At the end of February — beginning of March 2026 the world suddenly found itself at a point many experts had long foreseen in their worst-case scenarios. A joint US–Israeli operation against Iran, the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, massive strikes on Iranian territory, retaliatory missile attacks on American bases and Israeli cities — all this is not just another flare-up of violence in the Middle East. For Japan, Israel and France it is a test of what America is today: a security guarantor, an irresponsible arsonist, or a cynical great-power player one cannot escape.
On the surface it may seem that everyone is talking about the same thing — the US and Israeli war with Iran. But if you listen to the tone, context and arguments in Tokyo, Tel Aviv and Paris, it becomes clear: they are talking about different Americas. For some it is an indispensable military umbrella, for others a direct source of danger, and for yet others a partner that drags them into conflict but without which they are also helpless.
The largest common storyline is the very US–Israeli–Iranian war. In France it is already entering the public sphere as a new “great war” on magazine covers: the Sunday Journal du Dimanche puts on its front page the formula “Iran – États‑Unis – Israël : la guerre”, stressing that this is not a “simple operation” but a rupture of the entire security architecture in and around the Middle East. In the Le Grand Continent think tank, Trump’s offensive is explained as a “war for regime change”, fitting it into a line from the strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the summer of 2025 to the current massive bombings. The authors show that the current strikes are a continuation of the 2025 operation, when US B‑2s and cruise missiles hit sites in Fordow and Natanz, and the IAEA has not since obtained full access — and now French observers debate whether the nuclear argument was a real threat or a political pretext.
At the same time French media record concrete, not abstract, consequences for the region: from the scenario of a war “spilling over” into Lebanon and forcing Paris to urgently convene a conference in early March to support the Lebanese army ahead of the UN peacekeepers’ withdrawal, to growing threats against Western diplomatic missions and citizens in Pakistan and other countries where attacks on US targets occur. Reports explain that it was precisely the American strikes on Iran, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of Iranian schoolgirls in Minab when a girls’ school was bombed, that triggered demonstrations and an attack on the US consulate in Karachi, where marines opened fire on protesters. The French perspective here is deliberately structural: the war is seen as a “chain of connected conflicts” in which each new American move creates waves of instability spreading through Lebanon, Pakistan and beyond.
If France sees primarily a geopolitical matrix in what is happening, Israel experiences this war as an existential, internal drama in which the US are both savior and source of dangerous illusions. Israeli media and experts reveal a dual layer of rhetoric. On the one hand, at the official level Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describes the strikes as an attempt to “remove the existential threat” of the Iranian regime and explicitly thanks Washington for its participation, repeating the motif of a “decisive step” in the spirit of the American “resolve” the Israeli right has long demanded. At this level America is an indispensable ally that has finally completed the long-promised hard line toward Tehran.
But beneath this official layer another — anxious — mood is audible. Liberal outlets and some military commentators ask: what exactly do the US want to achieve beyond weakening Iran, and where are they dragging Israel? The memory of 2025 resurfaces: according to the American version, strikes then supposedly “completely destroyed” Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, yet months later it turned out that a significant portion of materials and capabilities remained. Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, reminded that most of the enriched uranium stockpiles remained in place after the 2025 attacks, and this quote is now used in Israeli debate as evidence that relying solely on “total strikes” guarantees neither disarmament nor regime change.
Israeli critics draw a painful parallel: the Trump Washington sees the current war as a chance for “regime change” in Tehran and does not hide it — thereby tying Israel to a project that could drag on for years, bring guerrilla warfare, escalate missile threats and spawn new waves of regional hatred. The question is stated bluntly: “Will Israel not become a tool of American domestic politics — ahead of the 2026 midterms — under the guise of fighting the Iranian regime?” Opinion columns note that for Trump and his Republican Party a show of force on the foreign front is an important resource before the November Congressional elections, and therefore many US actions are interpreted through the lens of electoral logic.
At the same time part of the Israeli public debate reminds that Iran is not only a regime but an 80‑million‑strong society that went through large-scale protests in the winter of 2025–2026. In this context punitive bombings that caused dozens or hundreds of civilian casualties undermine the moral position of Israel and the US. Mentions of the deaths of schoolgirls in Minab and other tragic incidents are used by human rights advocates as an argument: an all-out war allied with Washington risks cementing the image of Israel as complicit in collective punishment of the Iranian people, rather than a “targeted defender” against a nuclear threat.
Japan views the American offensive through a very different lens: through the prism of its own vulnerability and simultaneous dependency on the United States. Japanese discussion of Iran and US actions is rarely ideological and much more pragmatic. Political portals and security experts focus on one central question: how does this war change the fabric of the international order and what does it mean for Tokyo, which sits under the American “nuclear umbrella”?
Japanese analyses emphasize that in 2025 the “Trumpist” Washington already seriously weakened familiar multilateral mechanisms — from the G20 to the WTO and the classic “Group of Seven” format. Economists and political scientists at major financial groups like Nomura describe 2026 as the year when the main political risk for markets is precisely the American midterm elections and their impact on foreign policy. The logic is simple: the closer November’s elections are, the greater the temptation for the White House to use foreign conflicts to mobilize its electorate. Hence Japanese fear that the strike on Iran is not a “one-off operation” but the beginning of a chain of actions in which Washington, guided by domestic audiences, may take further unilateral steps — including in Asia.
