By Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad
The “War on Terror” is dead, and good riddance. It was a bloated production—half moral crusade, half arms expo—that flattened cities, installed a few puppet governments, and managed to convince Americans that airport security theater was the front line of civilization. But Washington has moved on to a new project, one even more cynical: the War on Statehood.
This latest hobby doesn’t bother pretending to build nations or liberate oppressed peoples. That was yesterday’s marketing. Today’s game is demolition: splintering Arab states, keeping them in permanent dysfunction, and crowning Israel the local sheriff—armed, dangerous, and hopelessly dependent on its sugar daddy in Washington.
Think of it less as strategy and more as vandalism with a press office.
Israel: McHegemon with Unlimited Refills
American officials never tire of declaring Israel the “dominant military power in the Middle East.” It sounds impressive, like an empire forged in steel. In reality, Israel is less a hegemon than a heavily subsidized franchise: McHegemon, with free refills and a loyalty card stamped at the Pentagon.
A genuine hegemon doesn’t need the U.S. to loan it airspace, satellites, and mid-air refueling just to keep its sorties going. Nor does it burn through missile stockpiles meant for Taiwan like a teenager emptying the family fridge. Israel is powerful the way a ventriloquist’s dummy is eloquent: only because someone else is moving its mouth.
Yet Arab capitals are expected to treat this franchise as untouchable. Even the wealthiest states, with their shiny skyscrapers and swaggering monarchs, now limit themselves to performative outrage. They issue indignant press statements by day and quietly pump aviation fuel into Israeli bombers by night. Their independence is little more than a stage prop—useful for calming the masses, but irrelevant when Washington calls.
The Doha Debacle: Bombing Your “Major Ally”
If one episode revealed this new doctrine in all its absurdity, it was Israel’s 9 September strike in Doha. Imagine it: Hamas officials, mid-ceasefire talks, sitting in the Qatari diplomatic quarter. Suddenly, Israeli bombs rain down, killing six, including a Qatari guard.
This wasn’t Gaza. This wasn’t Lebanon. This was Doha—the polished capital of a U.S.-designated “major non-NATO ally,” and home to America’s biggest airbase in the region.
Washington’s response was pure slapstick. Trump muttered that he was “unhappy,” then sheepishly admitted the U.S. had been informed beforehand. Qatar swears the Americans phoned as the bombs were already falling. That’s not a warning—that’s trolling.
The world gasped. Gulf states fumed. Turkey and Egypt condemned. Even Europe clutched its pearls. The UN called it a violation of territorial integrity. Israel’s ambassador in Washington then went on Fox News and cheerfully announced that if they missed their targets this time, they’d simply bomb Doha again. It was less diplomacy than a mafia protection racket.
So much for being a “major ally.” Qatar discovered that in Washington’s new hierarchy, your national authority is expendable if Israel feels like dropping ordnance in your living room.
Paralysis as Policy
Still think Doha was a one-off? Look at Lebanon and Syria, the lab rats of this experiment. These countries aren’t merely weak; they’ve been intentionally kneecapped. Israel bombs them at will. Sanctions crush their economies. Their infrastructures are held together with duct tape and prayer.
And here’s the kicker: that’s the point. Washington no longer wants decisive victories or reconstructed allies. It wants states stuck in permanent limbo: too busy with blackouts, food shortages, and collapsing currencies to push back against Israeli overflights.
The new policy isn’t domination by strength. It’s domination by induced weakness. Keep your neighbors paralyzed, and you’ll never have to negotiate with equals again.
Gaza: When the Mask Came Off
The October 2023 Hamas operation blew the mask clean off. In earlier years, Washington at least pretended to care about ceasefires. This time, it didn’t bother. The U.S. shipped weapons to Israel like Amazon Prime on steroids, fed it intelligence, and vetoed every ceasefire resolution at the UN. Diplomacy was pronounced dead on arrival.
Europe, predictably, played backup vocals. France solemnly declared its love for Palestinian statehood while simultaneously boosting arms sales to Israel to record levels. Hypocrisy is too gentle a word; this was active complicity delivered with a French accent.
Expansion, Marketed as Self-Defense
Iran has long warned that the Western project in West Asia is nakedly colonial. For years, Western analysts dismissed this as shrill paranoia. Then Netanyahu revived the dream of “Greater Israel” and openly embraced it. Washington and Brussels responded with a yawn. Suddenly, the “paranoid fantasy” looks suspiciously like official policy.
Meanwhile, Iran’s decision to arm regional resistance movements—framed as destabilizing by every Western pundit in a blazer—remains the only effective brake on Israel’s expansionist appetite. But thanks to Western PR spin, every Israeli bomb is branded “self-defense,” while every Arab bullet is called “terrorism.” It’s less journalism than marketing.
Bullseye, Not Collateral Damage
From Doha to Damascus, Gaza to Beirut, the pattern is unmistakable: independence itself has been reclassified as a threat. Strong governments are no longer useful partners; they’re inconvenient obstacles. The new American doctrine makes no secret of it: if you cannot be controlled, you will be broken.
At least colonialism had the decency to cloak itself in civilizing rhetoric. At least the War on Terror cloaked itself in counterterrorism jargon. Today’s policy dispenses with disguises. It openly declares that statehood is negotiable, self-determination is disposable, and allies are expendable.
Even Qatar—the trusted host of U.S. troops—learned that its autonomy was worth less than Israel’s desire to blow up a hotel meeting. If that’s how Washington treats friends, one shudders to think what’s in store for enemies.
A Template for Global Chaos
West Asia is just the beta version. If this works, expect Washington to export the model elsewhere. The logic is seductive: when your influence slips, don’t waste time with development projects or puppet governments. Smash the state. Fund some proxies. Stir crises until governance itself becomes impossible. Then sit back and call it “regional stability.”
This is empire stripped bare. Empire without the humanitarian fig leaf. Empire that treats chaos not as a risk but as a tool.
Conclusion: Demolition as Grand Strategy
The War on Terror was always a con, but at least it bothered to dress up. It mouthed clichés about democracy and held ribbon-cutting ceremonies for Potemkin parliaments. The new doctrine can’t be bothered. It seeks not to build but to break, not to stabilize but to scatter.
And here’s the delicious irony: the most powerful nation on earth now depends on deliberate dysfunction as its main instrument of influence. Its chosen enforcer, Israel, is less a regional hegemon than a perpetually subsidized intern—smashing Arab independence with borrowed tools, then running back to Washington for more.
Call it cynicism, call it desperation, but don’t call it strategy. Strategy implies coherence, foresight, achievable ends. What Washington has unleashed in West Asia is none of those things. It is demolition disguised as necessity.
And the punchline? National authority isn’t collateral damage anymore. It’s the bullseye. If West Asia is the testing ground, the rest of the world should consider itself on notice. In Washington’s new hobby of breaking things, every house is fair game.
Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan.
16 September 2025
Source: countercurrents.org