{"id":12922,"date":"2026-03-10T16:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/12922\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T16:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:14:08","slug":"us-israel-strikes-expose-irans-growing-isolation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/12922\/","title":{"rendered":"US-Israel strikes expose Iran\u2019s growing isolation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Operation Roaring Lion<\/a>, conducted jointly with the American military, is a sequel to the June 2025 Operation Rising Lion. It targets the Islamic Republic\u2019s political and military leadership, its nuclear program, and its missile arsenal.<\/p>\n

Since June, the ambitious goal of destabilizing or overthrowing the regime has been added to these objectives. The operation reflects a security doctrine that endorses both preemptive and preventive military strikes.
US and Israeli air forces<\/a> have achieved air superiority and are destroying targets with minimal resistance, as planned. While a final assessment is premature, several significant implications are already apparent.<\/p>\n

We are witnessing unprecedented levels of American-Israeli military cooperation in the joint planning and execution of this operation. Israel has again demonstrated its strategic value to Washington \u2013 in stark contrast to the reluctance of every other regional (and European) US ally to participate. The image of a solid Jerusalem-Washington alignment represents a major diplomatic and deterrent asset for Israel.<\/p>\n

That said, domestic American opinion on the war is divided. Israel\u2019s detractors in the United States are promoting conspiracy theories alleging that Jewish influence pushed President Donald Trump<\/a> into military action against Iran.<\/p>\n

The erosion of American public support for Israel \u2013 which began during the Gaza war \u2013 compounds this challenge.
Despite this, Israel\u2019s battlefield performance and its remarkable intelligence dominance have made a powerful impression both regionally and globally. Israel\u2019s air defense technology has once again proven its effectiveness: in the war\u2019s opening days, multi-layered Israeli defense systems achieved an interception rate of approximately 90% against drones and ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n

\"BirdsBirds fly as smoke rises following an explosion, after Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 2, 2026. (credit: MAJID ASGARIPOUR\/WANA (WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY) VIA REUTERS)<\/p>\n

As missile technology proliferates and its use in armed conflict becomes more likely, additional countries will seek capabilities to protect critical infrastructure and civilian populations \u2013 and some will turn to Israel\u2019s defense industries.<\/p>\n

Iran’s strategy of escalation<\/p>\n

Iran’s willingness to strike Gulf Arab states, NATO member Turkey, and EU member Cyprus has intensified threat perceptions and hostility toward Tehran across a wider range of countries. Its attack on Azerbaijan \u2013 an energy exporter \u2013 and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted global energy markets and driven up oil prices.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s strategy of escalation, intended to raise the costs of continuing the war and pressure for its end, is a gamble that may well fail. Tehran\u2019s behavior also inflames long-standing Sunni-Shia tensions, and deepens its regional and international isolation.<\/p>\n

The Islamic Republic\u2019s current distress further weakens the anti-American \u201cShia axis\u201d \u2013 a process set in motion by the Swords of Iron war following the Hamas massacre of October 2023 and the 12 Day War of June 2025. The ramifications extend beyond the Middle East<\/a>, given Iran\u2019s established terror networks within Shia diaspora communities across Latin America, Africa, North America, and Western Europe.<\/p>\n

The future of the revolutionary Shia regime remains uncertain. Nevertheless, the assumption that Iran\u2019s opposition public can topple the ayatollahs\u2019 rule is overly optimistic as long as the regime retains both the capability and the will to use lethal force against protesters. Without an armed opposition, the regime will endure \u2013 albeit in a weakened state. Deploying forces drawn from ethnic minorities such as Kurds and Balochis risks stoking Persian nationalist sentiment and fears of territorial partition, dynamics that could perversely help the regime survive.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s declining power does not herald a more peaceful Middle East. The region remains defined by deep-seated conflicts in which force is an acceptable instrument of statecraft, and by weak governments unable to restrain armed militias. The Middle East will continue to generate Islamic terrorism and violent crises.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s attacks on its neighbors will heighten threat perceptions across the region. Should the regime survive, the Iranian-Israeli confrontation will continue to be a defining feature of the regional order and an enduring source of instability.<\/p>\n

