A strain of commentary, prevalent on both the isolationist right and the anti-interventionist left, insists on framing the military campaign against Iran as “Israel’s war.” The claim is convincing in its simplicity and serves a recognizable political function: it feeds a broader campaign to demonize Western power and delegitimize its exercise. It is also wrong. The confrontation with Tehran reflects American and Western imperatives that would demand attention even if Israel vanished from the map tomorrow.
Start with the nuclear question. A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a direct strategic challenge to the United States. It would transform the balance of power across the Middle East, trigger proliferation among Gulf states, and place the world’s most critical energy corridor under an atomic umbrella controlled by a theocratic regime. Such a development would constrain American freedom of action in the region and undermine the security architecture Washington has maintained for decades. Preventing that outcome, therefore, falls on Washington not as a favor to allies, but as a matter of its own strategic interest.
The China factor is another dimension. Chinese purchases account for roughly 90% of Iran’s exported oil, providing tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue that supports Tehran’s government budget and military activities. Iran functions as an energy supply node in China’s broader strategy to insulate itself from American naval dominance. Russia and China are Tehran’s strategic partners, and neutralizing this arrangement is a chapter in great power competition whose stakes dwarf the Israeli question entirely.
NO, ISRAEL ISN’T MAKING TRUMP BOMB IRAN
Critics rightly note that Iran closed the Strait in retaliation, meaning the disruption is a consequence of the campaign rather than its cause, and that is fair enough. Yet the closure demonstrates precisely why Iran’s military capability threatens global interests far beyond Israel’s borders. The resulting shortfall approaches 20% of global oil supplies, and a regime willing to hold a fifth of global energy trade hostage has, by that very act, confirmed that it represents a threat to every economy. The Islamic Republic’s hostility toward the West predates the current hostilities by nearly half a century. When Jefferson confronted the Barbary pirates, whose envoy told American diplomats that their religion granted them the right to plunder and enslave, he faced a similar challenge: a hostile force claiming divine sanction to menace international shipping. American maritime interests are older than the state of Israel.
On top of this, Iran’s special operations unit, the Quds Force, provides arms, training, and financial support to militias and political movements across the Middle East, including in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and Yemen. The infrastructure stretches from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, and is designed to project Iranian power and destabilize American partners. Tehran’s ambition is regional hegemony, and the network it has built to pursue that ambition threatens American interests and regional stability.
The regime’s global terrorism record reinforces the point. Countries spanning Argentina, Albania, Australia, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States have all accused Iran and the IRGC of plotting assassinations or bombings on their soil. MI5’s director general revealed that since January 2022, British authorities had contended with twenty Iranian-backed plots targeting U.K. citizens and residents. From the Burgas bus bombing to assassination plots in Paris and recruitment of operatives across the Caucasus, Iranian operations target the sovereignty of Western states and bear every hallmark of a regime whose stated mission is the destruction of Western influence and the “Great Satan” that is the United States, and it pursues this mission it pursues in alliance with Moscow and Beijing.
GULF STATES, NOT ISRAEL, REALLY NEED TRUMP TO TAKE OUT THE IRANIAN REGIME
Those who insist this is “Israel’s war” are participating, whether knowingly or otherwise, in a broader campaign to demonize Western power and delegitimize its exercise. The same voices remain conspicuously silent about Iran’s alliances with Russia and China, its expansionist ambitions, and its four-decade campaign of state-sponsored terrorism that has reached from Buenos Aires to Baku.
Israel no doubt benefits from this campaign. Reasonable people may also question the campaign’s timing, scope, and exit strategy, and much of the criticism directed at this administration carries legitimate force. Yet reducing this confrontation to an Israeli project ignores the underlying causes of the war. Every Western nation whose economy depends on open sea lanes, stable energy markets, and a Middle East free from nuclear blackmail has a stake in this outcome. This is America’s war, and that of the world.