Sharmine Narwani, an analyst of West Asian geopolitics, offers an analysis of Israel’s recent military escalations in an exclusive interview with Habilian Association. She frames the Israel’s actions as part of a desperate, last-ditch campaign by the collapsing unipolar world order to maintain global dominance through violence and proxy wars. Narwani describes Zionism as a racist, expansionist ideology driving the first genocide of the 21st century, and identifies Israel as a proxy tool in the West’s broader strategy to crush multipolarism. She criticizes Western silence and media complicity, highlights the strategic failures of Tel Aviv’s regional gambits, and calls for proportional deterrence against Israeli state-sponsored assassinations. Narwani dissects the changing geopolitical currents in the Middle East and argues that Israel’s aggression has only strengthened regional resistance and reshaped Arab perceptions of Iran. Read the full text of this interview below.
1. "These days, the world is witnessing blatant acts of aggression by the Israeli regime against Iran and its people. In your view, why does this regime commit such crimes against defenseless civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran? What drives it to continue these aggressions, including targeted assassinations?"
The unipolar world is unraveling quickly against the backdrop of the rise of a multipolar order which seeks peaceful modernization, the implementation of international law, trade and development, good governance, and a preference for soft power over hard power. The old global order was defined by Atlanticist agendas, and today we see relations between the US and Europe fracturing, and their economies tanking. So. this is a last desperate attempt to use their colossal stores of firepower to level the playing field. But by doing so, they have shone a light on their hypocritical “rules-based international order” and shown that it favors genocide, terror, death and destruction. That has destroyed any and all lingering legitimacy they enjoyed globally, and even domestically. Israel is a mere proxy of the unipolar overlords, and so it is taking a machine-gun approach to everything as it takes its last breaths as the final project of colonialism in the world.
2. "The Israeli regime claims to be targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, yet it clearly strikes hospitals, infrastructure, and media institutions, with many of the victims being women and children. How can this contradiction be explained? What is the real objective behind these actions?"
Zionism is a racist ideology at its core, so anyone who is not a Jewish Zionist – including Jewish anti-Zionists – are viewed as expendable. For these ideologues, the end justifies the means, and for an Israel that has fully milked the legacy of the 20th Century Holocaust to underpin its legitimacy, it is most ironic that it is the perpetrator of the first – and hopefully, last - genocide of the 21st Century.
3. "Although the UN and many human rights organizations have documented the war crimes of the Israeli regime, Western governments continue to support it militarily and politically. Why do you think Western countries largely remain silent in the face of these crimes?"
Western countries are realizing their rules-based order, their economies, their ability to determine All Things for the planet is facing an existential threat from the rise of multipolarism. Israel is their direct proxy in fighting wars to maintain dominance, just as in Ukraine – and potentially Taiwan. They remain silent because they hoped to hide behind their proxies’ skirts and achieve victory. But as these wars have stretched out, thanks to regional resistance in all geographies, the proxy veil has dropped and the complicity of western regimes has been fully revealed. The next step for the collective west is to drop their proxies and fight these wars directly, which is a danger to the entire world. The first move in that direction were the direct US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities – I call that precise moment the “end of proxy conflict and the beginning of peer competitor wars.”
4. "Western media often portray the Israeli regime as acting in 'self-defense,' while ignoring its massacres of civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, as well as its assassination campaigns. How do you interpret this media bias, and what can be done to counter it?"
You don’t need to counter the western media bias - that’s a largely fruitless fight given the immense resources that western regimes have thrown at media institutions globally. Today, interestingly, the anti-narratives are winning, thanks largely to social media platforms and small independent media outlets that have emerged on all continents. And thanks also to the brutal, televised genocide that the Israelis are conducting in full view of global audiences. When I was covering the Syrian war, I noticed major western media had shut their comments sections because readers weren’t buying their narratives even then. Today, western governments, in full cooperation with mainstream media, are working to shutter independent outlets, remove them from social media platforms, embroil them in lawsuits, etc. But that in itself has destroyed all their declarations of media freedom, freedom of speech, and democracy. It has been an exercise in self-destruction, and by all means, let them continue.
