A BENIGN PERSPECTIVE ON RITES OF EXERCISING MIGHT AGAINST THE MIGHT OF RIGHTS? (Part 1)

 

 Caveat

The present is always a continuum of the past and the future, though unpredictable, cannot detach itself from today and today’s past. The past always makes its presence felt.

This is not a political article. It does not take sides. It is meant to be a cogent presentation of historical facts and figures available in the public domain. Readers are free to infer whatever they want. 

Ominous Signs in Geneva? 

The intense day-long meeting on 26 February 2026 concluded with Badr al-Busaidi, the Foreign Minister of Oman, announcing that the talks had concluded “after significant progress.” It was also reported that both sides displayed “unprecedented openness to new and creative ideas” during discussions on nuclear constraints and potential sanctions relief. The Iranian officials declared that these were among the most intense talks so far and indicated that they had reached a broad understanding on many elements of a potential deal, though core issues (like uranium enrichment limits and sanctions) were unresolved.

The world had been watching America move war machines into the Middle East. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group was ordered to the Middle East (Arabian Sea/CENTCOM area of operations) in late January. The USS Gerald R. Ford, another nuclear-powered super-carrier, and its accompanying strike group also moved into the region. The two aircraft carriers were accompanied by many guided-missile destroyers and cruisers.  Fighter and support aircraft flew into the allied bases in early February. Reports also indicated that stealth fighters were deployed to stations close to Iran. Several aerial refuelling tankers, early-warning aircraft, and heavy transport planes were also reported to be moving into the area. The USA also moved additional Patriot air-defence systems and other protective ground assets to key bases to defend against missile and drone threats. 

There had been some shrill warnings from the USA and Israel aimed at Iran. The USA was negotiating with Iran over its nuclear programme in Geneva. Was this overwhelming concentration of lethal military hardware a show of force to drive the negotiation in the direction the USA desired? 

Iran’s Nuclear Programme and American Contributions

The biggest bone of contention, publicly stated, between the USA-Israel combine and Iran has been Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran’s nuclear programme did not start in the recent past. It has a history, too. Interestingly, America has a significant role in it. 

Friendship in good weather can be unbelievably benevolent. It all began under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, in the early 1950s. Iran formally joined the U.S. Atoms for Peace programme, a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, on 5 March 1957. This agreement was part of Eisenhower’s effort to promote peaceful uses of atomic energy. It provided for cooperation in research on peaceful nuclear technology. In November 1967, the 5-megawatt Tehran Research Reactor, supplied by the United States, began operation. Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on 1 July 1968, the very day the treaty opened for signature. Iran’s ruler, Reza Shah Pahlavi, announced in 1974 that Iran would build 23 nuclear power stations generating about 23,000 MW of nuclear power by 2000, to diversify energy away from oil. Sensing huge business benefits, Western firms flocked to Iran. West Germany’s Kraftwerk Union (a joint venture of Siemens) was contracted to build large pressurised water reactors at Bushehr. US, French and European companies competed for contracts under this “Atoms for Peace” programme. 

Then things took a turn.  

The monarchy under Reza Shah Pahlavi collapsed. Shah fled Iran on 16 January 1979. The Islamic Revolution led by Ruhollah Khomeini ousted him. Shah moved through several countries, eventually arriving in Egypt, where he succumbed to Cancer on 27 July 1980. Ruhollah Khomeini, who had been expelled from Iran and had taken refuge in France from 6 October 1978, returned on 1 February 1979. In April 1979, a national referendum led to the monarchy being abolished. Iran officially became the Islamic Republic of Iran. In December 1979, a new constitution created the system of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), giving ultimate authority to the Supreme Leader. Thus, the Islamic Republic of Iran became a theocratic state.

The ascent of Khomeini altered Iran’s international relations altogether. Khomeini was known to be against the use of nuclear weapons and did not pursue the nuclear programme that the Shah had initiated. Western cooperation on nuclear power collapsed overnight. Contracts were cancelled, foreign firms withdrew, and projects halted. The eight–year Iran–Iraq War (1980-88) ensured that the nuclear programme fizzled out. The 23 nuclear power stations never came up. 

But many things happen and change the course of history. 

On Christmas Eve in 1979, the Soviet forces began crossing into Afghanistan from the USSR by land and air. Large-scale airlifts into Kabul started that night. In the evening on 27 Dec 1979, between 7:00 and 8:00 PM Kabul time, the Soviet special forces launched Operation Storm-333, stormed the Tajbeg Palace in Kabul and killed Afghan President Hafizullah Amin.

As expected, the USA stepped in. Pakistan became the frontline supporting the Afghan resistance. The United States, under President Ronald Reagan, started pouring billions of dollars in military and economic aid to Pakistan. This helped Pakistan advance its uranium enrichment programme under Abdul Qadeer Khan. The US found it convenient to close its eyes to Pakistan’s nuclear programme. AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, was also a proponent of the Islamic bomb. 

