When the missiles and bombs began to fall on Tehran on June 13, 2025, igniting what is now known as the Iran-Israel 12-Day War, the world watched in stunned silence. But for those who have traced the diplomatic betrayals, geopolitical manipulations, and eroded trust that preceded it, this war was not sudden. It was slow-burning—and meticulously set in motion.

What transpired was not just a conflict between two rivals. It was a calculated unraveling of diplomacy itself, culminating in a confrontation that served the ambitions of many, but the interests of none.

The war became what one might call a magician’s inkbolt—a burst of confusion in which every actor saw what they wanted:

• Israel saw an opportunity to annihilate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
• The United States saw a chance to weaken Iran, contain BRICS, and reassert influence in West Asia.
• Iran saw confirmation of its deepest fears: that Western diplomacy is not negotiation, but a trap.
• The Islamic world saw, once again, that it is often cast as both battleground and scapegoat in games it did not design.

Diplomacy’s Fatal Betrayal

At the heart of this crisis lies a simple, damning truth: the collapse of strategic trust—and it began, and ended, with the United States.

In 2015, under the Obama administration, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between Iran and the P5+1 nations. It offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for verifiable restrictions on its nuclear program. The deal was not perfect, but it was functional—and Iran, by all credible accounts, abided by its terms.

But in 2018, President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA, re-imposed sanctions, and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign without diplomatic or legal justification. There were no Iranian violations. No allied consensus. Just a complete repudiation of America’s word. The withdrawal wasn’t merely a policy reversal—it was a strategic betrayal that dismantled years of delicate trust and signaled to Iran and the world that U.S. agreements are only as binding as the next administration allows.

And yet, ironically, it was Donald Trump himself—now a second term President of the USA, who sought to revive talks in early 2025.

The Trump-Brokered Talks: A Mirage of Peace

In what some believed could be a diplomatic breakthrough, Trump leveraged his influence to broker backchannel meetings between the U.S. and Iranian governments. Held in neutral locations—reportedly Oman, Qatar, and Switzerland—these meetings, taking place through early 2025, were billed as “serious confidence-building measures” toward a new nuclear understanding.

Trump’s involvement gave the process a strange legitimacy. Even Iranian officials were cautiously optimistic that a post-Biden administration—possibly led again by Trump—might be willing to strike a deal that could be sustained, unlike the JCPOA.

By June 2025, negotiations had gained momentum. A critical round of talks was scheduled to resume in Muscat, Oman, on June 14. Iran had dispatched high-level envoys. The atmosphere was tense but hopeful. But Tehran never made it to the table.

June 13, 2025: The Day Diplomacy Died

In the early morning hours of Friday, June 13, Israel launched a coordinated and overwhelming military operation targeting Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure. The strikes were stunning in both scope and precision. Nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Arak were struck alongside military installations and IRGC missile bases.

The timing was no accident. The fact that the strikes occurred just hours before the next round of talks in Oman made it nearly impossible to interpret this as anything but a preemptive and premeditated sabotage of diplomacy.

More disturbingly, the precision and intelligence underlying the Israeli attacks strongly suggest that the diplomacy was itself used to gather intelligence, lull Iran into complacency, and mask military preparations.

For many in Tehran, the war was not an unfortunate outbreak of violence—it was a trap, meticulously baited and expertly sprung.

The War Everyone Wanted

So when the first strike came, the fog of war was already thick. But beneath that haze, the strategic calculations were all too visible:

Israel, emboldened by regional normalization deals and the rise of ultra-nationalist politics, saw a shrinking window to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. This was not improvisation. This was a war of choice, dressed in the language of self-defense.

The United States, officially calling for restraint, quietly benefited from the eruption. The war distracted from the rising momentum of BRICS, disrupted the Iran-Russia-China bloc, and reasserted Washington’s fading presence in West Asia. The White House may not have launched the missiles, but its silence and posture before the attack raise serious questions of complicity or at least deliberate negligence.

Iran, wounded and betrayed, retaliated not only out of survival but out of conviction. Its response was calibrated—aimed at preserving national honor, deterring future attacks, and signaling to the world that it would not be humiliated.

Arab states found themselves in a moral and strategic bind. While many governments were quietly aligned with Israel or the U.S., public opinion across the Arab world exploded in outrage. This was yet another war in which Muslims paid the price for decisions made elsewhere.

Lessons for the Islamic World

For the Islamic world—especially strategic thinkers, scholars, and policymakers committed to political sovereignty, Islamic economics, and independent development—the 12-Day War is a brutal teacher.

1. Diplomacy without Trust is a Weapon

Agreements that can be nullified with each election are not treaties—they are political landmines. Trust cannot be built with states that use negotiations as traps.

2. Militarism Ensures neither Peace nor Security

Each war radicalizes another generation, breeds more insecurity, and justifies even more foreign intervention.

3. Independent Muslim Agency is Still Targeted

Iran was not attacked because of ideology—it was attacked because it refused to conform to a Western-imposed order. The lesson is clear: any independent Islamic political or economic model is seen as a threat to the global status quo.

