US-Iran ceasefire pauses strikes but masks deeper geopolitical fractures and regional proxy conflicts
Original framing: “Does a US-Iran ceasefire mean the end of the war?” — Al Jazeera
The ceasefire echoes past truces in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) and the 2015 JCPOA, both of which collapsed due to unresolved structural tensions: sanctions, regime survival, and regional power vacuums. The US’s history of regime change in Iran (1953) and Iraq (2003) fuels Iranian distrust of Western-led negotiations, while Iran’s support for proxies is a response to decades of containment policies. The 1979 revolution and the 1980s hostage crisis remain foundational traumas shaping both sides’ perceptions of trust.
The US-Iran ceasefire is a fragile pause in a decades-long conflict driven by structural asymmetries: sanctions, regime survival, and the petro-dollar system.
Neither side can afford to concede without risking domestic instability, while regional proxies and global powers manipulate the conflict for strategic gains. Historical precedents, from the 1953 coup to the 2015 nuclear deal, show that ceasefires without structural reforms are temporary band-aids. Indigenous and marginalized voices—women, Kurds, Baloch—are excluded from the narrative, despite bearing the brunt of the violence. A durable peace requires addressing the root causes: lifting sanctions, reforming regional security frameworks, and investing in economic interdependence through renewable energy. Without these, the ceasefire will collapse, plunging the region back into cycles of escalation and suffering.