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The Balkanization Blueprint: How the U.S. and Israel Are Reshaping Iran’s Future // Mint Press
The latest escalation between Israel and Iran is not a spontaneous outburst of long-standing hostility. According to a recent panel on MintPress News, this conflict is part of a deliberate, multi-phased campaign designed to fracture Iran from within—politically, militarily, and socially. This strategy, widely referred to by analysts as a plan to “balkanize” Iran, aims to replicate the chaos wrought in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. The playbook is painfully familiar, but the stakes this time are much higher.
Phase One: Provocation and Decapitation
On a Friday morning, Israel launched a massive surprise attack on Iran, striking over 100 sites—including nuclear facilities, missile depots, and high-ranking individuals. Among the dead: top IRGC generals, nuclear scientists, and civilian families. While media coverage downplayed the full scope, this was a surgical decapitation strike aimed at Iran’s strategic brain trust.
Batool Subeiti, one of the political analysts in the discussion, stressed that the United States likely greenlit this attack not as an act of solidarity with Israel, but as a calculated test of Iran’s deterrence posture. In other words, the U.S. wanted to see: would Iran retaliate weakly and expose itself as vulnerable, or would it risk full-scale war and regional instability?
Phase Two: Psychological and Political Breakdown
If Iran’s military response is measured, the next move is to erode public trust in the Islamic Republic’s ability to defend its people. This is done through covert operations—car bombings, infrastructure sabotage, and the assassination of political figures. Think back to the years leading up to the collapse of Libya’s Gaddafi regime or Syria’s descent into civil war. This isn’t a regime change play—it’s state annihilation through chaos.
The analysts reference evidence suggesting Mossad operatives are already embedded within Iran, conducting internal sabotage. A recent Wall Street Journal article implied Iran’s intelligence services have been blindsided, unable to stop infiltration that compromised their defenses during Israel’s initial strikes. The goal is clear: to make Iran look internally fractured and externally vulnerable.
Phase Three: Fragmentation and Civil War
If phases one and two go as planned, the final act will mirror the aftermath of U.S. intervention in Iraq: manufactured civil war. Through proxies like the MEK (Mujahedin-e-Khalq), trained in places like Turkey and Azerbaijan, the U.S. and Israel aim to stir sectarian and ethnic divisions. The endgame? Turn Iran from a unified, defiant power into a collection of warring tribal territories—each too fractured to pose a regional threat.
Expect waves of bombings, attacks on public markets and sporting events, and perhaps the return of ISIS-K or similar extremist factions. These will not be random; they are precision moves in an asymmetric intelligence campaign to weaken Iranian national identity.
The Empire’s Consistent Logic
What’s crucial to understand is that this isn’t a Trump policy. It isn’t even a Biden one. As the podcast argues, this is the relentless logic of U.S. imperialism—unshaken across administrations. Clinton once vowed to “obliterate” Iran. Trump played double agent: making peace overtures while enabling sabotage. And Biden’s foreign policy machine operates with the same “dual track” deception—pretending to negotiate peace while preparing war.
According to Elina Xenophontos, this cycle mirrors the Minsk Agreements, which were allegedly used to buy time for Ukraine’s militarization rather than broker peace with Russia. The West uses diplomacy as bait while laying the groundwork for conflict.
Why Iran Matters
Iran is not just another geopolitical foe. It’s the spine of the “Axis of Resistance,” a regional network opposing U.S.-Israeli dominance, aligned increasingly with Russia and China. That makes its destruction a prerequisite for the U.S. to maintain hegemony in the multipolar world order taking shape.
Until Iran is neutralized, Israel cannot claim regional dominance. And until Israel is secure, U.S. economic and military strategies for the Middle East cannot proceed. This is why Israel’s failure to paralyze Iran could be existential for its own long-term legitimacy and military credibility.
The Fallout
The analysts warn that if this operation fails, Israel may not just lose face—it could unravel. Iran has already shown an ability to pierce through Israel’s layered missile defense systems. If the resistance axis strengthens further, and Iran consolidates its position as the regional power, the U.S. and Israel may find themselves facing a Middle East that no longer fears their wrath.
In short, the balkanization of Iran is not just a geopolitical ambition—it’s the linchpin of an entire imperial vision. And for now, that vision is bleeding out in real time.
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