The Illusion Shattered

The 12-Day War did not just destroy buildings and lives. It shattered illusions.

It exposed the cynicism of Western diplomacy, the futility of trust in election-cycle governments, and the illusion that peace can be achieved without power.

But it also created a moment of clarity—a rare, painful flash of insight into the nature of the system we live under. It is time to move from reaction to reconstruction.

This moment must catalyze a new political consciousness across the Muslim world—one that prizes:

• Strategic foresight over naive optimism
• Internal resilience over external dependence
• Multilateral Islamic cooperation over fragmented submission

Looking Past the Inkbolt

We must now look beyond the magician’s inkbolt—beyond the orchestrated confusion, the illusions of diplomacy, and the fireworks of war—and ask:

What do we now see? And who do we choose to become?

The silent dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by the Trump administration has already begun to cast a long and catastrophic shadow across some of the most vulnerable regions of our planet. While the world watched in disbelief, Washington took a scalpel—and at times a sledgehammer—to decades of humanitarian partnerships, transforming America’s image from a flawed but willing global responder to an indifferent bystander.

Under the guise of the “America First” doctrine, the White House is not only slashing funds—it is uprooting entire systems of international solidarity. USAID, long a cornerstone of the U.S. foreign policy arsenal, is being dissolved into the bureaucratic core of the State Department, its staff decimated, its mission neutered. This is not just policy redirection. It is strategic retreat.

And the consequences are already devastating.

In Myanmar, a country teetering between civil war and natural catastrophe, a deadly 7.7 magnitude earthquake has laid bare the moral vacuum left by the U.S. pullback. More than 3,300 people are dead. Entire neighborhoods are reduced to rubble. While Washington has offered a paltry $9 million in aid, the true toll lies not in numbers but in absence—no boots on the ground, no structured response, no meaningful engagement. By contrast, in the 2023 Turkey-Syria quake, the U.S. pledged $185 million and dispatched hundreds of relief workers. Myanmar, it seems, is now relegated to the back pages of the U.S. conscience.

In Afghanistan, the picture is equally dire. The abrupt halt of funding for World Food Programme (WFP) operations, and the shuttering of hundreds of WHO-supported clinics, has pushed a starving, war-weary population further into the abyss. Twenty-three million Afghans need humanitarian aid. Two million rely on WFP food rations that will now no longer come. The rationale? That funds might trickle to the Taliban. But blanket punishment of a population—especially women, children, and the elderly—is neither just nor strategic.

In Sudan, now entering its third year of a brutal civil war, the picture is almost apocalyptic. More than 30 million people are in need of aid. Nearly half a million have already died of hunger and disease in 2024 alone. With the U.S. pulling out, 80% of community kitchens have shut down. Refugees in Chad, already living on the brink, are now left without food, water, or hope. Once again, the U.S. has ceded moral ground.

Even in South Africa, where the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has for two decades been the world’s most successful anti-HIV initiative, the damage is palpable. Experts now warn that without sustained funding, South Africa could face an additional 565,000 HIV infections and over 600,000 deaths by 2034. Thousands of support services have been halted, and a generation of progress stands at risk.

These aren’t just numbers. They are the real, lived experiences of millions of human beings—trapped in crises not of their making, caught in the crosshairs of global geopolitics, abandoned in their hour of greatest need.

And yet, amid the wreckage, a critical question arises: Who will fill the void?

If the United States is retreating from its role as the world’s emergency responder, the onus must shift to others with the capacity and resources to help. Here, we must issue a moral and strategic challenge to the wealthier nations of the Gulf—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, and Kuwait.

These countries have benefited from decades of immense oil wealth, and many have built modern economies, world-class cities, and sophisticated diplomatic networks. But with wealth comes responsibility. It is time for the Gulf to rise to the mantle of global humanitarian leadership—not just through quiet diplomacy or symbolic donations, but through bold, coordinated, and sustained intervention in global crises.

Gulf nations, particularly those that claim leadership in the Islamic world, must now walk their talk. Islam’s teachings on compassion, zakat, and the duty to protect the vulnerable are clear and uncompromising. What greater test of faith and moral purpose than to respond to famines in Sudan, earthquakes in Myanmar, or epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa?

In 2022, Qatar showed remarkable leadership by mediating in Afghanistan and offering humanitarian aid during natural disasters. The UAE has increasingly stepped into the humanitarian space in East Africa and Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre has made strides in emergency response. But these efforts must now be scaled, systematized, and globalized. The Gulf must move beyond regional charity into international humanitarianism.

Moreover, such leadership is not only ethical—it is strategic. By filling the humanitarian gap left by the United States, Gulf countries can enhance their soft power, build alliances with Global South nations, and demonstrate that a multipolar world need not be a fractured one. If the West is faltering, the Global East and South must not fail.

Let the response to this moment of crisis become a defining chapter in Gulf leadership. Let the world say that when America turned away, others stood up. That amid despair, compassion found new champions.

