Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : Israel is discovering a hard strategic truth: the country that wants absolute freedom of military action cannot easily free itself from the very superpower that makes that military action possible. For decades, Israel has depended on the United States not only for diplomatic protection, but also for the aircraft, bombs, interceptors, missiles, spare parts, emergency resupply, and financial aid that sustain its defensive shield and offensive reach. Now, as Washington tries to restrain Israeli escalation against Lebanon in order to preserve a wider regional ceasefire and protect its own diplomatic understanding with Iran, some Israeli voices are arguing that Israel should reduce or end its military dependence on America. It is an emotionally attractive slogan, but economically and militarily it is close to a mission impossible.
The facts are stark. The United States provides Israel with about $3.8 billion annually under the 2019–2028 military aid memorandum. But the real value of American support is much larger than that figure. It includes access to advanced aircraft, precision-guided munitions, air-defense cooperation, intelligence sharing, emergency replenishment, and direct U.S. military support during regional crises. In recent wars, American forces have helped intercept drones and missiles aimed at Israel, while U.S. political backing has shielded Israel from far greater diplomatic isolation.
Israel is not a weak military power. It has one of the world’s most advanced defense industries. Its cyber capabilities, drone technology, radar systems, electronic warfare, missile defense, and intelligence tools are globally respected. Israeli defense exports reached record levels in recent years, showing that the country can design and sell sophisticated military technology. But exporting advanced systems is not the same as independently sustaining a multi-front war, replacing U.S. aircraft, producing deep stocks of precision bombs, and maintaining strategic air dominance without Washington.
The most important vulnerability is air power. Israel’s offensive doctrine relies heavily on U.S.-made F-35s, F-15s, and F-16s. These aircraft are the backbone of Israel’s ability to strike Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran-linked targets, and other distant theatres. Israel can modify these aircraft with domestic systems, but it does not independently manufacture them. Nor does it independently control the full supply chain for engines, advanced components, spare parts, and future upgrades. If the United States stops supplying or servicing these systems, Israeli offensive capability would not collapse overnight, but it would steadily degrade.
The numbers explain the dilemma. Israel’s military expenditure surged to about $46.5 billion in 2024, equal to roughly 8.8 percent of GDP. That is already one of the highest defense burdens in the world. To become meaningfully independent from the United States, Israel would likely need to spend around 12 to 15 percent of GDP on defense for many years. That means an additional annual burden of roughly $18 billion to $35 billion, depending on the level of independence pursued. Such money would not come from the sky. It would come from taxes, borrowing, civilian cuts, reduced welfare, delayed infrastructure, pressure on education, and weaker investment in health, housing, and productivity.
In simple terms, Israel would have to choose between becoming a more militarized economy and remaining a prosperous civilian economy. The deeper the pursuit of military independence, the greater the sacrifice imposed on ordinary citizens. Hospitals, schools, universities, transport networks, housing programs, technology investment, social services, and family support would all face pressure. Israel could build more factories, more missile plants, more ammunition lines, and more domestic systems, but every shekel moved into permanent militarization would be a shekel removed from civilian development.
Time is another obstacle. Israel could reduce some dependence in five to eight years by expanding domestic production of ammunition, drones, interceptors, electronic systems, and some missiles. It could reduce dependence further in 10 to 15 years with a massive industrial program. But true independence in combat aircraft, stealth technology, strategic engines, large precision weapons, satellites, and wartime resupply could take 20 to 30 years, and even then may remain incomplete. No small country can easily replicate the industrial depth of the United States.
This is why the idea of cutting loose from Washington in one year is unrealistic. If Israel attempted it suddenly, its economy could face an additional 3 to 6 percent of GDP in defense pressure. Its offensive capability could be weakened by 40 to 60 percent over one to two years, especially if precision munitions, aircraft parts, and resupply pipelines were disrupted. Its defensive sustainability in a prolonged multi-front war could fall by 25 to 40 percent. Its ability to sustain occupation, control hostile territories, and conduct repeated military operations across several fronts could become 30 to 50 percent harder.
This is the central contradiction of Israeli strategy. Some Israeli hardliners want complete freedom to strike Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Iran-linked groups, and other regional adversaries without American restraint. They also want to pursue a maximalist vision of regional dominance, sometimes expressed through the dangerous idea of a “Greater Israel.” But such ambitions are possible only because the United States has historically supplied the military oxygen. Remove that oxygen, and the same expansionist project becomes far more costly, risky, and perhaps unsustainable.
This is also why many Israeli analysts and strategic thinkers warn against alienating Washington. The United States is not merely a donor; it is the main strategic pillar of Israel’s military architecture. American support gives Israel technological superiority, financial relief, diplomatic cover, and crisis-time backup. Without that support, Israel would remain powerful, but it would be a more vulnerable, more expensive, more isolated, and more constrained military power.
