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Experts warn US-Iran war launched on ‘false premises’ risks decades of instability with no clear endgame

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A panel of international affairs scholars has delivered a blunt assessment of the ongoing US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, warning that the conflict was launched on “false premises,” has no discernible strategic objective, and risks drawing major powers into a broader confrontation that could reshape the global order for decades.

Speaking during a webinar hosted by Harici Media, titled “The Middle East at a Breaking Point: Escalation Scenarios and Future Outlooks,” three analysts — from Oman, the US, and Germany — painted a picture of a region engulfed by a war none of its inhabitants chose, waged by powers whose aims remain opaque even to close observers.

The panel was moderated by Hassan Ünal of Başkent University in Ankara, who also serves as director of the New World Research Center.

“The war has been decided between Tel Aviv and Washington and we are paying the price”

Abdullah Baaboud, a member of Waseda University’s Qatari Chair of Islamic Studies and a native of Oman, opened with a sharp indictment from the perspective of the Gulf Cooperation Council states. Speaking from Oman — one of Iran’s nearest neighbors — Baaboud said the war had been “decided illegally against a neighboring country” and launched under fabricated justifications.

“There are no strong excuses to enter into war,” Baaboud said. “The most powerful country in the world is conducting it with another powerful country in the Middle East. Both are nuclear powers, and they’re conducting it against a neighboring state under the false premises of nuclear arms or regime change or regional policy or missile technology.”

He noted that even the war’s architects appeared unable to articulate coherent objectives. “Even the people who created and entered into the war are not clear about their war objectives and the reasons for their war,” he said.

Baaboud revealed that Oman had been deeply involved in mediating between Washington and Tehran prior to the outbreak of hostilities — just as it had during last year’s so-called Twelve Days War. According to Baaboud, Oman’s foreign minister had indicated that Iran had agreed to virtually all US demands, going “way beyond” the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal. Tehran had accepted conditions on enrichment, stockpiling, and was prepared to discuss missile technology and regional policy. In return, Iran sought assurances that sanctions would be lifted and it would be permitted to trade freely with its neighbors.

“We were all very hopeful that this is going to avert a devastating war for the region,” Baaboud said. “And you all know what is going on now.”

He described a conflict in which not only military sites but civilian infrastructure, schools, and leadership figures had been struck. Iran, for its part, had retaliated against US bases, Israel, and Gulf states it suspected of hosting American forces. “We have become a victim of this war, not a war of our choice,” Baaboud said. Iran’s closure or attempted closure of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on oil installations had prompted some regional states to suspend exports, a development Baaboud warned would deliver a “huge impact on the world economy and the world energy needs.”

Looking ahead, he cast the conflict as an accelerant of the Gulf’s pivot toward Asia. “Their policies in the region are actually so perplexing for us that they are pushing us more towards Asia, towards China,” he said. The war, coming on the heels of what Baaboud described as “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, had generated a profound crisis of confidence in the US as a strategic partner. “I think we are at a very serious inflection point where things are changing,” he warned. “It is madness, and we are paying a very high cost for this madness.”

“It’s not that difficult to manipulate President Trump”

Adam Weinstein, deputy director of the Middle East Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, offered a forensic account of the policy failures that led to the current conflagration. He traced the conflict’s origins to the unraveling of the JCPOA, noting that even the Obama administration had undermined the deal’s spirit by imposing new sanctions while removing others.

“I think the approach of the Obama administration to the JCPOA was to treat it as if it was some type of corporate contract in which you could find loopholes,” Weinstein said. The first Trump administration then “destroyed that agreement” and assassinated Qasem Soleimani, steps that drew bipartisan applause in Washington even as they moved the US closer to open conflict.

Weinstein reserved particular scorn for the Washington policy establishment’s refusal to heed warnings. “If you were in the minority of voices that warned that this was creating the conditions for a potential war, you were sort of cast aside as being prone to hyperbole and being alarmist,” he said. Even weeks before the strikes began, the prevailing mood in Washington held that the Trump administration might conduct limited operations as a “coercive negotiating tactic” but would never embark on full-scale war. “Anyone who said otherwise was kind of deemed an alarmist. I mean, that’s just a fact.”