Iran came into contact with Abdul Qadeer Khan. During the period between 1980 and 1990, Khan ran a clandestine proliferation network, supplying centrifuge designs and components to Iran. The centrifuge design provided to Iran was based on the P-1 centrifuge, originally derived from European designs. This assistance helped Iran develop its early uranium enrichment capability. Iran is known to have used these designs at their Natanz Nuclear Facility.  AQ Khan continued to help Iran. 

Sometime in August 2002, A person named Alireza Jafarzadeh, representing the Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), held a press conference in Washington, D.C. He told the world that Iran was secretly building A uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, and a heavy water production site at Arak. This is said to have drawn the attention of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It will be extremely naive to believe that the CIA and Mossad were not in the know of what was going on in Iran’s nuclear programme or the support given by AQ Khan to Iran. 

Iran was a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and all along had maintained that its nuclear work was peaceful. However, they had not disclosed the details of these facilities.  The IAEA pressured the UN, and as a result, governments around the world began to react. This led to diplomatic standoffs and resulted in sanctions on Iran. Meanwhile, Pakistan declared that whatever A.Q. Khan did was without state authorisation and blamed it on the private proliferation network he operated. Interestingly, AQ Khan publicly confessed on Pakistani television in 2004. In a spectacle of justice, Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, pardoned AQ Khan but placed him under house arrest. It is widely believed that the house arrest ensured that AQ Khan was safe and alive. One must toil hard to believe that the powerful messiahs of non-proliferation bought into the charade. 

Pakistan today is a nuclear weapons state, unbridled by the strict conditions of the NPT. Iran, despite biting sanctions and repeated threats of leaving the NPT, continues to be a signatory to the NPT and remains under international monitoring. It was only on 8 May 2011 that the Bushehr nuclear facility, built in collaboration with Russia’s Rosatom, achieved criticality. The deal had been concluded in the 1990s after the Germans left. The plant came on grid on 3 Sep 2011 and came under full Iranian control on 23 Sept 2013. 

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)

Civil nuclear power requires uranium to be enriched to 3–5%. Uranium needs to be enriched to 90% to be considered weapons-grade.  While Iran insisted its programme was peaceful, Western countries suspected Iran’s intent. The U.S., EU, and UN imposed heavy sanctions on Iran. International pressure and domestic economic conditions forced Iran to the negotiating table yet again. On 14 July 2015, they signed an agreement with the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, Austria. The EU was the party that coordinated the agreement. The JCPOA came into effect in early 2016 after implementation steps were completed. By signing the JCPOA, Iran hoped to secure the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions, allowing it to export more oil, gain access to their assets frozen abroad and improve foreign trade and investment prospects. The economic incentive was the strongest reason for Iran’s participation in these talks. Iran agreed to restrict uranium enrichment, reduce stockpiles of enriched material, limit the number and type of centrifuges, and even agreed to stringent monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Through these actions, Iran thought it could reassure the world that its nuclear program was peaceful, not weapon-oriented.

On 8 May 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally announced that the United States would withdraw from the JCPOA. He felt that the deal did not permanently stop Iran’s nuclear program, as many limits in the agreement expired after 10–15 years.  Moreover, it did not address Iran’s ballistic missile program. He went a step further and stated that the agreement did not curb Iran’s regional influence (Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq). The US withdrew unilaterally and re-imposed severe economic sanctions under a policy called “maximum pressure.” Though the other signatories remained, US withdrawal effectively killed the agreement. The fresh set of sanctions severely reduced Iran’s oil exports. The Foreign companies that had started collaborating with Iran withdrew to avoid U.S. penalties. Iran’s currency (Rial) collapsed, and Iran's economy started tanking further. In response, in 2019, Iran gradually began reducing its commitments. It started enriching uranium beyond the 3.67% limit, increased uranium stockpiles beyond allowed caps and installed advanced centrifuges. This led to Iran reaching enrichment up to 60% (close to weapons-grade).

When Joe Biden became U.S. President in 2021, he sought to revive the deal. Fresh talks, mediated by the EU, were held in Vienna. Negotiations hit a roadblock over disagreements over sanctions relief guarantees. Iran also demanded assurances that a future U.S. president wouldn’t withdraw again. Meanwhile Israel–Iran relationship worsened. Israel started clamouring to destroy Iran's nuclear programme because it considered the programme an existential threat to Israel. This finally led to the US military strike.

Operation Midnight Hammer on 22 June 2025

On January 20, 2025, Mr Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office, marking the start of his second, non-consecutive term as the 47th president. He had claimed to bring peace to the world. However, things started sliding into an aggressive confrontation. On 22 June 2025, Operation Midnight Hammer was launched. In a well-planned and highly marketed offensive, the U.S. and Israel combined to attack the nuclear facilities of Iran. The primary targets were the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, Natanz Nuclear Facility and Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre. 

