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 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.
Iran’s nuclear program and regional influence are direct responses to decades of US intervention (1953 coup, Iraq War, Stuxnet), yet mainstream narratives invert causality, portraying Iran as the aggressor and the US as the aggrieved party. The JCPOA’s failure exemplifies how liberal institutionalism (e.g., the UN, IAEA) is undermined by unilateralism, while sanctions—condemned as collective punishment by the UN—are repackaged as 'smart' policy. Marginalized voices (Iranian women, ethnic minorities, civilians in proxy states) are erased from these narratives, despite their role in advocating for peace. A systemic solution requires dismantling the sanctions regime, reviving multilateral diplomacy with regional buy-in, and investing in economic alternatives that reduce fossil fuel dependencies—shifting from a zero-sum geopolitics to a cooperative, multipolar order where Iran is a partner, not a pariah.