The defeat of Iran and its proxies has created a vacuum, heralding a radical Sunni axis that is no less dangerous, embodied in Turkey and backed by Qatar. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and much of his inner circle represent a Turkish variant of the Muslim Brotherhood \u2013 a radical, anti-Western movement infused with nostalgia for the grandeur of the Ottoman Empire.<\/p>\n

Erdogan\u2019s Turkey also harbors nuclear ambitions. Washington has traditionally regarded Turkey as an important ally, and President Trump views Erdogan as a strong leader and friend. This assessment tends to overlook Turkish behavior that is often at odds with its role as a Western partner.<\/p>\n

Erdogan\u2019s attempts to dissuade America from attacking Iran failed, and his offer to mediate between the US and Iran was poorly received in Washington. However, his overtures have found a more receptive audience among Sunni states, which fear that a new Iranian leadership might revive the pre-revolutionary Iranian-Israeli alignment \u2013 thereby further enhancing Israeli power. In that scenario, balance-of-power logic would drive many regional states toward Turkey, one of the region\u2019s strongest powers.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s capabilities and ambitions are generously underwritten by Qatar, which has long funded Muslim Brotherhood activities worldwide. Doha\u2019s media arm, Al Jazeera, serves as the leading propaganda outlet for Muslim extremists globally. Unlike Iran, Qatar has successfully maintained the image of a US ally in Washington, despite sustained support for Islamist causes. The West has failed to accurately assess both Turkey and Qatar.<\/p>\n

The Middle East \u2013 cradle of Western civilization \u2013 remains an arena of civilizational struggle. Anti-Western attitudes rooted in radical Islam continue to resonate across the region, and find receptive audiences even in the West when amplified by far-left messaging. The extraordinary sympathy extended to Hamas, a fanatical Islamist organization, is a striking illustration of this moral confusion.<\/p>\n

Israel’s opening airstrikes \u2013 which decapitated Iran\u2019s political and military leadership \u2013 established a precedent for the targeted killing of a head of state. This precedent serves as a warning to rogue state leaders, particularly following the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Leadership decapitation may become an increasingly common tool of statecraft. Its long-term effects remain uncertain, but such operations immediately complicate the functioning of the targeted side, while the impression of deep intelligence penetration sows demoralization and internal suspicion.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s nuclear program has long posed a challenge to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime. Tehran has enriched uranium to near-weapons-grade levels and covertly pursued weaponization. The destruction of Iran\u2019s nuclear infrastructure strengthens the NPT regime and sends a powerful deterrent signal to other states with nuclear ambitions \u2013 including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt \u2013 both within and beyond the Middle East.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s willingness to use military force challenges the prevailing faith in diplomatic primacy and the widespread aversion to military action. Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the failure of diplomacy to end that war, had already begun to shift Western thinking on this question. The failure of US diplomatic efforts to extract concessions from Iran, followed by the current military operation, accelerates that shift.<\/p>\n

The strikes on Iran have sharpened doubts about the reliability of its principal allies, China and Russia. Both have once again declined to intervene, leaving Iran to absorb the assault alone \u2013 raising serious questions about their value as strategic partners, particularly in the developing world.<\/p>\n

The United States, by contrast, stands firmly with Israel, signaling its continued engagement as an active global superpower. Washington\u2019s ability to project military force to distant theaters without significant opposition demonstrates that the world is far less multipolar than many suppose. This should offer genuine reassurance to those who value freedom and tolerance.<\/p>\n

The writer is a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) and head of the Program for Strategy, Diplomacy, and Security at Shalem College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Operation Roaring Lion, conducted jointly with the American military, is a sequel to the June 2025 Operation Rising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[671,288,38,34,37,1045,49,1486,7090,212,92,1590,1176,1705],"class_list":{"0":"post-12922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-azerbaijan","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-israeli-air-force","14":"tag-middle-east","15":"tag-nato","16":"tag-nuclear-program","17":"tag-operation-epic-fury","18":"tag-operation-roaring-lion","19":"tag-shiite","20":"tag-turkey","21":"tag-washington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116205771968536281","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}