For in the end, history will judge not the power we held, but the lives we saved with it.

The world today stands on the precipice of a profound geopolitical and economic recalibration. With his latest sweeping tariff declaration—a 10% blanket levy on nearly all imported goods, alongside severe country-specific tariffs—Donald J. Trump has launched what may prove to be one of the most consequential acts of economic nationalism in modern history. Framed as a patriotic revival of American industry, it is, in fact, a seismic disruption of global trade norms with reverberations that will be especially destructive to the Global South and, by extension, the Islamic world.

This moment calls for clarity—not only of analysis but of strategy. For Muslim-majority countries already navigating fragile developmental paths, Trump’s tariff agenda may well become a catalyst for systemic realignment. It demands not despair, but a redoubling of efforts toward economic self-determination, intra-OIC trade expansion, and a bold embrace of Islamic economic principles.

A Revival of Mercantilism in a Globalized Age

At the heart of Trump’s new economic policy lies a nostalgia-fueled resurrection of mercantilist thought. In seeking to reverse the effects of decades-long globalization, his administration is deploying 20th-century tools against a 21st-century reality. The United States, no longer the singular industrial hegemon it was after World War II, now competes in a multipolar economic world. Yet Trump’s tariff regime assumes that insulating domestic markets from international competition will singlehandedly reindustrialize the American economy.

History, however, warns against such assumptions. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930—often cited by economists as a contributing factor to the Great Depression—demonstrated how aggressive protectionism can lead to retaliatory spirals, global contraction, and social unrest. What we are witnessing today bears alarming similarities, albeit on a digitally interconnected and supply-chain-dependent global stage.

An Asymmetric Earthquake: The Vulnerability of Emerging Islamic Economies

The Islamic world—comprising over 50 nations, many of which are dependent on exports to Western markets—is uniquely exposed to this unfolding economic earthquake. While countries like China and the European Union may possess the leverage and infrastructure to respond with countermeasures, Muslim-majority economies—especially in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia—face a more existential challenge.

Consider the case of Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Egypt. These nations are not only reliant on textile and agricultural exports to the United States but are also structurally embedded within global value chains that feed Western consumer markets. A sudden imposition of high tariffs on these exports—some reportedly as high as 50%—is not just punitive; it is potentially ruinous.

More alarmingly, these policies threaten to undermine decades of incremental gains achieved through preferential trade agreements, foreign direct investment, and participation in multilateral trading systems. For many of these nations, Trump’s tariffs are not just economic measures—they are external shocks with deeply internal consequences: rising unemployment, inflationary pressures, balance-of-payments crises, and heightened political instability.

An Opportunity to Reclaim Strategic Economic Sovereignty

Yet within this crisis lies a generational opportunity. Trump’s unilateralism and the broader Western trend toward economic insularity may, paradoxically, offer the Islamic world a historic opening to reimagine its position in the global economy—not as passive peripheries, but as an interconnected bloc of strategic importance.

There is a growing case for the acceleration of intra-OIC trade, currently hovering around a modest 20% of total trade among member states. Through strengthened regional economic cooperation, harmonized halal certification, integrated digital payment systems, and Islamic finance-backed industrial projects, Muslim-majority nations can foster alternative markets less susceptible to Western volatility.

Institutions such as the Islamic Development Bank, OIC Trade Negotiating Committee, and D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation must now take center stage in coordinating a South-South trade renaissance. Additionally, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, with their sovereign wealth and capital surpluses, have a critical role to play in underwriting industrialization efforts across lower-income OIC partners, creating mutually reinforcing economic corridors.

Furthermore, this is an opportune moment to reinvigorate the Islamic economic paradigm itself. Rooted in risk-sharing, ethical finance, and real-sector investment, Islamic economics offers a framework better attuned to sustainable development than the speculative excesses of neoliberal globalization. The decoupling of global trade may, therefore, provide the Islamic world with the impetus to invest in economic models that reflect its values and aspirations.

The Imperative of Strategic Unity

A fragmented response to this crisis will only deepen vulnerabilities. But a coordinated, principle-driven, and future-focused strategy could transform this tariff tsunami into a platform for economic reawakening across the Islamic world. The choice before us is stark: either remain at the mercy of shifting Western political winds or rise collectively to forge new alliances, institutions, and economic instruments.

Let us be clear: Trump’s tariffs are not simply a U.S. domestic policy—they are a challenge to the very fabric of globalization and an implicit message that the rules-based international economic order may no longer serve emerging economies. If so, then the Islamic world must not only ask what it stands to lose—but what it can gain by standing together.

Conclusion: Beyond Reaction, Toward Reinvention

In Surah Ar-Ra’d (13:11), the Qur’an reminds us: “Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” This is not merely spiritual counsel—it is strategic guidance.

The Islamic world now faces a defining test. Will it continue to look outward for validation and markets, or will it summon the internal resolve to build resilient, just, and independent economies? Trump’s tariff tsunami may well be a global economic earthquake—but it could also be the spark of a long-overdue economic renaissance for the Ummah.