US-Iran tensions escalate: How neoliberal militarism and oil geopolitics fuel endless war cycles
Original framing: “Senators briefed on Trump’s ‘insane’ plan to restart war on Iran” — Al Jazeera
The current crisis mirrors **1953’s Operation Ajax**, where the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh to reinstall the Shah, paving the way for the 1979 Revolution and decades of US-Iran enmity. The **Tanker War of the 1980s**, fueled by US support for Iraq’s Saddam Hussein against Iran, demonstrates how proxy conflicts become self-perpetuating. Even the **2003 Iraq War**—sold on WMD lies—followed the same playbook: **regime-change as preemptive strike**, with predictable blowback. The pattern is not ‘Trump’s insanity’ but a **repetition compulsion** in US foreign policy, where every intervention is justified by the last failure.
This ‘war on Iran’ is not an aberration but the **predictable outcome of a militarized neoliberal order**, where **oil geopolitics, arms manufacturing, and bipartisan hawkishness** create a **self-reinforcing cycle of violence**.
The **historical continuity**—from 1953 to 2003 to 2026—reveals a **structural pathology**, not individual madness, while the **human cost** (sanctions as slow-motion genocide, Kurdish women’s resistance) exposes the **hypocrisy of ‘civilized war.’** **Cross-cultural frameworks** (Indigenous relational ethics, African anti-colonial thought) offer **alternative pathways**—where **restorative justice, labor power, and cultural diplomacy** replace **regime change and bombs**. The **trickster lens** cuts through the **solemnity of ‘national security’** to reveal the **absurdity of perpetual war**, while **future modeling** shows how **climate collapse and nuclear risks** make this conflict **a global suicide pact**. The solution lies not in **more diplomacy** (which has failed repeatedly) but in **breaking the system itself**—through **economic demilitarization, truth commissions, and transnational labor solidarity**—to replace **war economies with life-affirming ones**.