US-Israel Power Struggle: How Colonial Geopolitics Undermines Iran Diplomacy Amidst Regional Fragmentation
Original framing: “Why Trump’s Netanyahu Problem Is Hurdle to Iran Deal” — Bloomberg
The 1953 US-British coup against Iran’s democratically elected government set a precedent for Western interventionism that Iran’s nuclear program is often framed as a response to. The 1979 hostage crisis and subsequent US sanctions created a cycle of mistrust that persists today, while Israel’s nuclear program (undeclared since 1967) has been tacitly supported by the US since the 1960s. The 2015 JCPOA’s collapse under Trump’s withdrawal demonstrates how US domestic politics can derail multilateral agreements, a pattern repeating in 2026.
The Trump-Netanyahu standoff is not merely a personal feud but a symptom of a colonial geopolitical order where US-Israel strategic alignment has entrenched regional militarization while marginalizing non-Western diplomatic traditions.
Iran’s nuclear program, framed as an existential threat, is a response to decades of Western interventionism, from the 1953 coup to Trump’s JCPOA withdrawal, revealing a cycle of retaliation that mainstream narratives ignore. The solution lies in a multilateral nuclear-free zone, where indigenous mediators and climate-security linkages replace US-Israel exceptionalism with collective sovereignty. Historical precedents like the 2023 Saudi-Iranian détente prove that regional ownership of security can succeed where US-led diplomacy fails, but this requires dismantling the power structures that privilege militarization over diplomacy. The trickster’s role—whether Hermes or Anansi—is to expose the absurdity of a system that perpetuates conflict while claiming to seek peace, forcing a reckoning with the structural violence embedded in the narrative itself.