He was equally blunt about Iran’s miscalculations. The late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Weinstein said, had fatally misjudged the nature of the administration he was dealing with — one in which provocative social media posts could tip the balance from negotiation to invasion. “The late Supreme Leader was tweeting out AI images of US ships being sunk to the bottom of the sea and threatening to use Chinese weapons against US ships,” Weinstein recounted. “With a normal administration, that would be seen as domestic rhetoric and would be ignored. But with somebody like President Trump who quite literally spends a lot of time on Twitter, that has the power to shift his decision from maybe giving negotiations a little more time to invading the country.”

On Israel’s role, Weinstein was characteristically direct. “A lot of people give the Israelis a little too much credit. They claim that the Israelis have manipulated Trump or pushed Trump into embarking on this regime change war. It’s not that difficult to manipulate President Trump,” he said. “I think they’ve done it masterfully, but it’s not that difficult of a task.”

Weinstein dismantled the notion that the Trump administration was executing a sophisticated strategy. Conservative circles, he said, had convinced themselves that the successful abduction of Venezuelan President Maduro provided a blueprint for regime change in Iran. “The problem is that Iran is not Venezuela,” Weinstein said. “The Iranian regime has been preparing for this moment and the decapitation of the Supreme Leader for decades.” Unlike Syria, there was no organized opposition figure capable of uniting a critical mass of Iranians.

The Iranian diaspora, he argued, bore partial responsibility for Washington’s miscalculations. “Diasporas don’t necessarily give the best advice. They gave terrible advice on Iraq, they gave really incorrect advice on Afghanistan,” he said. The expected mass uprising had failed to materialize because there was no unifying leader and because the regime’s repressive apparatus — the Basij and the IRGC — had deployed immediately to suppress dissent.

Weinstein described the war’s supreme irony: a president who campaigned against nation-building was now inextricably engaged in it. “When you gratuitously bomb the capital of a large country like Iran and you bomb its government facilities, whether you like it or not, now you’re in the business of nation building,” he said. “We’ve created another generational crisis.”

The new supreme leader, he noted, was “as ideological as his father” but now carried “the added chip on his shoulder that his father, mother, wife, and one of his children were killed by the United States.” Day-to-day authority, meanwhile, had passed to the IRGC. “We’ve just made things a lot worse for ourselves,” Weinstein said.

He concluded with a bitter observation about squandered opportunity. Trump, he argued, had been uniquely positioned — as an iconoclastic second-term president with an obedient party — to negotiate a comprehensive deal with Iran, even to open a US embassy in Tehran. “Instead, he chose to repeat the mistakes of his predecessors, mistakes that he spent his entire political career criticizing.”

“The unipolar world is gone — it’s really gone”

The third panelist, a German analyst identified as Mr. Rahr, situated the Iran conflict within a sweeping geopolitical framework. He warned that the war carried the risk of a broader confrontation between nuclear powers, noting that direct or indirect clashes involving the US, Israel, China, or Russia were “at least conceivable.”

Rahr identified an unspoken US strategic objective: pushing China out of the Middle East and limiting its influence over Persian Gulf energy resources. He noted that China was closely observing the military situation, “particularly the strength and weakness of American air defense systems,” and suggested that Washington’s violation of international law in attacking Iran could influence Beijing’s strategic calculations regarding Taiwan.

On Europe, Rahr delivered a withering verdict. The continent, he said, was “simply too weak and disunited to create an autonomous pole in the multipolar world.” He identified a widening rift between northern European states — Scandinavia, Germany, Poland, the Baltics — focused on militarizing against Russia, and southern nations such as Spain, Italy, and Greece, which favored normalized relations with Moscow and were “more sympathetic to the Arab point of view.”

Europe’s strategy, such as it was, amounted to waiting for a change of administration in Washington. “The only strategy which I detect today in Europe is to wait until Trump maybe will be ousted by the Democrats, another president will be in power,” Rahr said. “But this is not a strategy.”

He argued that northern European states were supporting the US war against Iran as a transactional calculation: backing Trump in the Middle East in exchange for American support against Russia in Ukraine. Europe’s growing raw materials shortage, meanwhile, was driving deindustrialization while American energy and arms industries enjoyed “an unprecedented boom.”

Rahr’s personal forecast envisioned a tripolar world order: the US with a dependent Europe, China as the dominant partner in its relationship with Russia, and a volatile Middle East where “a coalition of Islamist forces could attempt to establish a new political order.” A long-term American-Israeli security architecture in the region, he warned, “would effectively mark a return to a new Cold War era” — one he judged unsustainable.

