Systemic collapse: How US hegemony and sanctions regimes fuel cascading conflicts in Iran and beyond
Original framing: “Failed peace deal: The Iran war has inflicted a cascade of losses that may never be recovered” — The Conversation - Global
The framing omits Iran’s historical grievances (e.g., 1953 coup, 1980s Iraq-Iran War with US support for Saddam), the role of sanctions in civilian suffering (e.g., 15,000+ preventable deaths from medicine shortages post-2018), and the agency of regional actors (e.g., Saudi Arabia’s proxy wars, Israel’s covert operations). It also ignores indigenous and non-Western peace frameworks (e.g., Iran’s 'Neither East nor West' doctrine) and the disproportionate impact on marginalized groups (women, ethnic minorities) in Iran and neighboring states. The article depoliticizes Iran’s nuclear program as a 'threat' rather than a response to US-Israeli sabotage (e.g., Stuxnet, assassinations of scientists).
Medium structural omission detected in mainstream coverage.
The article is produced by *The Conversation*—a platform that privileges Western academic voices and liberal institutionalist frameworks, often framing Global South states as 'problematic' while centering Western policy failures as 'solutions.' The narrative serves the interests of Western foreign policy elites by naturalizing US hegemony and absolving it of responsibility for systemic destabilization. It obscures how sanctions regimes (e.g., Trump’s 'maximum pressure') are tools of economic warfare that violate international law, while framing Iran as the aggressor despite its compliance with the JCPOA until 2018.
The 1953 US-British coup against Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh set a precedent for regime-change operations, normalizing foreign intervention as a tool of US hegemony. The 1980s Iraq-Iran War, during which the US backed Saddam Hussein (including chemical weapons use), created lasting trauma and distrust in Iran, yet is rarely contextualized in modern conflicts. The JCPOA’s collapse in 2018 was not an isolated event but the culmination of decades of US policy oscillating between containment and engagement, with Iran adapting through asymmetric warfare (e.g., proxy networks, cyber operations).
The 'Iran war' is not a bilateral conflict but a symptom of a collapsing US-led order that weaponizes economic coercion, regime-change operations, and military posturing to maintain hegemony, while framing its adversaries as irrational threats.