Alongside this, concerns are growing within Japan’s political class and the quasi-governmental environment that the US–Israeli war with Iran pushes toward a more general normalization of forcible revisions of the status quo. Statements by centrist party leaders stress that “forcible change” is an unacceptable mode of behavior for both Iran and the US with Israel. Party-aligned press of coalition allies states directly that strikes on Iran aimed not only at military infrastructure but at the regime as a whole violate the basic principle of the UN Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force as a means of changing a situation. At the same time those texts contain three rhetorical layers at once: on the one hand criticism of “unilateral forcible change”; on the other a focus on the necessity of protecting Japanese citizens in the region at all costs; and third, an embedded reminder of Japan’s “special position” as a key US ally in East Asia.
Against this background the upcoming visit to Washington by the new Japanese prime minister, who in February received a powerful mandate in the lower house, becomes an important marker: can Tokyo maintain a balance between supporting its American ally and preserving the image of a country rooted in international law. Expert essays note that contemporary Japan “by circumstances has acquired a special position” between weakening Western cooperation and increasing aggressiveness from Russia and China, and now it will have to prove in practice that its orientation toward the US does not mean support for any “war for regime change.”
Interestingly, in Japan the discussion of the US war with Iran is directly linked to lessons from US domestic politics. Political talk shows repeat a grim formula: “the American president is overthrown by the opposition, and the Japanese prime minister — by his own party.” Coined by a veteran observer of Washington and Tokyo, this image is used to warn the Japanese prime minister: do not blindly follow Trump in hopes of a durable personal alliance — American policy can turn very quickly, and responsibility for a course that ties Japan to risky US military adventures will remain with him.
France, for its part, recognizes in this same war an old but sharpened conflict between the American logic of the “decisive leader” and the European tradition of multilateral diplomacy. Analytical pieces in Parisian publications and think tanks describe Washington’s line as a conscious abandonment of reliance on international control mechanisms — from the IAEA to the UN Security Council. Notably, Le Grand Continent, analyzing the escalation, quotes in detail IAEA head Rafael Grossi, who as early as February reminded that despite the 2025 strikes, “most of the materials accumulated by Iran before June of last year still lie where they were at the moment of the attacks.” This allows French authors to formulate the main reproach to America: betting on unilateral force not only fails to solve the nuclear problem but also destroys the very idea of international control, making any future agreement with Iran even less realistic.
From this flows a typically French motive: the need for Europe’s “strategic autonomy.” The public discusses not only the Lebanese conference in Paris but also possible scenarios: if the US gets bogged down in a war with Iran, to what extent can the EU pursue its own Middle East policy without becoming the junior partner of an American “regime change” agenda? On radio and in columns for a general audience the simple question is asked: “Have the US entered a war?” — and behind that question lies the fear that Europe itself will bear the brunt in the event of another wave of terrorism, radicalization and refugees caused by an American military campaign.
The three countries ultimately converge on one point: the current escalation is a moment of truth for America’s image. But their interpretations then diverge. In Israel’s worldview America appears simultaneously as a shield and a mirror: Israeli elites see in it their own inclination for forceful solutions, their belief that “if you remove the regime’s top, everything will change.” Critics in Israel, invoking the American experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, warn that the prospect of a protracted war with Iran involving active US participation could not only explode the region but also accelerate the degradation of democracy within America itself — under the pretext of fighting “terrorism and a nuclear threat.”
The Japanese perspective is much more cautious and detached. For Tokyo the US remain an unrivaled security guarantor amid the rise of China and Russia, and that is why Japanese politicians choose their words carefully: while condemning any “forcible revision” of the status quo, they avoid direct blows at Washington, directing criticism toward Iran and the abstract “logic of force.” But economists and analysts in private conversations and specialist media speak rather frankly that Trump’s “foreign-policy adventures” increase risks to the global economy, energy and sea lanes upon which Japan depends far more than the US. In their vocabulary this sounds like a question about the “cost of American unpredictability.”
France, finally, dons again the role of “state commentator” and “second pole” of the West. Its experts and journalists view US actions from the height of historical memory — from the 2003 Iraq campaign to attempts to revive the nuclear deal with Iran. Against that background the current war looks like a return to the most controversial version of American leadership: leadership that does not consult allies and presents them with a fait accompli. But unlike the early 2000s, France is now less ready for an open split with Washington; instead it is trying to build a “softening perimeter” around the American war — from support for the Lebanese army to attempts to keep at least some diplomatic channels alive.
The common conclusion from this diversity of reactions is paradoxical. The more actively and harshly the US act, the less room there is for a clear answer to the question “is this good or bad.” In Israel on the streets there are those who thank America for the strike on Iran and those who fear the war will destroy chances for peace and increase the country’s isolation. In Tokyo the same events are first and foremost seen as another signal to review its own defense policy and to cautiously build up capabilities so as not to become completely hostage to others’ decisions. In Paris the American bombardment of Tehran becomes a reason to talk again about European autonomy — and a reminder that without the US Europe is still not ready to guarantee security in the Middle East, nor even on its eastern border.
Thus forms a new mosaic of perceptions of America: no longer simply the “leader of the free world” nor merely an “empire,” but a contradictory giant subject to its own electoral cycles, which for some remains a saving anchor, for others a source of strategic instability, and for everyone a factor it is no longer possible to ignore. Japanese calls for “realistic diplomacy,” Israeli debates over the price of the alliance with Washington and French reflections on a “war for regime change” together paint a picture: the world increasingly doubts that US force automatically means order, and more and more seeks ways to live in a world where American power is only one, albeit dominant, element of a complex and worrying system.
