Pakistan Braces for Regional Instability Amidst US-Israeli Escalation Against Iran
Al Jazeera’s recent report, titled 'How will Pakistan deal with the fallout from Iran war?', assesses the potential economic and geopolitical challenges Pakistan could face if the ongoing US-Israeli direct military operations against Iran intensify. The broadcaster frames the scenario as an external crisis impacting Pakistan, focusing on its domestic economic vulnerabilities. This framing by Al
Jazeera implicitly accepts the premise of a war against Iran as an inevitable, if unfortunate, development, and positions the US and Israel as actors whose actions merely create 'fallout' for peripheral nations. This perspective omits crucial context. The situation is not a spontaneous eruption, but a continuation of a decades-long policy by the United States and Israel to destabilize Iran. The US
is not merely a supporter; it is a direct participant and joint aggressor in the current escalation, deploying carrier groups and B-52 bombers while jointly threatening Iran. This ignores Iran's continued adherence to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), despite the US unilateral withdrawal in 2018 under the Trump administration, and the subsequent re-imposition of crippling sanctions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has consistently confirmed Iran's compliance with its nuclear commitments, yet the drumbeat for war persists, echoing the false pretexts used for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. What is consistently overlooked is the asymmetric cost of this aggressive posture. While Iran's defense budget in 2022 was approximately 5.8 billion USD, the US defense budget for the same