“We’ve lived through Pax Americana — and look at the result”

During the question-and-answer session, Baaboud traced the historical arc of Gulf security from British withdrawal to what he termed Pax Americana, cataloguing the crises that followed: the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the invasion of Kuwait, the invasion of Iraq, and the current conflict. He argued that the US was now positioning Israel as its regional security guarantor — a “Greater Israel” being “pushed down our throats” — after Iran and Saudi Arabia had both ceased to serve that function.

He also lamented Europe’s failure to build meaningful partnerships with the Middle East, noting that the Euro-Arab, Euro-Gulf, and Euro-Mediterranean dialogues had all collapsed. “We can’t talk about a particular European project that has been successful in this region,” Baaboud said, even as Europe remained “the most affected region by the development and the chaos in the Middle East.”

Weinstein, asked to assess how the war might end, offered a cautious and self-consciously uncertain projection. “If I had to make an educated guess, I would say that it ends in some sort of stalemate or negotiated settlement with an updated Iranian regime that is not any better on human rights or democracy but might be willing to make a few concessions to the Trump administration to stop the war,” he said. He dismissed the optimistic scenario of a democratic Iran emerging within five years as unrealistic given current conditions. “Anyone who says they know what’s going to happen in the next few years, including people in the US government, are lying,” he added.

He characterized the broader pattern as endemic to American foreign policy. “This is the US approach to the Middle East: to create seismic change and complete instability and have no idea how it’s going to end. And this is the US approach to the Middle East for the last 25 years. And we’re back at it again.”

Rahr closed the discussion by declaring the post-Cold War unipolar order defunct. “The unipolar world is gone. It’s really gone. And a new thing has to be created, probably a new Yalta,” he said. He expressed doubt that regional states would accept a Greater Israel but acknowledged the vacuum left by the war would need to be filled. “The Americans will return home after the war. The Chinese are economically intelligent. The Russians are out for the moment,” he said. “The vacuum will be filled by something which I don’t yet understand by whom, but it will be filled.”

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India’s Russian oil imports hit record high as Middle East tensions disrupt markets

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23/06/2026

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India is increasing imports of Russian oil and coal as supply chain disruptions and rising prices linked to tensions involving Iran reshape global energy flows.

According to a Reuters report citing data from analytics firm Kpler, shipments from Russia to India reached record levels in June.

Kpler estimates that Russian oil deliveries to India will rise to a record 2.55 million barrels per day in June.

That would surpass both the 2.13 million barrels per day recorded in May and the previous high of 2.16 million barrels per day registered in May 2023.

Russia’s share of India’s total oil imports in June is expected to come in at just under 50%. Before the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, the figure averaged 23% during the three months preceding February 28.

India’s shift toward Russian crude followed the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran and a temporary suspension of sanctions on purchases by the administration of US President Donald Trump in an effort to increase market supply.

However, the sanctions waiver expired on June 17 and was not extended by the US Treasury Department.

Reuters noted that this could lead to a decline in purchases of Russian crude, although the outcome will depend on the willingness of Indian refiners and government officials to return to sourcing shipments from Middle Eastern suppliers.

According to Kpler forecasts, imports from Saudi Arabia are expected to remain at 349,000 barrels per day in June. That compares with an average of 832,000 barrels per day during the three months before the conflict.

A similar trend is visible in coal imports. Imports of Russian coal across all grades are expected to reach 3.16 million tonnes in June, compared with 3.27 million tonnes in May.

Both figures would rank as the second and third highest on record, respectively, behind the peak of 3.76 million tonnes registered in May last year.

Russia is also expected to overtake Australia in June to become the second-largest supplier of coal to India, the world’s second-largest coal importer after China.

According to Reuters, Russia is likely to maintain its role as one of India’s key coal suppliers. Future purchases of Russian oil, however, will depend on whether Washington moves to tighten sanctions against Moscow.

New Delhi says oil shipments will not be affected by sanctions

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in mid-June that the country had increased purchases of Russian oil since 2022 at Washington’s request in order to help contain global energy prices.

Jaishankar criticised US restrictions on Russian commodities and urged policymakers not to present such measures as matters of grand principle.

Sujata Sharma, a representative of India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, also said in May that shipments from Russia were continuing and would do so regardless of US decisions concerning sanctions waivers.

