The Israel/US Iran offensive is not about nuclear weapons. It is about Iran’s abundant oil and gas reserves. It is a joint effort to overthrow Iranian leaders to restore pre-1979 rule.
After just a month in the office, it was abundantly clear that the Trump administration was seeking expansion in North America, Hemispheric defense across the Americas and spheres-of-influence domination in critical world regions. Funded by America’s ultra-rich financiers, Trump’s cabinet was transactional, yet constrained by interventionist neoconservative ideologues.
At the time, I predicted that “miscalculations could re-inflame Gaza and spark regional escalation via Iran.” That’s where we are now.
President’s Trump’s Iran strikes do mark a turning point in US foreign policy under his leadership. Far from fulfilling his “America First” peace agenda, his administration has now purposely reignited tensions in the region, in its misguided effort at escalation dominance. It is a regime change effort, and Trump has indicated as much.
The deception campaigns
Not so long ago, President Trump reiterated that Iran will never have nuclear weapons. Yet, according to US intelligence, Iran was up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver a nuclear weapon. So, while Israel built its case for war, the US didn’t buy it. The problem is that Trump did. Hence, his public rebuke of Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence. In the process, a misguided concept of Israel’s national security morphed into an even more twisted view of US national security.
Not so long ago, the Iran-US negotiations still proceeded promisingly. Yet, expectations were revised overnight on Thursday June 12, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claimed Iran wasn’t complying with its nuclear obligations. That triggered a slate of efforts – but mainly diplomatic measures – to restore the UN sanctions on Tehran later this year. Whether intended or not, the phrasing of IAEA’s chief Rafael Grossi was now seized by regime-change afficionados as an excuse for massive military intervention.
Through the process, U.S. diplomacy, including Special Envoy Witkoff’s talks and President Trump’s personal reassurances, served as a bilateral ploy, basically to cover for the Israeli surprise attack. And so it was that on Friday June 13 Israel began a major military operation against Iran.
A second deception campaign ensued on last Thursday, when President Trump said that he will decide whether the US will take military action in the growing Israel-Iran conflict “within two weeks.” Once again, diplomatic efforts served as a ruse for Israel’s military attack in which the US would intervene when necessary.
Building on disinformation, these deception campaigns have reaped extraordinary short-term, but mainly military and tactical benefits. By the same token, they are likely to undermine US’s international credibility for years to come.
Militarized Objectives
There’s a pattern here. In 2012, Karl W. Eikenberry, ex-US ambassador to and commanding general of Afghanistan, warned of “the erosion of appropriate levels of executive, congressional, and media oversight of the American armed forces.” The conclusion of the 35-year army veteran? In the past 50 years, US foreign policy has become “excessively reliant on military power.”
In my book, The Fall of Israel (2025), I show that these trends have got far worse in the past decade. With 800 military bases in almost 90 countries, plus hundreds of such bases within the U.S., America has the biggest collection of military bases occupying foreign lands in history. The military presence abroad seems to correlate with U.S. forces engaging in military conflicts, which lead to more bases, which foster more conflicts.
Stunningly, supported by this global web, the U.S. has been in war, engaged in combat, or has otherwise employed its forces in foreign countries in all but 11 years of its existence. Today the powerful State Department serves effectively as a cover for the Pentagon, ridden by revolving doors with the mighty big defense contractors – the only ones benefiting from these misguided wars.
As former US defense secretary Robert Gates once put it, the US military has more musicians in its marching bands than the State Department has diplomats. The quip is valid. By the early 2020s, the total number of foreign service members from all foreign service agencies was about 15,600. By contrast, the US Department of Defense has over 1.3 million active-duty service members. Adding the reserve military, the figure increases to 2.1 million; and the employees of the US Homeland Security and intelligence community, another 360,000.
Personnel resources of U.S. Military and Diplomacy.
Source: Steinbock (2025) The Fall of Israel
Unsurprisingly, these lethal developments in Iran occur against the backdrop of the continuing US/NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
In the past, military action was the last resort of American diplomacy. Now diplomacy is just a thinly-veiled cover for US military force.
Fragment Iran, restore Shah-like rule, exploit energy reserves
The ongoing offensive against Iran is a joint US-Israeli effort. Israel’s task has been to “soften” the military targets and initiate regime change operations by “taking down” Iran’s critical infrastructure, nuclear facilities, military and political elites and scientific leaders. The US has fostered these goals by deceptive diplomacy, intelligence, arms transfers and financing.
The ultimate objective is the obliteration of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance in the region. Hence, the Biden and Trump administrations’ tacit acceptance of Israel’s obliteration of Gaza, the destruction of Hezbollah’s footholds in Southern Lebanon, the efforts to rule-and-divide goals in Syria and Iraq, and the bombing of the Houthis in Yemen.
To neoconservative hawks, Iran is the ultimate prize, but a fragmented and balkanized Iran. It is Iraq 2003 déjà vu all over again, as a misrepresentation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) is portrayed as a raison d’être for a misguided military action against a sovereign state.
The disintegration of Iranian state seeks to undermine all opposition, while paving way to pro-US forces, including the exiled but well-funded Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which was long on the US terrorist list but is today the neocons’ darling, and Reza Pahlavi, the self-proclaimed Crown Prince of Iran touting the overthrow of the Islamic Republic to restore the pre-1979 status quo ante. In due time, these will be replaced by US proconsuls and compadre rulers.
In the White House, regime change in Iran has huge regional economic and geopolitical importance. The Strait of Hormuz, is one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints. Iran is also the OPEC’s fourth-largest crude oil producer and the world’s third-largest dry natural gas producer. Most importantly, it holds some of the world’s largest deposits of proved oil and natural gas reserves. It is these lucrative resources that have paced the West’s external interventions in the country for a century.
End of America as a “neutral broker”
As President Trump recently posted on social media, “if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”
In the past, military action was the last resort of American diplomacy. Now diplomacy is just a thinly-veiled cover for US military force.
The gloves are off.
In the short term, the Trump administration’s double-game can bring great tactical military benefits. In the long-run, it is undermining US international credibility.
The fantasy of America as a “neutral broker” is now in ashes.
The author of The Fall of Israel (2025), Dr. Dan Steinbock is an internationally-renowned visionary of the multipolar world and the founder of Difference Group. He has served at the India, China and America Institute (USA), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see https://www.differencegroup.net
The original version – “Trump’s bunker-busters are just a small part of Israel-US Proxy War for Regime Change in Iran” – was published by TRT Global on June 23, 2025.
