly was assessing that only a nuclear bomb could destroy Iran’s nuclear facility and had quoted one expert who had warned that attacks on nuclear facilities “should never take place” because of the radioactive fallout.
Despite the desperate calls by the international think-tanks and experts of regional and international relations for the US to mediate for a ceasefire otherwise military adventurism in the Middle East will put not only the Middle East but also global strategic environment in an alarmingly dangerous situation, the US did intervene in the Iran-Israel war but not for mediating a ceasefire but for a surprise attack on Iran’s strategic nuclear enrichment facilities. Gen Dan Caine, the US chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, while giving details of the Operation Midnight Hammer, launched by the US against Iran, informed the media that “seven B-2 Spirit bombers flew 18 hours from the US to sites in Iran to drop 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators in strikes that were said to have caused “extremely severe damage” to Iranian uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan”.
Iranian authorities confirmed the US strikes after several hours, but said there was no radioactive leak. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also confirmed there was no off-site contamination. The Iranian state media seemed to downplay the damage done to the three Iranian nuclear sites while the authorities hinted at the possible retaliation against the US strikes. The satellite images showed substantial movement of trucks and bulldozers around Fordow in the days preceding the US strikes, in what appeared to be an attempt by Iran to move out equipment and nuclear materials stored at the protected site in anticipation of the US strikes. The path out of the current imbroglio could have been the return of Iran to the negotiating table on nuclear arms only if the US administration had provided some kind of face saving to the Iranian regime, as has been expounded by analysts.
US Strikes on Iran. Source: BBC.
The Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had earlier warned that it would be to the detriment of Washington if it chose to directly enter the war. “The damage it will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter. The harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if it enters this conflict militarily,” he said. And the retaliation, as was expected, did come from Iran on 23 June 2025, a day after the US strikes against Iran’s nuclear programme. Iran launched missile operation called “Annunciation of victory” as Iran’s military said it carried out a missile attack on the Al Udeid U.S. airbase in Qatar on Monday after explosions were heard across the Qatari capital following Tehran’s threat to retaliate for U.S. airstrikes on its nuclear sites. Hence, the scope of the conflict-turned-war continues to expand in scope and magnitude.
Iran Strikes against US bases in Qatar. Source: CBS News.
Three alarming implications are postulated as a consequence of the ever-increasing escalation in the Middle East due to PM Benjamin Netanyahu-led government of Israel’s attacks on Iran and the Ayatollah Ali Khamanei-led government of Iran’s retaliation, in addition to the first ever direct involvement of the US in the war against Iran that has turned the conflict into a fully-fledged war in the Middle East.
First, Iran may attempt to close the strait of Hurmuz. Following the US strikes against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan on 22 June 2025, the Iranian parliament advised Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei through a vote of parliament to close the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hurmuz is one of the world’s most critical oil transit chokepoints, according to media reports. Though the Iranian’s parliamentary vote for the closure of the Strait of Hurmuz carries only advisory status and the final authority lies with the Iran’s Supreme Leader and the Iran’s Supreme National Security Council yet it indicates the trajectory of the events that may follow in the near future in the gulf region. As it goes, the Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. At its narrowest point, the strait is about 21 miles wide, with two shipping lanes that are 2 miles wide in each direction. If Iran is somehow able to close the Strait of Hurmuz even temporarily or at least threaten the security of the Strait of Hurmuz, global oil prices could get an immediate spike by 30 to 50 percent with gas prices likewise rising by as much as $5 per gallon because around 20 percent of global oil trade passes through the Strait.
Second, although international legal frameworks and UN resolutions strongly prohibit military action against peaceful nuclear facilities because such a strike endangers not just national safety, but regional and global stability, the PM Bejamin Netanyahu-led government of Israel and the president Donald J. Trump-led US administration carried out relentless strikes against the uranium enrichment facilities of Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow of the Ayatollah Ali Khamanei-led Islamic Republic of Iran. The director general of the international watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, while briefing members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in Vienna, Austria, on 20 June 2025, was categorical in his statement that the IAEA had consistently underlined, as stated in its General Conference resolution, that armed attacks on nuclear facilities should never take place because it could result in radioactive releases with grave consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the State which had been attacked.
Rafael Mariano Grossi had referred to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant of Iran and had warned that this was the nuclear site in Iran where the consequences of an attack could be most serious. The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant of Iran is an operating nuclear power plant and as such it hosts thousands of kilograms of nuclear material. Rafael Mariano Grossi had elaborated that countries of the region had reached out directly to him over the past few hours to express their concerns. “I want to make it absolutely and completely clear: In case of an attack on the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, a direct hit could result in a very high release of radioactivity to the environment”.