The recent U.S. attempt to restrain Israeli action against Lebanon shows that Washington still has leverage. Israel may resent that leverage, but it cannot easily escape it. If the price of independence is the weakening of its air force, the squeezing of its economy, the reduction of civilian prosperity, and the erosion of its ability to sustain long occupations, then independence becomes less a strategy and more a self-inflicted wound.
Israel therefore faces a choice. It can continue chasing permanent military dominance at the cost of economic balance, regional stability, and moral legitimacy. Or it can accept the limits of force, respect international boundaries, reduce occupation, and become a responsible member of the international community. The wiser path is not to militarize the economy further, but to demilitarize national thinking.
The lesson is clear: Israel cannot bomb its way into permanent security, nor can it easily break away from the country that underwrites its military power. Military independence from the United States may sound like strategic courage, but in reality it would expose Israel’s deepest dependency. For Israel, the path to security does not lie in endless expansion or in defying its principal ally. It lies in restraint, diplomacy, lawful borders, and recognition that no state can build lasting security by living permanently at war with its neighborhood.
Israel’s mission impossible is not merely military independence from America. Its real mission impossible is trying to remain economically prosperous, militarily dominant, politically unrestrained, and regionally expansionist all at the same time. That equation cannot hold forever.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : Before the war, Israel stood in the Middle East as a regional bully wearing the armor of American power. Its military superiority was real, but its confidence came from something larger than its own tanks, aircraft, intelligence networks, or missile-defense systems. It came from the certainty that the United States would protect it on every front: militarily, diplomatically, financially, and politically. Israel acted as if it could strike anywhere, occupy territory, defy resolutions, ignore neighbors, and still remain immune from consequences because Washington would always stand behind it.
That illusion has now been shaken. The Iran–Israel war has exposed a reality that was long hidden beneath layers of propaganda and military spectacle: Israel’s regional dominance was never entirely its own. It was borrowed power. It was American weapons, American money, American diplomatic cover, American vetoes, American intelligence, and American fear projected through Israel. Without that unquestioned backing, Israel is not an untouchable regional hegemon. It is a small state surrounded by a vast Muslim neighborhood whose anger has accumulated for decades.
The playground analogy fits perfectly. Israel behaved like a smaller bully protected by a much larger bully. So long as the larger protector stood behind it, the smaller bully could threaten everyone else. But when the larger protector begins to step back, reassess its interests, or ask whether this relationship is damaging its own standing, the smaller bully suddenly faces the reality of the playground. The crowd it once intimidated no longer looks helpless.
That is the great change after the war. The United States appears to have realized that unconditional support for Israel is no longer cost-free. Washington’s interests in energy security, global shipping, regional stability, relations with Gulf states, nuclear inspections, oil markets, and wider diplomatic influence cannot be sacrificed endlessly at the altar of Israeli maximalism. Israel was useful to the United States when Israeli goals and American objectives overlapped. But when Washington required restraint, diplomacy, and regional de-escalation, Israel resisted. That resistance has created a visible wedge.
The emerging U.S.–Iran framework is the clearest proof of this new reality. Direct talks in Switzerland, mediation by Pakistan and Qatar, discussions on nuclear inspections, the Strait of Hormuz, frozen assets, oil sales, and Lebanon show that Washington is no longer viewing the Middle East only through Israel’s eyes. It is now talking directly to Tehran because Iran is a reality that cannot be bombed out of existence, sanctioned into surrender, or excluded from regional security.
This alone marks a historic shift. Before the war, Iran was presented as isolated, cornered, and vulnerable. After the war, Iran is sitting across the table from the United States, discussing inspections, shipping lanes, sanctions waivers, oil exports, frozen funds, and regional ceasefire mechanisms. That is not isolation. That is recognition.
The Strait of Hormuz also demonstrated Iran’s strategic weight. When a vital waterway through which a major portion of global oil moves becomes part of the negotiation, the world is reminded that Iran is not a marginal actor. It sits at the heart of global energy geography. Any serious regional order must include Iran, not merely threaten it.
The same applies to Lebanon. The reported creation of a deconfliction mechanism involving the U.S., Iran, and Lebanon shows that even conflicts involving Hezbollah cannot be treated as isolated Israeli military problems. They are now part of a wider regional equation. Yet Israel continues to insist that its forces retain “full freedom of action” in southern Lebanon and that they will remain there as long as necessary. This defiance may please hardliners, but it also reveals Israel’s inability to adjust to the new environment.
Militarily, the war has also changed perceptions. Israel entered the conflict with an image of invincibility. Its air force, Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow system, cyber capability, and intelligence reach had created the impression that no regional adversary could seriously challenge it.