5. "What do you believe is the long-term goal of the Zionist regime’s aggressive and expansionist policies? What threats do these ambitions pose to its neighbors in the Middle East?"
I believe Israel’s last violent thrust before collapse is a project to occupy last swathes of the Levant and enter peripheral Persian Gulf states like Iraq and Yemen through partial territorial conquest. The Zionist dream of a Greater Israel, once a remote fantasy, has come into operation during Netanyahu’s no-holds-barred aggressions. Since its inception, Israel has always lacked strategic depth, even as post-revolutionary Iran was making gains across the depths of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine. The 12-day war between Israel and Iran revealed that Israel’s lack of geographic depth made it very, very vulnerable to strikes on all its military, strategic, economic, and utilities infrastructure. So now Tel Aviv is trying to desperately make territorial gains, not understanding that it cannot possibly hold on to them without direct and forever access to the US Treasury, which is itself in crisis.
Interestingly, Israeli aggressions have elicited revulsion in pro-US Persian Gulf and other Arab capitals. Not just over Gaza, but also its strikes on Iran. At The Cradle, we are discovering that from Riyadh to Abu Dhabi and Cairo, Arab leaders have realized that they will never enjoy security under a US-Israeli umbrella. Furthermore, we are seeing their views shift dramatically on Iran, which not only held its own in this short conflict and inflicted major losses on the enemy, but also managed to transform into a rational regional powerhouse in their eyes. Gulf states would now rather strike mutual-beneficial security, economic, trade, and energy deals with Tehran to keep the peace, rather than depend on Tel Aviv and Washington, who demand zero-sum solutions to any problem.
6. "What is your personal reaction to the recent attacks by this regime against Iran and the killing of civilians? What message would you like to share?"
I don’t think Israel remotely anticipated the impact of its aggression on the patriotic Iranian nation. Nor did they understand how fully institutionalized Iran’s security, economic, and political apparatus has become. I think my message to trigger-happy Israelis would be that Iran is a civilized nation and was therefore KIND in its military response during the first phase of True Promise 3. The due notice has now been given, and any further Israeli aggression should no longer factor in decency – especially when the enemy acts like beasts. Tehran’s next retaliation should be like for like, kind for kind.
7. "The United States routinely vetoes UN resolutions condemning the Israeli regime's crimes. In your opinion, do U.S. policies enable and sustain these aggressions? How can both regimes be held accountable?"
There is no accountability in the Law of the Jungle, which is what the rules-based order essentially advocates. “We can kill you, but you can’t retaliate. When we shoot you, you’re collateral damage, when you shoot back, you’re a terrorist.” There is no reasoning with that level of illogic. The collective west has single-handedly destroyed international law and all concepts of proportionality and accountability. For the UN Charter cadaver to be resuscitated, the United Nations has to move to a genuinely neutral country, the Security Council veto has to be abolished, and the General Assembly must assume more clout within the organization. Those things take time. I always advocate for lawfare as a smart and relatively inexpensive tactic to claw back rightful law, but the shift may come even sooner - if the collective west loses in one of their regional wars, be it against Iran, Russia, or China.
8. "For over seven decades, the Israeli regime and its intelligence agencies have used targeted assassinations of political and military figures—especially among critics and opponents—as a strategic tool. Why does this regime rely so heavily on assassination? How do you view this state-sponsored terrorism?"
Assassinations of military and political leaders is illegal in international law, plain and simple. Because there appears to be little recourse for US/Israeli assassinations in the UN or other responsible multilateral institutions, I believe the only recourse remaining is deterrence. That means assassinating kind-for-kind so the enemy is deterred. I have always been surprised at how West Asia’s Axis of Resistance, which has worked so diligently to establish military deterrence in all security realms, has patently FAILED to do so on the assassinations front. It is a travesty, and the Axis should have acted decades earlier on this.
Published by Iranian Diplomacy