The US and Israel war is raging through the fourth week as President Donald Trump issued a second ultimatum, the countdown beginning on 24 March 2026. What began on 1 April 2024, with the Israeli strike on Iran's embassy in Damascus, a sovereign violation tantamount to an act of war, has since spiraled into a regional inferno. As smoke engulfs the US's strategic interests, a bitter truth is emerging. the United States is no longer the principal actor in the Middle East. It has become a variable in the Middle Eastern geopolitical equation written by Israel.
Over the past two years, the world has witnessed a masterclass in coercive alliance management. Through a series of calculated, unilateral escalatory action, each one timed to exploit America’s political vulnerabilities. Israel has systematically dismantled the Biden (and now current) administration’s Middle East policy implying-Israel’s actions, particularly April 2024 onward, consistently undermined the stated objectives of both the Biden administration and his successor regarding the Middle East, hijacked US military assets i.e.
Israel, through its escalations, seized effective control over the deployment and use of American military assets, turning them into instruments of Israeli strategy, and transformed the US from a stabilising superpower into a reactive co-belligerent.
The spiraling of the escalation is not chaos; it is Israel’s planned mechanism to ensure that the United States cannot leave, cannot negotiate, and cannot de-escalate without appearing to abandon Israel which the US cannot do
Israel activated the escalatory trap by bombing the Iranian consulate in Syria on 1 April 2024. It knew that would compel a direct Iranian response. What Israel also counted on, if Iran retaliates (it did so on 13 April 2024), the United States would be obligated to come to Israel's defence. That is exactly what happened. Tel Aviv was the lead, Washington followed. This position is further substantiated by Israel’s attack on Qatar on 9 September 2025.
Israel's attack on Doha on 9 September 2025 exposed the escalatory trap with stunning clarity. The Integrated Air and Missile Defence system, designed to protect Gulf skies and operated by US CENTCOM from Qatari soil, remained conspicuously silent as Israeli jets flew unopposed through Jordanian, Saudi, and Qatari airspace. The White House took hours to decide a response.
Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the attack "does not advance American goals" but simultaneously validated it, calling the elimination of Hamas "a worthy goal." Emboldened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Qatar to expel Hamas leaders: "If you don''t, we will." The Qatari Prime Minister could only lament, "We are betrayed."
The United States was manoeuvered into a position where it could neither defend its host-Qatar nor condemn the monster it created. Weeks later, after Arab states united in rhetorical outrage, the Trump administration extracted a belated apology from Netanyahu and issued an executive order pledging to defend Qatar, a promise that did not work, as Iran retaliated following the attack on it by the USA and Israel.
The US re-relocated military assets to the Mediterranean coast to protect Israel from Iranian missiles and drones. The message clearly signaled that the primary purpose of American bases in the GCC states is to serve Israeli interests first. Washington was trapped into taking Israel''s side over its GCC partners, proving that the security umbrella offers protection only when it goes by the Israel's playbook.
The pattern that Israel framed is ‘escalation dominance’. In June 2025, while American-Iranian negotiation was showing signs of progress, Israel struck again. The timing was no coincidence. Successful peace talks were meant to break Tehran’s strategic isolation that Israel viewed as existential threat. By forcing a military escalation at the precise moment when diplomacy was gaining traction, Israel ensured that the United States had to choose between abandoning its ally-Israel, or accepting peace in the Middle East. US abandoned peace and accepted Israel. Soon after, on 24 June 2026, American bombers hit Iranian nuclear facilities.
The escalatory dynamic reached its ugly height during the Omani mediation. According to reports, the United States and Iran were on the verge of a nuclear deal that would have re-established guardrails on the program and de-escalate tensions. At the precipice of a breakthrough, a massive preemptive strike was launched both by the USA and Israel on 28 February 2026, killing the Iranian Supreme Leader, dozens of other top-tier leaderships, and obliterating military infrastructure. The United States, bound by the necessity of standing with Israel, was dragged into the war.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the administration''s decision, telling reporters on Capitol Hill on 2 March 2026, "There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not gonna sit there and absorb a blow before we responded (Aljazeera English, 2 March 2026)”. Rubio added that the Defence Department assessed that waiting for Iran to strike first after an Israeli attack would result in greater American casualties.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan, CEO of Zeteo, described this reasoning as fundamentally illogical. In an interview with India Today, following the strikes, Hasan argued that rather than restraining Israel, the United States had chosen to attack first and then retroactively justify the action as self-defense. "It is illogical," Hasan said, pointing to the administration''s willingness to be dragged into a war on Israel''s terms (India Today, 3 March 2026). His critique underscores a broader concern that the United States has surrendered its strategic autonomy, allowing Israel to dictate the terms of engagement in the Middle Est, with Iran in particular.
For decades, the ‘escalation trap’ was a theoretical concept, that a smaller ally could drag a larger power into war by manipulating facts on the ground. We are witnessing the industrialisation of that concept through the US-Israel and Iran war. Every Israeli operation is designed with an ‘escalation premium’. By striking Iran's Kharg Island, Pars gas field, oil refinery, hospitals, schools, residential buildings and public utilities, what international humanitarian law considers critical civilian infrastructure, both the US and Israel ensured Iran''s retaliation.
Now, the United States finds itself caught in a position of tragic irony. It is obligated by agreement to provide security to Gulf states who now face Iranian retaliation and tied to Israeli government that ensures Iran retaliates. The spiraling of the escalation is not chaos; it is Israel’s planned mechanism to ensure that the United States cannot leave, cannot negotiate, and cannot de-escalate without appearing to abandon Israel which the US cannot do.
The Trump administration appears confused about finding a ‘face saving exit’ as it started Israel''s war without its own political and military objective. To break the trap, Washington would have to do what is politically unthinkable: exercise strategic autonomy. It would have to signal that American forces and assets will not be activated automatically in response to Israel-triggered escalations. It would have to demonstrate the capacity of withholding military support if strikes are launched that jeopardize American diplomatic efforts or personnel.
The United States has allowed the tail to wag the dog to the point where the dog forgot it has a brain and jaws. Attacks on schools, hospitals, and critical infrastructure are against the Laws of Armed Conflict and serve the narrow strategic purpose of foreclosing- stepping back from conflict, saving face, or ending hostilities without further destruction. When critical civilian infrastructure is in ruins or threatened with destruction, the adversary cannot afford to stop fighting; the US and Israel cannot afford to lose, and so the cycle of escalation continues.
The world, especially the West, must recognise this war is not driven by American strategic necessity, but by Israel's efforts to reshape the region according to its own playbook. The United States has been caught in a trap of its own making, built by decades-long policy of unconditional support that removed all incentives for Israeli restraint.
The tragedy is that the US still possesses the power to prevent escalation. But power unused is power wasted. So long as Washington continues to make mistakes, it will remain on a one-way road to war that serves the interests of Israel, leaving US’s own standing and GCC allies in ashes.
The question is no longer whether Israel can drag the US into war. It already has. The question is whether the United States can remember that it is a sovereign nation with its own interests, or if it will continue to fight Israel's war until the last American ship, soldier, dollar and shred of credibility is gone.
* Mohammad Abdur Razzak ([email protected]), a retired Commodore of Bangladesh Navy, is security analyst.
* The views expressed here are strictly the author's own.