But mass drone and missile warfare has altered the battlefield. Iran demonstrated that quantity, persistence, and saturation can challenge even the most advanced defense systems. Hezbollah and other regional actors have also learned that cheaper, mass-produced systems can create pressure that billion-dollar defense platforms cannot always absorb.
This is not to say Israel has become militarily weak in an absolute sense. It remains heavily armed and technologically advanced. But the myth of effortless superiority has been broken. Before the war, Israel believed escalation would always favor it. After the war, escalation looks dangerous, expensive, and uncertain.
The psychological damage may be even greater than the physical damage. A country that sells itself as invincible cannot easily absorb the perception of vulnerability. Its citizens now see that endless military operations do not bring lasting security. Internal divisions, protests, political fragmentation, and frustration with permanent war have deepened. A state cannot live forever in emergency mode. A society cannot remain healthy if every political problem is answered with bombs, raids, assassinations, occupations, and blockades.
Israel’s deeper problem is not military. It is political and moral. For decades, Israel has avoided the central question: how can it live permanently in a region whose people it refuses to treat as equal stakeholders in peace? It cannot normalize its future while denying Palestinians their rights. It cannot bomb Lebanon into friendship. It cannot assassinate its way into legitimacy. It cannot occupy territory and expect acceptance. It cannot treat Iran as a ghost to be destroyed rather than a regional power to be engaged.
The path forward is obvious, but Israel’s leadership refuses to see it. Israel must start behaving like a normal country. A normal country builds relations with neighbors. A normal country respects borders. A normal country understands that military power has limits. A normal country negotiates, compromises, and recognizes that security cannot be built only on domination.
If Israel accepted a genuine two-state solution, respected Palestinian rights, withdrew from occupied territories, ended reckless military adventurism, and engaged the region through diplomacy, the Middle East could enter a new era of prosperity. Trade, technology, energy cooperation, reconstruction, and regional connectivity could replace permanent war.
But if Israel continues to live inside a narcissistic illusion that it is divinely entitled to dominate the region regardless of law, geography, demography, or diplomacy, then harder days lie ahead.
The war has already established one point beyond dispute: Iran cannot be ignored. It cannot be erased. It cannot be conquered by airstrikes. It must be treated as a central regional power whose interests must be addressed in any durable settlement.
Before the war, Israel appeared to be the unquestioned regional hegemon and Iran the besieged adversary. After the war, Israel looks more vulnerable, more isolated, and more dependent on a United States that is now pursuing its own direct path with Tehran. Iran, meanwhile, has emerged as a necessary participant in the future architecture of the Middle East.
That is the real before-and-after story. The war did not merely test missiles and drones. It tested illusions. It revealed that American backing is not destiny, military superiority is not permanent security, and regional arrogance cannot substitute for diplomacy. Israel’s age of unquestioned dominance is fading. A new Middle East is emerging, and Israel must either adjust to it—or be crushed by the consequences of refusing to live like a normal state among normal neighbors.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : The assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader and several senior Iranian military officials in February 2026 may mark a watershed moment in the evolution of modern warfare. The joint Israel and the USA operation to assassinate the Iranian’s top leadership was enabled by a sophisticated combination of surveillance technologies, communications interception, cyber capabilities, satellite imagery, human intelligence, and artificial intelligence-assisted analysis.
The Israel Mossad aided by the US’s CIA integrated information from multiple sources to create highly detailed profiles of senior Iranian officials, their routines, movements, and interactions. Advanced analytical systems transformed enormous volumes of raw information into actionable intelligence, identifying patterns and pinpointing locations with remarkable precision. The result was the reported targeting of a high-level leadership gathering in Tehran.
Only months earlier, the world witnessed another disturbing example of technology’s role in conflict. In September 2024, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded across Lebanon. Ordinary communication devices suddenly became instruments of death and destruction. Dozens were killed and thousands injured. The incident shocked the world because it demonstrated how civilian technology could allegedly be transformed into a weapon.
Taken together, the reported Tehran operation and the Lebanon device explosions reveal two dimensions of modern warfare. One demonstrates how surveillance systems, communications monitoring, artificial intelligence, and big-data analytics can allegedly be used to identify and locate targets. The other demonstrates how civilian technologies themselves can become part of military operations. This should concern every nation.
The explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies across Lebanon in September 2024 were not an ordinary military operation. They were a warning to the entire world. Devices normally used for communication suddenly became instruments of death. They exploded in pockets, homes, streets, hospitals and funeral gatherings. Dozens were killed, including children, and thousands were injured. Lebanon was thrown into panic because no one knew which device might explode next. This was the terrifying message of the attack: in the modern age, civilian technology itself can be turned into a battlefield.
