Fatherland, motherland, slaughterland

As he stood defending his legacy, his war, and his ambitions in his first news conference since the start of the joint US-Israel war on Iran, a visibly declining Benjamin Netanyahu made an incredibly bizarre claim. He boldly declared that Israel has now ascended to the status of a regional and global superpower.

For observers of Middle Eastern geopolitics, this was a jarring boast. For decades, Israel's accepted function within the global order has been that of Grima Wormtongue to Washington's King Théoden. Tel Aviv has excelled at whispering in the ear of the king and directing the sword, but it has never openly claimed to be the usurper of Rohan's throne. Its entire strategic posture relied on an image of vulnerability, a besieged garrison state requiring perpetual American patronage.

So why the sudden, unchecked hubris? Is Grima calculating that Théoden is about to breathe his last? Or has a troubled, exhausted Théoden already abdicated responsibility, leaving the throne entirely vacant?

This newfound spring in Israel's step owes itself directly to the current theatre of conflict. But Netanyahu's success in finally dragging the United States into this conflagration is not merely an accident of escalating tensions. It carries a grim, highly calculated context.

By actively striking Iran and roping the Americans into the fray, Israel virtually guaranteed that US military installations situated across GCC countries would be targeted in retaliation. This is not collateral damage; it is the core objective. For years, Arab states have masterfully maintained a posture of strategic ambivalence. Capitals like Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have meticulously crafted a post-oil future, sinking trillions into mega-projects, tourism hubs and tech sanctuaries. They have courted global capital by selling an image of unshakeable stability.

A regional war forcefully collapses that ambivalence and shatters that stability. Once the missiles fly, these nations will inevitably be sucked into the vortex, bringing the entirety of each Gulf nation's infrastructure into the crosshairs. The resulting devastation would systematically decimate the Gulf's post-oil economy, vaporising foreign direct investment overnight and leaving Israel as the undisputed financial hub of the Middle East. Furthermore, a traumatised GCC could easily view the American military footprint as a fatal liability, formally requesting Washington to vacate the region, leaving behind Israel as the sole regional hegemon.

But a glaring question remains: how did Israel suddenly find the operational courage to spring this trap?

In the immediate aftermath of the Fordow attack, Washington had placed Israel in a diplomatic and logistical chokehold. The US was actively managing Tel Aviv, keeping it on a tight leash to ensure it didn't do anything crude or precipitously escalate the conflict into a broader regional war. Israel simply lacked the independent financial and logistical autonomy to defy its patron.

Then came Narendra Modi.

Recognising Israel's vulnerability, the Indian Prime Minister rushed to Tel Aviv. He didn't just bring diplomatic pleasantries; he brought massive financial pledges that effectively unchained Israel from Washington's restraints. The timeline is the ultimate proof of this connivance: within roughly forty hours of Modi departing Israel, Tel Aviv launched its unprecedented attack on Iran.

During this trip, in a transparent bid to flatter his hosts, Modi told the Indian-Jewish diaspora that "Israel is their fatherland and India their motherland." For a leader who hails from an ideological wellspring of unapologetic, misogynistic male chauvinism, where masculinity is the ultimate currency of power, willingly bequeathing the "father" role to another nation is a staggering psychological surrender. It reeks of a man desperate to please.

Why this desperation? After receiving a comprehensive strategic drubbing by Pakistan in May of last year, and finding himself increasingly shunned by the US, Modi urgently needed a powerful ally and a safe harbour completely out of Islamabad's reach.

Israel gleefully accepted this surrender and immediately cashed the check. If you want undeniable evidence of this tectonic shift in Israel's self-image, look no further than a recent, highly revealing exchange on Israel's i24 News. Debating the anticipated global surge in demand for Israeli air defence systems, one analyst pointed out a glaring logistical reality: "Only we have no production lines."

His co-panelist's response was as arrogant as it was chilling: "We do! In India... Listen, we need one billion four hundred million people to manufacture for us, for the entire world."

Israel no longer views itself as a dependent client state because it believes it has just acquired 1.4 billion labourers to serve as the outsourced engine of its war machine.

But Indian policymakers are conniving strategists, and they exacted a heavy price for this logistical lifeline. The trap set in the Middle East perfectly aligns with New Delhi's darkest fantasies. India knows that Pakistan remains a vital Saudi security partner. Open, sustained hostility between the GCC and Iran inevitably forces Islamabad's hand, opening up another fiercely hostile border. This guarantees that both Pakistan and Iran take a severe, simultaneous pounding.

This is a tactical dream for New Delhi. The geography itself weaponises the conflict. Because the restive Balochistan region spans both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border, an overarching regional war provides India the perfect chaotic cover to heavily fund and foment separatist militancies in both territories simultaneously. It transforms a localised security challenge into a full-blown, multi-front proxy war of attrition. With one stroke, the decimation of two major Muslim armies could lead to the dismemberment of two powerful countries.

Yet, if Netanyahu believes that entertaining Indian flattery will elevate Israel to a permanent global superpower, he is gravely mistaken. He should prepare to be used, discarded, and ultimately targeted. The current hardline pathology gripping India is an ideology of racist purging that hates all Abrahamic religions equally. To the ideologues in New Delhi, the Israeli state is not a revered partner; it is merely a useful, heavily armed battering ram against a mutual demographic enemy. Once that battering ram has served its purpose and taken sufficient damage in the process, they will not hesitate to discard it. It will divide, and then it will destroy.

In geopolitics, sometimes the only way to win a rigged game is to refuse to play. Convincing Tehran to exercise restraint against GCC host nations will require immense diplomatic heavy lifting. But as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's recent backchannel diplomacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran demonstrates, sanity can and must prevail. It is crucial for all regional capitals to realise that this Islamophobic axis wants their collective destruction. By attacking each other, we only do their job for them.

Tehran must also recognise the strategic trap being laid before it. It is in incredible pain. But sometimes in anger and pain one ends up enabling the worst elements possible.