While addressing the IAEA Board of Governors on 23 June 2025, DG Rafael Mariano Grossi noted that Iran had reported no increase in radiation levels outside Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites after the lethal US attacks on these three uranium enrichment facilities of Iran on 22 June 2025. The IAEA warns that the potential consequences of striking the uranium enrichment facilities and atomic reactors include localised chemical exposure and far-reaching radioactive contamination, depending on the nature of the site and the strength of its defensive barriers. IAEA further explains that at enrichment or conversion facilities, the primary hazard often comes from uranium hexafluoride (UF₆). If struck and exposed to moisture, this radioactive compound of uranium and fluorine can break down into hydrogen fluoride – a highly toxic gas that can cause burns and respiratory damage. Radiation risks at these enrichment sites are typically lower than at reactors, although chemical hazards can have severe local impacts, IAEA says. In contrast, reactor cores and spent-fuel pools hold large inventories of fission products which result from nuclear reactions, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137. A breach here could result in large-scale radioactive dispersal, especially if cooling systems fail.
If this large-scale radioactive dispersal causes release of radioactive to the environment through even a hundredth chance of error in strikes by either PM Benjamin Netanyahu-led government of Israel or Donald J. Trump-led US administration, it may expand to the northern, eastern, east-western and south-eastern parts of Iran. It appears plausible to assume that the toxic radioactive elements may travel to the countries situated in the Caspian region, Central Asia and South Asia including Afghanistan. Eastern Türkiye, south-eastern Armenia, southern Turkmenistan, western Afghanistan, south western Pakistan besides Iraq, Syria, Oman, Qatar, Kwait, UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) might face an alarming situation due to the expansion of the toxic radioactive elements. Three additional regions of Asia, namely, the Caspian Sea region, Central Asian region and South Asian region besides the Middle Eastern region might be hazardously implicated due to the strikes against the nuclear facilities of Iran by Israel and other global and regional powers.
Map of Iran’s Neighbouring Countries.
This brings us to the third extremely alarming repercussion due to the Iran-Israel war in the Middle East after Israel’s aggression against the Iranian nuclear facilities, communication systems, military assets, defense systems and production sources since 13 June 2025. For understanding the devastating impact of Iran-Israel war on the three regions adjacent to Iran, it is pertinent to know that Türkiye shares some 560 km border with Iran, Turkmenistan shares around 1000 km border with Iran, Afghanistan shares some 92 km border with Iran and Pakistan shares around 900 km border with Iran. Balochistan, the south western province of Pakistan, apparently shares much of the climate, ecology, water sources and seismic characteristics besides a substantial volume of documented and undocumented economy. Any hazardous radioactive dispersal into the environment may have acute bearing on the people, geography and environment of the Balochistan province of Pakistan and even on the nearby cosmopolitan city of Karachi, situated in the Sindh province of Pakistan.
The Peoples’ Republic of China, in turn, shares some 596 Km border with Pakistan and some 92 Km border with Afghanistan. Jeffrey Reeves of the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy in his article of 24 Feb 2024 entitled ‘China’s Expanding Influence in the Middle East and North Africa’ informs us that China’s political and economic rise in the Middle East and North Africa is neither accidental nor merely a byproduct of declining Western influence. Reeves is of the view that rather, Beijing’s current strategic position in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is the result of over a decade of deliberate policy planning and implementation. He further elaborates that after beginning in 2011, Chinese scholars and policy analysts advocated for a more structured and multi-layered engagement with the MENA region to advance China’s foreign and domestic national interests. Analysing China’s policies over the past decade reveals that the country’s leadership internalised these scholarly debates and shaped its MENA strategy accordingly.
The consequence has been a deeper Chinese presence across the Arab and Muslim worlds, from Morocco to Iran, Reeves expounds. He further tells us that the recent polling on elite and public opinion in MENA states indicates that China has emerged as a highly valued and respected major power in the region. Reeves thinks that much of this growing support stems from Beijing’s multi-dimensional strategic approach, which includes forging extensive bilateral ties with all MENA states, engaging through multilateral platforms such as the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, and integrating its MENA policy with China’s flagship foreign policy initiatives, including BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
China has developed high stakes in the Middle East and in the majority Muslim countries through oil imports, energy investments, strategic energy partnerships, infrastructure projects and trade routes connectivity which has earned it an unprecedented geostrategic influence in the region while China’s commitment with Iran has reinforced two-sided relations and permitted China to extend its presence in the energy area.
