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.

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 reported agreement between the United States and Iran to halt hostilities and launch a broader diplomatic process has triggered one of the most intense political reactions inside Israel in recent years. While the agreement is being presented internationally as a breakthrough that could end a costly regional confrontation and bring stability to multiple fronts, many Israeli political leaders view it as a strategic setback that leaves critical security concerns unresolved. The controversy has rapidly evolved into a debate not only about Iran, but also about the political future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The strongest criticism came from across Israel’s political spectrum. Opposition leader Yair Golan described the agreement as evidence that Israel had been sidelined while Washington and Tehran negotiated a framework affecting Israel’s security environment. According to Golan, Israelis woke up to an agreement concluded “over Israel’s head,” a situation he described as the culmination of years of policy failures. He accused Netanyahu of cultivating an image as “Mr. Security” while ultimately presiding over what he called the greatest strategic failure in Israel’s history.
Golan’s criticism goes beyond the agreement itself. His argument is that after years of military confrontations, diplomatic isolation, and repeated promises of decisive victories, Israel has arrived at a situation where the United States—the country’s closest ally—has chosen diplomacy with Iran despite Israeli objections. For Golan and many opposition figures, this outcome demonstrates that military power alone cannot substitute for effective diplomacy and strategic planning.
Former defense officials and opposition politicians have echoed similar concerns. Benny Gantz described the emerging arrangement as a strategic failure that could create diplomatic, military, and legal challenges for Israel for years to come. Their criticism reflects a growing belief among some Israeli leaders that the war’s political objectives were never clearly defined and that the final outcome does not justify the enormous costs incurred during months of conflict.
Yet criticism of the agreement is not limited to Netanyahu’s opponents. Members of his own political camp have also expressed deep dissatisfaction, though for very different reasons.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir rejected the agreement outright. While expressing appreciation for the United States and President Trump, he insisted that Israel is a sovereign nation and is not bound by arrangements negotiated without its participation. Ben-Gvir argued that Israel cannot allow foreign governments to determine its security policies and warned against any restrictions on Israeli military operations in Lebanon or elsewhere.
Ben-Gvir’s position reflects a broader sentiment among Israel’s nationalist and security-oriented factions. These groups believe that Hezbollah remains a serious threat in Lebanon and that Iran’s regional influence has not been sufficiently weakened. From their perspective, any agreement that limits Israel’s military freedom while leaving Hezbollah and Iran’s strategic capabilities intact represents a dangerous compromise rather than a diplomatic achievement.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has voiced similar concerns. He has consistently advocated a more aggressive security posture and has argued that Israel must reshape the regional balance of power rather than merely manage ongoing threats. Reports indicate that Smotrich views the agreement as harmful to Israel’s long-term security interests because it risks preserving the capabilities of forces that Israel has spent years attempting to contain.
What makes these reactions particularly significant is that they reveal a rare convergence between Israel’s left-wing opposition and elements of its right-wing coalition. Both sides criticize the agreement, but for opposite reasons. The opposition argues that Netanyahu’s policies have failed and isolated Israel. The nationalist right argues that the agreement abandons military gains before strategic objectives have been achieved. Together, these criticisms leave Netanyahu squeezed from both directions.
The agreement has also highlighted growing tensions between Netanyahu and President Trump. For years, many Israeli leaders believed that Washington would support Israel’s regional strategy unconditionally. However, the U.S. decision to pursue a diplomatic settlement with Iran demonstrates that American and Israeli interests do not always align perfectly. Reports indicate that the negotiations proceeded despite strong objections from Israeli officials, creating the impression that Washington was prepared to prioritize regional stability and economic recovery over the continuation of military operations.
This development carries profound political implications. Netanyahu built much of his political reputation on the promise that he alone could protect Israel from Iran. Yet if the United States has now chosen diplomacy rather than confrontation, many Israelis may question whether Netanyahu’s long-standing strategy remains viable. His critics argue that after years of warnings about Iran, the final outcome is an agreement largely negotiated by Washington rather than a decisive military victory achieved by Israel.
The controversy extends beyond domestic politics. Across the Middle East, governments are closely watching how the agreement reshapes regional power dynamics. Supporters believe a ceasefire and diplomatic process could reduce tensions, reopen trade routes, stabilize energy markets, and lower the risk of a wider regional war. Critics fear that sanctions relief and renewed economic activity could strengthen Iran and its allies, giving them greater resources to pursue their strategic objectives.
The debate is therefore not simply about a single agreement. It is about competing visions of security. One vision argues that lasting stability can only emerge through diplomacy and negotiated arrangements. The other argues that diplomacy without overwhelming military leverage merely postpones future conflicts. Israel now finds itself at the center of that debate.
As elections approach and political pressure intensifies, the reported U.S.–Iran agreement may become a defining moment in Israeli politics. For Netanyahu’s opponents, it is evidence of diplomatic failure and strategic miscalculation. For his right-wing allies, it is evidence that Israel must maintain complete freedom of action regardless of international agreements. For the broader Israeli public, it raises difficult questions about the country’s future security strategy and its relationship with its most important ally.
Whether the agreement ultimately succeeds or fails, one conclusion is already evident: the political battle it has unleashed inside Israel may prove as consequential as the diplomatic breakthrough itself. The fiercest struggle may no longer be taking place between Washington and Tehran, but within Israel’s own political establishment as leaders compete to define the meaning of this historic and controversial moment.