Indian refiners reduced imports from Russia in 2025 and turned to suppliers in Saudi Arabia and Iraq amid pressure from the United States and threats of a 25% tariff on Indian goods.

However, Reuters data show that following the outbreak of war in the Middle East and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Indian companies began increasing purchases of Russian crude again in early March.

Russia’s ambassador to New Delhi, Denis Alipov, said at the end of April that Moscow was prepared to supply as much raw material as India was willing to accept.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later confirmed that Moscow remained committed to its agreements on energy shipments to India.

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EU, US and China intensify competition over Africa’s strategic minerals through Lobito Corridor

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23/06/2026

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Africa is becoming an increasingly intense arena of competition among China, the US and the European Union over access to strategic raw materials.

According to an analysis by German Foreign Policy, the Lobito Corridor, a rail link connecting the copper belt of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Atlantic port of Lobito in Angola, is playing a pivotal role in that contest.

The infrastructure project is regarded as one of the flagship initiatives of the EU’s Global Gateway strategy and is also viewed by Washington, which is investing in the region, as a means of reducing dependence on China.

In the future, copper, cobalt, lithium and other raw materials essential for the production of batteries, electric vehicles, digital technologies and military equipment will be transported westward via this route.

The initiative builds on infrastructure originally constructed during the colonial era to facilitate the export of African raw materials.

Critics argue that the expansion of the Lobito Corridor perpetuates existing patterns of resource extraction under new conditions.

Global Gateway as a counter to the Belt and Road

The European Commission approved the Global Gateway programme in September 2021.

Under the programme, nearly €300 billion is to be invested in infrastructure projects across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Southeast Europe, and South and Central America by 2027.

The programme is widely viewed as a response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

One of its central objectives is to diversify Europe’s imports of critical raw materials, particularly by reducing dependence on supplies from China.

During a visit to China in late May 2026, German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche of the CDU underscored the importance of secure access to critical raw materials and rare earth elements. This is the area in which Germany remains most dependent on China.

Colonial-era infrastructure remains intact

One of the clearest examples is the 1,300-kilometre Lobito Corridor, which runs from the edge of the Zambia-Southern Congo copper belt to the port of Lobito in Angola.

The core infrastructure of this trade corridor was established through the Benguela Railway, which was built as early as 1902 at the height of European colonial expansion. The railway extended eastward from the port city of Lobito through what is now Angola, providing access to the mineral-rich regions of southern Congo and Zambia.

In 1931, following completion of the initial railway line, the British mining and railway company Tanganyika Concessions transferred its 99-year concession rights to Portugal’s colony of Angola.

The concession expired in 2001, after which the infrastructure, previously controlled by Portuguese authorities, was transferred to the Angolan government.

By 2030, annual copper shipments through the route are expected to reach one million metric tonnes.

Both the EU and the US are relying heavily on the Lobito Corridor in an effort to counter China’s dominant position in Africa’s raw materials sector.

Estimates indicate that roughly two-thirds of global cobalt production originates in the Congo, where Chinese companies are particularly active in mining operations.

China also accounts for approximately 75% of global cobalt processing capacity.

The colonial-era rail line leading to Lobito is intended to redirect exports of copper, cobalt and other raw materials, which have until now largely been shipped eastward via Tanzania, toward western markets, enabling processing in Europe or North America rather than China.

Europe seeks to reduce dependence on China for the green transition

In addition to copper and cobalt, the region holds substantial deposits of lithium, coltan, nickel and rare earth elements, giving it significant economic importance.

These materials are used in electric vehicle batteries, stationary energy storage systems and alloys required for military aircraft production.

Until now, the EU has sourced much of these materials from China. Strategic investment in a new logistics hub in Luau, Angola, located along the Lobito Corridor, is intended to reduce that dependence.

The railway line along the corridor is already operated by a European consortium.

The consortium includes Swiss commodities trader Trafigura, Portuguese construction group Mota-Engil and Belgian rail company Vecturis.

However, the majority of the mines remain under Chinese control. In the Congo, 24 of the country’s 33 cobalt-exporting companies are Chinese-backed.

The Lobito Corridor is being developed through an EU-US partnership

EU efforts to secure influence over the Lobito Corridor are advancing in parallel with similar initiatives by the United States.

In early 2022, the US signed a memorandum of understanding with the EU and other G7 members to mobilise more than $600 billion for infrastructure projects worldwide over the following five years as part of the G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII).

