Iran, Beware the Fangs of January, the Scourge of February, the Ides of March (3), by Hassan Gimba

Iran, Beware the Fangs of January, the Scourge of February, the Ides of March (3), by Hassan Gimba

The Arbiter

Israel’s message to one of the intermediaries was that it would not participate in the US attack, and therefore asked Iran not to target it. This request was also met with a negative response from Iran, which explicitly stated that with the start of US military action, Israel would be attacked. This made Netanyahu threaten to attack Iran with a force “1,000 times more than they have known”, alluding to the use of nuclear bombs. The US and Europe have been, as part of their propaganda, telling whoever cares to listen that Iran would use the bomb if it had it. The world has now seen who is itching to use it.

Unlike Israel, which has been at constant war, attacking over eight countries last year, Iran has not attacked any country in the past 300 years – except in self-defence. Israel, in 2025 alone, attacked more countries than any other country in the world. It attacked six countries: Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, and Yemen. It also carried out strikes in Tunisian, Maltese and Greek territorial waters on aid flotillas heading for Gaza. According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), an independent conflict monitor, from January 1 to December 5, Israel carried out at least 10,631 attacks, marking one of the broadest geographic military offensives in a single year. This was apart from repeatedly violating the ceasefire entered into in Gaza and Lebanon, except that with Iran.

According to ACLED, in 2025, up to December 5, 2025, Israel attacked Gaza and the occupied West Bank 8,332 times, Lebanon 1,653 times, Iran 379 times, Syria 207 times, Yemen 48 times, Qatar once, Tunisian waters twice, Maltese and Greek waters once each.

However, in a conflict, the US would try to keep its key forces, like aircraft carriers, hundreds of kilometres away to avoid Iran’s anti-ship missiles. It would also defend its regional bases vigorously. But Iran would rally its regional allies to pressure the US from multiple fronts.

Iran’s terrain would be impossible to conquer – an obvious advantage. The Persians are, of course, technologically advanced and are particularly ahead of everyone else in the realm of asymmetric warfare. The Iranian leadership foresaw the current scenario years ago. It identified the U.S. military’s most obvious weaknesses and developed an effective doctrine accordingly: hypersonic missiles, drone swarms, and a light/fast navy.

Imagine a squadron of F-18 pilots returning to land on the USS Lincoln, while the carrier is desperately engaged in evasive manoeuvres, under attack from swarms of drones in the air and mini-submarines below. It is not going to work; it just can’t work.

But what does the tag team of Trump and Netanyahu want? According to Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, “The United States’ demands that Iran eliminate its stockpile of uranium and commit to zero enrichment are unrealistic. Its demands regarding our missile programme and our support for our allies are non-negotiable. Iran will not subjugate itself to any foreign dictates. We are an independent nation, and we determine our own course.”

The terms are clear and hard. Iran is expected to fully abandon its nuclear programme, stop missile development, or produce missiles whose range would not surpass the 500-kilometre range, cut ties with regional armed groups, and accept strict U.S. control and inspections. In return, Washington offers possible sanctions relief and the promise of no military attack. No firm guarantees. No equal ground. Sounds like demands, rather than negotiation – what the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps termed “surrender dressed up as diplomacy”.

The demands, when looked at carefully, are all just about Israel and no talk of the Iranian people they want “to help”. The lifting of sanctions was “possible”, and a 500km cap wouldn’t reach Israel.

Meanwhile, the US continues to arm Israel to the teeth with deadly weapons. Israel last year attacked Iran, unprovoked, killing scores of its Generals and scientists.

Trump once claimed that “all nuclear sites in Iran have been completely destroyed and/or obliterated…it would take years to bring them back into service…”, but in contradiction, he now insists that he wants to strike the nation’s nuclear sites. His Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, also claimed they dealt the “final blow” to Iran’s nuke ambitions. But now, just like with Venezuela, the narrative has changed.

Iran has responded by offering negotiations under one condition: equal rules for all regional powers. Tehran proposes a nuclear-free Middle East, including restrictions on Israel’s weapons. But America, no doubt at the behest of Israel, has rejected the proposal.

One may ask, what happened to the deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed by Iran and the US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany, with the explicit intention of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon while simultaneously reintroducing the regime into the international community.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was to be guaranteed access to inspect and monitor sites, including potentially “undeclared” sites, through a defined dispute-resolution system.

In return, Iran would receive substantial sanctions relief, including the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets and foreign currency reserves.

It was the result of true diplomacy, a brilliant and well-constructed attempt by a genuine statesman, Barack Obama, to literally bring traditional adversaries to the table and find a common ground in the pursuit of global peace.

Netanyahu, in particular, aggressively criticised the deal as a “historic mistake” and urged Republicans to oppose the deal during a speech to Congress (while Obama was still President!), and that made Trump withdraw from the deal, calling it “the worst deal ever” in 2018.

The Europeans, Chinese, and Russians attempted to continue the deal without the U.S., but Trump not only reimposed sanctions, he also added new ones. Yet, Iran initially complied, but after about a year of inaction, it began incrementally breaching the agreement and recommenced enrichment programmes that had been ceased under the deal.

The Siamese twins and the system handling them know what they are doing. They are playing a high-stakes game. Through the collapse of Iran, they aim to achieve three things: corner the world’s oil and gas for the US, bring China to its knees, and cut off Russia from the South. That would effectively nip the emerging multipolar world in the bud, and the world would come under the hegemon’s dictatorship, with everyone else an underling.

While they are doing all they can to isolate Iran internationally through the cancellation of invitations to international events and destroy its economy through sanctions, Iran must muster efforts to counter that, especially from an economic perspective. It can no longer rely on the old idea of rules-based order. Recent events in Gaza, more especially, and unilateral actions against international law by the Siamese twins and their tag team leaders have shown that the rules-based international order is false and transnational institutions have failed to stand by their principles and, therefore, lost relevance.

Iran may have to consider adopting the Chinese currency, even if for a certain period. It is strong and cannot be bastardised the way America and the West bastardised that of Iran.

Yet all that Trump is doing is American policy; it does not matter whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican. Trump is just being too obvious. Call it crude, unpolished, insensitive, or by whatever name, that’s the aim of America, the Tiger, and Israel; the tail that wags it. It’s their policy. They are just being desperate now because the writing is on the wall: it is the desperation of a dying empire – the last kicks of a dying horse.

Concluded.

Hassan Gimba is the Publisher and CEO of Neptune Prime.

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