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 : Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lies in state in Tehran, his coffin surrounded by black mourning flags as Iran begins a week of funeral ceremonies before his burial in Mashhad. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, senior Chinese lawmaker He Wei, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Iraqi President Nizar Amedi were among the foreign leaders and officials joining Iranian clerics, generals and mourners to pay their respects. Their presence gave the ceremony a significance extending far beyond Iran’s borders.
The gathering of such senior dignitaries from major powers and important regional states offered a striking answer to those who expected Iran to emerge from the war diplomatically isolated and internally broken. Khamenei, killed with members of his family in the opening US-Israeli airstrike on February 28, was being mourned not merely as Iran’s Supreme Leader but honoured by representatives of countries commanding enormous geopolitical weight.
Equally important was the attendance of Gulf delegations, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman, at a moment when Israel and the United States had expected Arab and GCC states to stand firmly against Iran. The reported presence of Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Al-Khuraiji and other Gulf representatives sent a chilling diplomatic message: the war had not ruptured Iran’s relationship with its neighbourhood. Despite deep differences, geography, religion, neighbourly necessity and regional fraternity had again pulled Iran and the Gulf states towards one another, showing that their ties could not be broken simply by the strategic wishes of Israel and the United States.
The funeral, therefore, is more than the burial of a leader who ruled Iran for 37 years. It is a moment to measure the consequences of the decision to kill him. The United States and Israel apparently expected that removing Iran’s most powerful religious figurehead would deepen despair, fracture an already pressured society and accelerate conditions for regime change. Four months later, the question is unavoidable: did his killing weaken Iran, or did his martyrdom strengthen its national cohesion?
The assumption behind leadership decapitation appeared straightforward. Iran had endured years of sanctions, economic hardship and recurring internal unrest. Remove the man at the centre of its religious and political structure, deepen the psychological shock by killing members of his close family and the state might collapse under its own contradictions. Without Khamenei, Washington and Tel Aviv seemingly calculated, Iran would lose its ideological anchor at the moment of maximum military pressure.
The calculation proved disastrously wrong. Khamenei’s killing, together with his daughter, son-in-law, baby granddaughter and another close family member, did not tear Iran apart. It transformed a political and military crisis into what millions of Iranians perceived as an existential national struggle. Domestic disagreements suddenly competed with the image of foreign powers killing the country’s supreme religious leader and members of his family in the opening strike of a war.
Martyrdom achieved what decades of speeches, military parades and revolutionary slogans could never have accomplished with comparable force. It brought large sections of Iranian society closer to their armed forces and transformed Khamenei from a controversial political ruler into a symbol of resistance. Even Iranians dissatisfied with their government were confronted with a distinction between opposing domestic policies and allowing foreign powers to determine Iran’s political future through bombs.
Instead of creating a leadership vacuum, the strike created a martyr. Instead of producing national despair, it generated anger, defiance and an instinct for survival. The attempt to weaken Iran by eliminating its most recognisable figurehead elevated Khamenei beyond the limitations of a living political leader. The black flags hanging across Iranian cities demonstrate how rapidly political death can acquire religious permanence in a society deeply shaped by sacrifice.
The second contradiction of the war is even more consequential. The United States and Israel justified their attack by claiming Iran was racing towards nuclear weapons. An extraordinary atmosphere of urgency was created, as though Tehran were only days or weeks away from converting fissile material into atomic bombs and preparing to use them against Israel. Yet the man killed in the opening strike was arguably Iran’s strongest institutional barrier against nuclear weaponisation.
For years, Khamenei maintained a religious prohibition against the production and use of nuclear weapons. His fatwa rested on the argument that atomic weapons are inherently indiscriminate. They cannot distinguish between soldiers and children, aggressors and innocent civilians. Their destructive effects extend beyond battlefields and generations and were therefore, in his religious reasoning, incompatible with Islamic morality and the fundamental principles of humanity.
This decree cannot simply be dismissed as ceremonial theology. Iran’s armed forces operate within a system in which the supreme leader exercises ultimate command authority. When that authority explicitly prohibits nuclear weapons on religious grounds, converting enriched material into an atomic arsenal becomes more than a scientific or military decision. It directly challenges the religious and command structure under which Iran’s military and nuclear institutions operate.
The uncomfortable question must therefore be asked: who actually prevented Iran from developing an atomic bomb? Was it Israel’s threats and airstrikes? Was it American sanctions and military pressure? Or was it Khamenei’s fatwa? My conclusion is that the principal internal restraint was neither Washington nor Tel Aviv but the religious prohibition imposed by the very man their bombs killed.
This is why the narrative of an immediate nuclear emergency deserves rigorous scrutiny. Israeli explanations have repeatedly blurred the critical distinction between possessing an operational atomic weapon and travelling along a technological path that might eventually provide the capability to manufacture one. A country may possess scientists, enrichment facilities, technical knowledge and fissile material without assembling a bomb or taking the political decision to use it.
If Iran was on a path that might have enabled it to produce a weapon years later, that was undoubtedly a serious proliferation concern. It was, however, fundamentally different from being days away from launching a nuclear attack. The image of an imminent Iranian bomb created the urgency necessary to justify war, but urgency cannot substitute for verifiable evidence and technological capability cannot automatically be treated as proof of immediate nuclear aggression.
There is another historical irony. Iran, whatever criticism may legitimately be directed towards its regional policies, has not built its modern national history around repeatedly invading neighbouring countries. Israel, by contrast, has remained in almost continuous military confrontation across its neighbourhood. Yet Iran was presented as the uniquely imminent aggressor whose possible future intentions justified a preventive war before the alleged weapon even existed.

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.