The Lobito Corridor is one of five key trade, transit and development corridors in Southern Africa designed to improve transport efficiency.

During the administration of President Joe Biden, financing for the Lobito Corridor was launched under the G7’s PGII framework as a flagship project in cooperation with the Global Gateway initiative.

The EU also regards the expansion of the Lobito Corridor as a critical project and has committed more than €2 billion in funding.

That support could increase further. The next EU budget cycle beginning in 2028 envisages nearly doubling spending on development and external assistance, from €108 billion to €200 billion.

EU officials present the strategy as an effort to offer a more comprehensive approach to infrastructure financing than China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

‘America First’ in Africa

The US has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars for the expansion of the Lobito Corridor.

In the final quarter of 2025 alone, it provided $553 million in loans for the project’s expansion.

An additional $200 million in support came from the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Unlike the Biden administration, which frequently described the initiative as development assistance, the second Trump administration openly characterises the project as an effort to weaken China’s influence, strengthen US control over critical raw materials and diversify supply chains.

For example, Frank Garcia, a former naval officer appointed in late May as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, praised the Trump administration’s continuing engagement on the continent.

Highlighting the Lobito Corridor in particular, Garcia said the project aligns key US interests in Africa with the “America First” approach.

Germany in Africa for the energy transition

Last autumn, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier travelled several kilometres on the newly restored railway line along the Lobito Corridor and described it as “a strategic infrastructure project of enormous economic importance.”

The German politician added: “Of course, this infrastructure connection also creates investment opportunities for European and German companies along its route.”

Portuguese construction company MCA is currently building solar energy parks in 60 municipalities across Angola at a cost of just under €1.29 billion.

The client is Angola’s Energy Ministry, while the German government is supporting the project through export credit guarantees.

Should Angola fail to meet its payment obligations, Germany would step in. A total of 95% of the project value is guaranteed by the Federal Republic of Germany.

In return, Angola agreed to allow German companies to participate in the project. For example, the battery storage system is being supplied by SMA Solar Technology, based in Niestetal near Kassel.

German solar technology provider Gantner Instruments Environment Solutions is supplying the digital control system.

Critics of the Lobito Corridor expansion warn that the project will primarily benefit the EU and the US.

In their view, the initiative promotes the export of African raw materials rather than strengthening intra-African trade.

Although the EU presents these measures as a development project aligned with African interests, critics argue that they ultimately represent a continuation of Western exploitation of African resources.

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EU presses Türkiye for non-Russian gas supplies under future energy contracts

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22/06/2026

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The European Union is insisting that natural gas delivered to member states via Türkiye under new supply agreements must not be of Russian origin.

German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said after an official visit to Ankara that “Türkiye understands that the EU attaches great importance to ending the supply of raw materials originating from Russia and accepts this reality.”

Reiche added that Turkish officials had made it clear that replacing supplies from Russia could not be achieved overnight, either economically or in terms of available alternative sources.

As of June 17, a ban on pipeline natural gas imports from Russia under short-term contracts signed more than a year ago entered into force across the European Union.

The measure was approved by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament at the end of last year. In January 2025, EU member states also voted to phase out Russian gas completely by 2027. Under that decision, member states are required to verify the origin of gas supplies before authorizing deliveries.

Meanwhile, Swiss-based company Nord Stream 2 AG, the operator of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, has launched legal action challenging the regulation imposing the ban on Russian gas imports.

Türkiye, for its part, is continuing negotiations with Gazprom on natural gas supplies for the period after 2026, as existing contracts are approaching expiration.

Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar previously said the parties had yet to reach agreement on potential shipment volumes and the duration of any new contracts.

In December 2025, Ankara extended by one year two agreements with Gazprom covering gas deliveries through the TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines.

Türkiye is seeking to reduce Russia’s share of its gas supply mix. Russia’s share of Türkiye’s natural gas imports has already fallen below 40%.

As part of its energy diversification strategy, Ankara plans to replace part of Russian gas imports with supplies from the United States and Central Asia.

Bayraktar previously said that despite US calls to abandon Russian energy resources, Türkiye would continue purchasing natural gas from Russia.

“We cannot tell our citizens there is no gas available. We have agreements with Russia. Winter is approaching. We need gas from Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan,” Bayraktar said.

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