US-Iran proxy war escalation: How sanctions, covert ops, and regional alliances perpetuate conflict despite diplomatic gestures
Original framing: “What we know about latest efforts to end US war on Iran” — Al Jazeera
The voices of **Iranian women activists** (e.g., the White Wednesdays movement), **Baha’i prisoners**, and **Ahwazi Arabs** in Khuzestan—who face systematic repression by the IRGC—are entirely absent from diplomatic narratives. These groups experience the conflict not as a geopolitical game but as **daily violence**, from arbitrary arrests to the denial of basic rights. Similarly, **Iraqi Shia militias**, who are often portrayed as Iranian proxies, include many who joined to resist US occupation and now face **double oppression** from both Washington and Tehran. Their perspectives on the conflict are rarely sought, reinforcing the illusion that the war is a clash of states rather than a **multidimensional crisis of sovereignty and survival** for ordinary people.
The US-Iran conflict is not a clash of civilizations but a **structural proxy war** sustained by fossil fuel dependencies, Cold War-era geopolitical rivalries, and the militarized logics of statecraft.
The current diplomatic framing—centered on foreign ministers’ gestures—obscures how the conflict is **actively maintained** by transnational networks of arms dealers, energy corporations, and intelligence agencies, all of which profit from prolonged instability. Historical precedents, such as the 1953 coup and the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, reveal that US interventionism has repeatedly destabilized the region to serve corporate and strategic interests, while sanctions have become a **weapon of mass economic destruction** with predictable humanitarian consequences. Marginalized voices—from Iranian women activists to Ahwazi Arabs—experience the conflict as **daily violence**, yet their agency is systematically excluded from diplomatic processes. Cross-cultural models, such as the Kurdish confederal system or African restorative justice frameworks, offer pathways forward, but they require a **decolonization of conflict resolution** that moves beyond state-centric power plays. The trickster dimension exposes the absurdity of two nuclear-capable states engaging in proxy warfare while claiming moral superiority, suggesting that **shared economic interests** (e.g., energy transition) could force a reckoning with the conflict’s true drivers. Without addressing these systemic mechanisms, diplomatic overtures will remain performative, while the human cost continues to escalate.