It is, therefore, not surprising that not only more than 20 Arab and Muslim countries have condemned Israel’s attacks on Iran and have called for a “comprehensive ceasefire” and a restoration of calm across the region as twenty-one foreign ministers urge to refrain from targeting nuclear facilities that are under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. The 20 Arab and Muslim majority countries have called for “Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, which should apply to all states in the region without exception”, Israel being the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed state, although it does not admit to its programme. But China, Russia and Pakistan also proposed the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution for immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East on 22 June 2025 while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday that “the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn. We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear programme.”
The Peoples’ Republic of China and countries of the Middle East, the Caspian Sea region, Central Asia and South Asia might have little option to risk waiting till their geostrategic, geopolitical and geoeconomic interests get deeply hurt due to the intricate and intractable hostilities between Israel and Iran after the PM Benjamin Netanyahu-led government launched surprise strikes against the Ayatollah Ali Khamanei-led Islamic Republic of Iran. Multilateral and bilateral frameworks might be activated through shuttle and Track-II diplomacy guided by the United Nations and the UN watchdog IAEA, and pushed through regional alliances like the European Union (EU), Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the G-7 countries, BRICS, Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and MENA. Else the complex whirlpool of the ever-escalating hostilities in the Middle East might leave little option for the Caspian region, the Central Asian region and the South Asian region to save themselves from being sucked in the conflict. Stability in several regions of the world appears to hinge on the acknowledgement of rules-based humanitarian international system. Can’t the world return to dialogue and diplomacy?
One tends to be moved by the condensed but pithy satirical editorial piece by the Guardian foreign affairs commentator, Simon Tisdall, which he penned down on 15 June 2025, and where he passed a sweeping but forceful comment that three angry old men could get us all killed.
To add fuel to the fire, various regions of the world including South Asia, Western Africa, Central Africa, Black Sea region and Sahel region—the Sahel, meaning “the shore” in Arabic, is a vast area crossing 6,000 kilometres from East to West Africa. It covers many geographic and agro-ecological systems, 12 countries and is home to 400 million people. The political region of the Sahel, as defined by the United Nations strategy (UNISS), covers 10 countries (Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria)—continue to be embroiled in several conflicts and consistently face numerous challenges. The three-years prolonged Russian-Ukraine conflict in the Black Sea region leaves death and destruction in its aftermath, the civil wars in Sudan and DR Congo in Africa pose alarming humanitarian crisis, the Sahel region plunges into instability as the insurgents push south from the Sahel with growing fears that “the Atlantic coastal region will soon fall under jihadist rule”, as reported by the New York Times of 17 June 17, 2025, the Türkiye-Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is persistently destabilising the region while the South Asia’s crises that were once regional in consequence but that era is over and the next one may remind the world just how global this theatre has quietly become.
Pakistan, a heavily populated South Asian country, faces formidable challenges due to ethnonationalist armed insurgency in its south western province of Balochistan and religious extremist armed insurgency in its north western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bordering Afghanistan. Afghanistan, in turn, grapples with political, social and economic complexities within its borders after the fall of Kabul to the private militia of Taliban following their deal with the US in Doha in 2021.
Has the world already entered into an era of regional conflicts? This is the real question that academia, think-tanks, policy makers and political leadership around the globe must attempt to fathom for developing frameworks for stability.
As of 25 June 2025, when this essay was coming to a close, international media reported the typically unpredictable announcement by President Donald J. Trump “CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, IT’S TIME FOR PEACE!” indicating a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. As the neighbouring countries and the global powers start weighing the prospects of peace in the Middle East, and international watchdogs and the Iranian government assess the damages done to both sides during the 12 days of Iran-Israel hot war, President Donald Trump ahead of meeting other world leaders at a Nato summit in The Hague declares ‘Iran-Israel ceasefire going ‘very good’ adding that “this was a great victory for everybody”. One just wishes that the declared ‘peace’ in the Middle East holds and the era of regional conflicts comes to an end. But, will the PM Bejamin Netanyahu-led government of Israel revert to Gaza and restart letting loose hell at the hapless Palestinians?
(The writer is analyst, author and researchers based in Islamabad and can be accessed via khadimhussainpajwak@gmail.com )