After Iran, will Israel target Pakistan?

Middle East Eye

5 days ago

When Pakistan's defence minister, Khawaja Asif, warned last month that Muslim countries must unite or else 'everyone's turn will come', it was less a diplomatic lament than a coded SOS.
As Israel struck Iranian territory last month, and western leaders and media inverted reality by declaring Iran to be the threat, a chilling question emerged: who is next?
You'd be forgiven for calling this paranoia. But after decades of watching nations demonised, delegitimised and dismantled in the name of 'global security', the pattern is too obvious to ignore.
The West no longer needs tanks or UN resolutions. The playbook has evolved. Today, sovereignty is overthrown via headlines, economic chokeholds and narrative warfare. If that fails, the perceived well-being of Israel becomes justification enough for pre-emptive strikes.
For once, give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu credit: he says the quiet part out loud. For decades, he has warned of rogue Muslim regimes gaining nuclear capabilities. Iraq was bombed. Libya was disarmed. Iran is being strangled.
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And Pakistan? That's the final frontier - not because it has invaded anyone, but because it represents strategic, ideological and technological defiance of western and Zionist hegemony.
This argument is gaining traction. The Times of India recently amplified a report suggesting Pakistan is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US. No confirmation needed; the insinuation alone is enough to rally suspicions.
Hollow narrative
This isn't 2001. No one is selling 'weapons of mass destruction' on grainy satellite footage. But the ambition remains: to make Pakistan's nuclear capabilities look like a global liability.
British tabloids and security think tanks now routinely describe Pakistan as an unstable state, susceptible to extremism and on a hair-trigger for nuclear escalation.
A recent Daily Mail piece parrots a tired narrative: Pakistan's military leadership is supposedly on the edge of conflict with India, driven by zealotry, not reason. The commentary - attributed to yet another Indian 'security analyst' - paints Pakistan as morphing into an 'extremist Islamic state'.
The West's problem with Pakistan is not what it's done. It's an Islamic republic, a nuclear power, and an ally of China. In today's world order, that trifecta is the ultimate red line
Such claims ring hollow to anyone with even a cursory understanding of the region. Despite its many crises, Pakistan has never elected a religious party to power - not in more than seven decades. The electorate has consistently rejected overt theocracy at the ballot box.
India, by contrast, has repeatedly and enthusiastically voted for a man widely believed to have presided over - or at best, turned a blind eye to - the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. That man, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, now leads a party openly committed to the creation of a theocratic Hindu state, built on the marginalisation and scapegoating of Muslims and other minorities.
Yet, in much of the British and western media, India remains the adult in the room - the rational actor, the democratic beacon. The hypocrisy would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous.
Consider the events of this past April, following the tragic Pahalgam attack on Hindu pilgrims. India, without presenting credible evidence of Pakistani involvement, launched cross-border military action.
Western media outlets largely accepted New Delhi's narrative at face value. Pakistani officials, meanwhile, were subjected to hostile interviews and again made to answer for the spectre of terrorism - a framing that has become depressingly routine.
There is an unspoken but unmistakable logic here: Hindu nationalism, no matter how violent, is framed as a political choice - perhaps regrettable, but legitimate. Islamist politics, even when nowhere near power, are treated as an existential threat.
Regional imbalance
This isn't just lazy journalism; it enables impunity. By refusing to hold India to the same standard, western media reinforces a regional imbalance in which Pakistan is the perpetual provocateur, and India - despite its authoritarian bent - gets a free pass.
This isn't just about fairness. It's about whether peace in South Asia can ever be achieved when one state's aggression is minimised and the other's very existence is seen as a threat. If the media wants to play a constructive role in the region's future, it must stop seeing it through the prism of prejudice and power.
The idea of a nuclear Pakistan has long unsettled Israel, India and the Anglo-American security consensus. Now, publications like Modern Diplomacy openly suggest what policymakers might be strategising in private: once Iran is contained, Pakistan must be denuclearised.
India's attack on Pakistan is a declaration of Israel-style expansionism Read More »
The pattern is not just geopolitical; it's psychological. The public must be conditioned to believe that an Islamic republic with nuclear arms and strategic ties to China through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is not a sovereign actor, but a threat to global order.
It's not just Pakistan's nukes that provoke anxiety. It's Pakistan's orientation.
As Islamabad deepens its ties with Beijing - especially via the CPEC - it shifts from postcolonial dependency to multipolar defiance. All roads in the 21st century lead to Beijing. The US knows it. Britain knows it. Israel knows it. And Pakistan's centrality to the New Silk Road transforms it from a regional irritant into a global pivot.
Following the recent Iran-Israel flare-up, Pakistani army chief Asim Munir met US President Donald Trump at the White House - an encounter that raised more questions than it answered. Was it a charm offensive? A warning? A recalibration? Whatever the answer, it underscored Pakistan's uncertain place in the world: simultaneously courted and condemned, needed and distrusted.
The West's problem with Pakistan is not what it's done. It's what it represents: an Islamic republic, a nuclear power, and an ally of China. In today's world order, that trifecta is the ultimate red line.
Back in 2009, during a postgraduate seminar on the Mongol Empire, a professor slammed a map on the table and asked whether I - a British Pakistani - was aware of a neoconservative plan to balkanise Pakistan. He wasn't trying to provoke. He knew I loved the culture, followed the cricket team, and felt the pulse of the place. It was a warning, not a theory.
Today, that map feels less like a conspiracy - and more like a strategy in motion.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.