On the morning of February 28, 2026, Tehran was shaken by explosions. The war had begun. Israel carried out a large‑scale preemptive strike on Iranian targets, including facilities near the offices of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. According to Reuters, the operation had been planned for months, coordinated closely with the United States, and its launch date was decided weeks in advance. Smoke rose over the capital as impacts were reported across the country. Shortly afterward, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States had begun “major combat operations” against Iran and openly called on the Iranian people to “take their destiny into their own hands.” In that moment, the last mask of the international order fell: the attack was not directed at a bomb, but at the possibility that a state might refuse enforced vulnerability.
The official justification from Washington and Tel Aviv is that Iran threatens the region through its nuclear program, a narrative reflected in reporting by Al Jazeera on the strikes and the collapse of nuclear talks. Parallel to these failed negotiations, Trump openly linked the attacks to the goal of regime change. The nuclear issue is the pretext. The strategic truth is that an Iran with deterrence would be uncontrollable—and that is precisely what this order does not permit.
Ukraine has shown what happens to states that give up their deterrence. In 1994, it relinquished its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees that later proved worthless. Today it is militarily dependent on Western support—not because it is weak, but because it was disarmed. Iran understood this lesson. It accepted transparency but not disarmament. It accepted negotiations but not subordination. That is exactly why it was attacked. If Tehran had disarmed, it would now be the Ukraine of the Middle East—and would be begging others for weapons, just as Ukraine does. This sentence is not a metaphor. It is the architecture of the international order.
That architecture is older than the current conflict. It reaches back to 1945, when the victors of World War II decided who may be armed and who may not. Germany and Japan were demilitarized and remained fully dependent for decades. Libya abandoned its nuclear program in 2003 and was overthrown in 2011. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and was still invaded in 2003. North Korea, by contrast, kept its program—and remains untouchable to this day. The international order does not reward disarmament; it rewards deterrence. It does not punish strength; it punishes vulnerability. And it accepts sovereignty only where it remains controllable.
Israel launched the strikes and declared they were aimed at “removing existential threats.” At the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke of “creating the conditions for the Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands.” This is not a security doctrine; it is a political doctrine. Gaza was never the strategic core. Gaza was a sideshow, a pressure valve, a space of managed escalation. The real axis of Israeli security strategy has for years run through Tehran, Damascus, and Beirut. Israel uses American power to secure its regional dominance. The United States uses Israeli interests to enforce its global order. Both share one goal: an Iran without deterrence.
The strikes occurred while the United States and Iran were still engaged in negotiations. Both sides had held talks in February about the nuclear program, but Israel insisted that any agreement must include the complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Iran refused. It offered dialogue, but not self‑disarmament. The outcome was therefore predetermined. Diplomacy ends where sovereignty begins. And the United States does not accept sovereignty it cannot control.
The attacks hit government buildings in Tehran, facilities near Khamenei’s office, and military infrastructure across the country. Iran immediately responded with missile strikes on Israel and U.S. bases in the region. Several states closed their airspace. Israel declared a state of emergency. The United States announced that “bombs will fall everywhere.” This is not a limited operation. It is a reconfiguration of the region’s power architecture.
But the deeper truth lies not in the explosions, but in what they reveal: the international order is not structured by rules, but by the fear of powerful states that others might no longer be coerced. Iran was not attacked because it is dangerous. It was attacked because it is not weak enough. It was not attacked because it is building a bomb. Not only that, but it was attacked because it refuses to live without deterrence. It was not attacked because diplomacy failed. Diplomacy failed because the United States and Israel do not accept an order in which Iran remains sovereign.
This war is not directed at a weapon. It is directed at the possibility of saying no. And that is why it is not only an attack on Iran but an attack on the very idea of sovereignty itself. It does not mark the end of a conflict, but the beginning of a new world order in which deterrence is the only language power respects and in which states are punished not for what they do, but for their independence.