The ability of Israel to weaponize civilian technological products points to a highly sophisticated operation involving deep intelligence penetration, supply-chain manipulation and remote activation. The explosive material is hidden inside the batteries of walkie-talkies, making detection extremely difficult. The United Nations human rights office warned that simultaneous targeting of thousands of people through such devices, without knowing who was carrying them or who was standing nearby, violated international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
This is where the matter becomes far larger than Hezbollah or Lebanon. If a pager, a phone, a radio or any communication device can be secretly converted into a bomb, then the distinction between civilian life and military operation begins to collapse. A device manufactured for communication becomes a weapon. A battery becomes an explosive chamber. A message becomes a trigger. A civilian street becomes an execution ground.
Israel has long projected itself as a global technology power. Its leaders have repeatedly celebrated the country’s innovation, cyber capability, intelligence reach, surveillance systems and big-data platforms. But Lebanon exposed the darker side of that technological power. Innovation, when fused with unchecked military ambition, does not merely produce security; it can produce assassination systems.
Israel’s history of targeted killings is well known. From letter bombs and explosive phones to drone strikes, cyber operations and remote-controlled weapons, Israel has used technology to hunt those it calls enemies. The killing of Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash in 1996 through an explosive cellphone is one earlier example. The assassination of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh through a remote-controlled, AI-assisted weapon is another. The Lebanon device explosions now add a more frightening dimension: mass deployment of weaponized civilian devices.
The danger is no longer limited to one individual target. The danger is mass assassination through ordinary technology. This development raises serious legal questions. International humanitarian law is built on the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution. Combatants must be distinguished from civilians. Civilian objects must not be turned into indiscriminate weapons. Attacks must not cause civilian harm excessive to the military advantage sought. Commanders must take precautions to avoid killing innocent people. The Lebanon explosions appear to have endangered all these principles.
A device carried by one suspected fighter may explode in a market. A radio may detonate near a child. A pager may explode during a funeral. A walkie-talkie may injure doctors, shopkeepers or passersby. Such attacks cannot guarantee that only a lawful military target will be harmed. They spread fear across society. They make every electronic object suspicious. They turn normal civilian life into psychological warfare.
The same logic is visible in Gaza, where investigative reporting has raised grave concerns about AI-assisted targeting systems. The systems used to generate targets, identify suspected militants, monitor locations and accelerate bombing decisions.
When algorithms are fed with phone data, location signals, social networks, drone footage, facial recognition, banking records, traffic cameras and human intelligence, they can create a deadly profile of a person. But data is not the truth. Correlation is not guilt. A relative, driver, clerk, repairman, neighbor or political supporter can be wrongly treated as a combatant because his movements resemble someone else’s pattern. When such systems are used in war, a false match can become a death sentence.
The world cannot allow this to become normal. If Israel is permitted to weaponize civilian devices, infiltrate supply chains, manipulate batteries, exploit cloud systems, harvest civilian data and use AI to select targets, then every country is vulnerable. Today it is Lebanon. Tomorrow it can be Pakistan, Türkiye, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Kuwait or any other state that falls into the strategic path of a technologically superior adversary.
For Pakistan, the lesson is especially urgent. National security is no longer limited to tanks, aircraft, missiles and borders. It now includes phones, routers, servers, apps, satellites, cloud systems, databases, SIM cards and imported electronics. A country that does not control its digital infrastructure cannot fully protect its sovereignty. Pakistan must develop its own secure communication systems, independent cloud infrastructure, encryption capacity, chip research, cyber-defense institutions and national technology audit mechanisms.
Muslim countries must also act collectively. They should demand transparent supply-chain declarations for sensitive communication and electronic equipment. They should require companies to disclose whether products, software, designs, components or data services have links to Israeli military or intelligence institutions. They should build joint research and development platforms, invest in indigenous technology and reduce dependence on foreign systems that may contain hidden vulnerabilities.
At the United Nations, Muslim countries and other concerned states should jointly move a resolution against the weaponization of civilian technology. The resolution should prohibit the conversion of civilian communication devices into explosive weapons, restrict the use of mass surveillance for extrajudicial assassination, demand human accountability in AI-assisted targeting and call for international inspection standards for critical communication equipment.
This is not merely a Muslim issue. It is a global issue. If ordinary electronics can be transformed into secret weapons, then no society is safe. If civilian data can be converted into kill lists, then no privacy is safe. If AI can accelerate assassination without transparent accountability, then international law itself is in danger.
The world must draw a clear line: civilian technology must remain civilian. Communication devices must not become bombs. Data systems must not become assassination factories. Artificial intelligence must not become a license to kill.
Israel’s alleged use of civilian technology in Lebanon has exposed a terrifying future. The question now is whether the world will stop that future before it becomes the new normal.