While there appears to be relative calm following the 12-day armed conflict between U.S.-Israeli forces and Iran in June, the conflict itself and the implications it has both for the region and the world represent a continuous threat to global peace, stability and prosperity.
Understanding fully how and why the U.S. and Israeli forces launched this war of aggression against Iran should provide ample warning and lessons to learn regarding other nations the U.S. has designated “adversaries.”
Premeditated
The U.S.-Israeli war was predicated on supposed concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program and alleged violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.S. appeared to pursue “negotiations” with Iran despite possessing no authority under international law to do so, let alone any authority to “act” if negotiations failed.
While the fighting officially began with strikes carried out by Israel on June 13, virtually all military capabilities Israel possesses are the product of U.S. aid, including billions of dollars of weapons and other support specifically tailored for waging war against Iran.
Premeditated
The U.S.-Israeli war was predicated on supposed concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program and alleged violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.S. appeared to pursue “negotiations” with Iran despite possessing no authority under international law to do so, let alone any authority to “act” if negotiations failed.
While the fighting officially began with strikes carried out by Israel on June 13, virtually all military capabilities Israel possesses are the product of U.S. aid, including billions of dollars of weapons and other support specifically tailored for waging war against Iran.
Following the Israeli strikes, U.S. President Donald Trump himself—despite being engaged in negotiations with Iran when they began—declared them “excellent,” while U.S. sources admitted to ABC News that “the U.S. provided ‘exquisite’ intelligence,” used to carry out the attacks.
Decades in the making…
U.S. policy papers as early as 2009 laid out explicit plans to not only use “negotiations” as a pretext to justify U.S. escalation, but also as a means of distancing the U.S. from an Israeli war of aggression the U.S. itself would fully enable and encourage, just as has now taken place in 2025.
A 2009 Brookings Institution paper titled Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran included a variety of options the U.S. would use to undermine and attempt to overthrow or contain Iran in pursuit of continued U.S. primacy over the Middle East, which in turn would contribute to wider U.S. primacy worldwide.
Despite being written 16 years ago, the policies laid out in the pages of the Brookings paper were executed almost line-by-line starting with the Barack Obama administration and the introduction of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (or “Iran Nuclear Deal”) as the “very good deal” the U.S. would “offer” Iran as a means of depicting Tehran as “ideologically blinkered” before escalating through “diplomatic” and “military” options.
Just the beginning
Despite claims that U.S.-Israeli strikes accomplished their goals in dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, it must be remembered that Washington’s actual objective is regime change in Iran, or Iran’s complete containment. Thus, recent U.S.-Israeli attacks will inevitably be followed up by continued aggression until one or both of these objectives is achieved.
Under Chapter 1: An Offer Iran Shouldn’t Refuse: Persuasion, U.S. policymakers would note: “…any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context…” And that: “The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the U.S. (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians ‘brought it on themselves’ by refusing a very good deal.”
The premeditated nature of Washington’s war of aggression against Iran and the way throughout which “negotiations” were used to lower the guard of targeted nations as well as portray the U.S. as an arbiter rather than an aggressor, serve as a warning to nations like Russia and China faced with similar U.S. policies of encirclement and containment.
The U.S. proxy war and war of aggression against Iran is not an isolated incident or an exception regarding U.S. foreign policy, but a destructive example of its rules. Capitals across the multipolar world ignore this geopolitical reality and fail to overcome it at their own peril.
The author is a Bangkok-based independent geopolitical analyst and former U.S. Marine
-The Daily Mail-Beijing Review News Exchange Items
