The campaign to destabilize and isolate Iran has been a defining feature of US and Israeli foreign policy for decades, rooted in a broader strategy to suppress any regional power that challenges US hegemony. In 1953, the United States, in collaboration with British intelligence (MI6), orchestrated a coup—known as Operation Ajax—that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosadegh. The plan, overseen by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was motivated by Mossadegh’s nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which was a threat to British economic interests and American policymakers. Operation Ajax would lay the groundwork for decades of US dominance in Iran by way of the “monarch” Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who would attempt to transform Iran into a firmly tethered client state that would exist to safeguard key interests and access to Iranian oil.
On July 3, 1988, the US downed Iran Air Flight 655, a civilian airbus, traveling in Iranian airspace—killing 290 civilians, among them 66 children. The United States took no responsibility and faced no consequences for this attack and even went as far as to reward the commander behind the downing of the civilian airbus for “meritorious conduct.” In 2010, the Stuxnet virus—jointly developed by the United States and Israel—ushered in a new era of cyberwarfare, sabotaging Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility and setting a dangerous precedent for aggression against sovereign states.
Between 2010 and 2012, Israeli intelligence, with tacit US approval and support, carried out a series of extrajudicial assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, including Mostafa Roshan, and Majid Shahriari. On May 8, 2018, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), followed by the tightening of economic sanctions against Iran, which went on to cripple Iran’s economy and deepened its international alienation. These events are far from isolated instances; instead, they expose a coherent pattern of hybrid warfare and a calculated effort to subdue Iran through coercion, sabotage, and structural violence.
Iran has spent decades preparing for the possibility of a direct confrontation with Israel, building a multi-layered defense and deterrence strategy and focusing on military development including precision-guided ballistic and cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, including Fattah-1, that are capable of reaching deep into occupied Palestine. In addition, Iran’s experience in hybrid warfare, honed during the nation’s eight-year war with Iraq, and alliances with resistance factions in the region—from Yemen to Lebanon—gives the country strategic flexibility.
Despite enduring significant constraints due to years of US sanctions, Iran’s strategic calculus is clear: positioning itself not for conventional parity with Israel, but leveraging asymmetric capabilities to stretch and destabilize Israel’s military reach and firepower. A stunning example may be Israel’s Iron Dome; once hailed as a symbol of technological military superiority, Israel’s missile defense system is now showing clear signs of fatigue and costly limitations under the pressure of sustained Iranian attacks, all of which has had consequential impacts on Israeli society, both psychologically and economically.
As missiles continue to fall and threats against Iran increase, what’s at stake isn’t just Iran’s sovereignty, but the right of all nations to resist domination, assert independence, and reject the violent architecture of US imperialism. This is a confrontation between two irreconcilable visions of the world: one rooted in imperial domination, enforced through violence; the other grounded in the right to self-determination.
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