The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is a uranium enrichment complex located deeply buried underground with advanced centrifuges and capable of enriching uranium to weapon-grade levels. It was the primary target of the U.S. airstrikes with multiple GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs. The Natanz Nuclear Facility contains thousands of centrifuges and is vital to producing low and medium-enriched uranium. It is the industrial backbone of Iran’s enrichment program. It was struck by a combination of bunker-buster bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by the USA.  The   Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre hosts research reactors and nuclear-related labs and converts uranium into feedstock (UF6 gas) used in centrifuges. It was hit by U.S. cruise missiles as part of the coordinated strike package.

Coordinated with Operation Midnight Hammer, Israel launched Operation Lion’s Roar against Iran. Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched a pre-emptive air and missile strikes against multiple sites inside Iran, including areas in Tehran. It destroyed military infrastructure, elements of Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes, command and control centres, and other strategic facilities. The USA and Israel called off the operation, claiming that the strikes inflicted “extremely severe damage” on all three locations. 

Ever since the operation of June 25, the relationships between the three countries remained strained. However, to avoid future conflicts, diplomatic efforts gathered steam. Oman took on the mantle of mediating between Iran and the USA. Badr al-Busaidi’s post-meeting announcement was a result of a hard-won negotiation.

The post mediation briefing revealed that Iran had agreed not to seek nuclear weapons or accumulate nuclear material capable of making a bomb, and the existing enriched uranium stockpiles would be dealt with via blending or fuel conversion under supervision. Iran was also believed to have agreed to zero stockpiling and willingness to grant full access by international inspectors (like the IAEA) for verification under a potential deal. Both sides had agreed to further technical-level talks to be held in Vienna in the coming week to work out the detailed implementation issues. The world seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Then something changed behind the scenes.

The nuclear issue seemed to have been well grappled with, and things seemed to look forward.

Then something happened yet again.

Opportunity Target?

It would be foolish to assume that such an overwhelming concentration of lethal military hardware and show of force was merely to force the negotiation between the USA and Iran in the direction the USA desired. It was meant to be used. Iran should have known that. The supreme leader should have known that.

When the long-range missiles took off from their launch pads for their intended targets on 28 February 2026, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and those in the compound of the heavily secured buildings in Tehran would not have been aware that their time was at hand. It was President Trump who announced to the world through his post on social media handle Truth Social, that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, had been killed in a military operation involving the United States and Israel. The news of the death of the supreme leader was announced by Israel soon after and later confirmed by the Iranian authorities. 

Why, at this adverse moment, the top leadership got together is now irrelevant, but how the adversaries came to know the precise locations of the most important people in Iran will remain a question the Iranians will have to answer for themselves. Needless to say, the Iranian regime has been infiltrated. Now everyone can be suspected.

A day before the bombing, the Prime Minister of Israel had called Iran an existential threat. He had vowed to neutralise Iran’s nuclear program. He claimed that Iran was just days away from weaponising its nuclear assets. How could Iran, whose nuclear facility was irreparably damaged in Jun 2025, be close to being days or weeks from the bomb?

Regime Change

Immediately after the bombing of the Tehran complex, the President of the United States exhorted the people of Iran to rise against their government and take control of their destiny. Regime change became the call. The transformation of a leader who, last May in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, had announced that “the days of the American-led regime change are over,” was complete. On that day, he was trying to reassure regional partners that Washington was moving away from traditional “regime change” diplomacy in favour of other priorities such as stability or economic cooperation. 

It is not the first time outsiders have catalysed regime change in Iran. Iran experimented with the Constitutional changes as early as 1905. The absolute power of the Qajar monarch was limited by the establishment of a parliament called the Majles. On 22 February 1921, Reza Khan, supported indirectly by the British, overthrew the Qajar monarch. He later took the throne as Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1925, founding the Pahlavi dynasty. In August 1953, Prime Minister Mossadegh, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, was ousted. The CIA and Britain’s MI6 are said to have organised a covert coup (Operation Ajax) that ousted Mosaddegh and strengthened the Shah’s authority. The coup restored and expanded the monarchy’s power, making Iran a key U.S. ally during the Cold War. The country was rocked by mass protests, strikes, and widespread civil unrest, culminating in the fall of the Pahlavi monarchy in 1979. 

The revolution replaced the secular monarchy with the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, establishing a new theocratic political order that merged religious authority with governance.

Why were President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suddenly talking about regime change?

Now that they have hit the top echelons of the Iranian Regime, what lies ahead? How would the war unfold? How would it affect the world?

We will crystal gaze in the next part.