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The US-Israel War on Iran is the continuation of a long history of US intervention in Iran and the wider West Asia region shaped by coups, sanctions, proxy wars and resistance.
By DR MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
For weeks, headlines have warned that United States (US) and Israeli strikes against Iran, and Iran’s retaliatory attacks, risk igniting a third world war.
The language of ‘escalation’ and ‘new beginnings’ dominates the coverage, as if the world is standing at the edge of an unprecedented abyss. But this framing misses the deeper reality.
What we are witnessing is not the outbreak of something new, but the continuation of a war that has been simmering for decades — a war that has defined the geopolitics of the Middle East since the mid-20th century.
The roots of this confrontation stretch back long before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In 1953, the CIA orchestrated the coup against Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh after he nationalised the country’s oil industry. The Shah was reinstated as a compliant ruler, and Iran became a pillar of US influence in the region. That intervention set the tone: Washington would not tolerate independent governments in oil-producing nations, nor would it allow challenges to its strategic dominance.
When the Shah was overthrown and the Islamic Republic established, Iran became the most enduring obstacle to US ambitions in the Middle East.
Since then, Washington’s policy has been consistent: isolate, weaken, and, if possible, destabilise Iran. Economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation, covert operations, and military threats have all been deployed. Iran’s resistance to US hegemony has been met with relentless pressure, not because it poses an existential threat to America, but because it refuses to submit to the imperial order that Washington has sought to impose on the region.
The broader record of US intervention in the Middle East underscores this pattern. In Iraq, the 2003 invasion toppled Saddam Hussein but unleashed sectarian violence, civil war, and the rise of ISIS.
In Afghanistan, decades of intervention — from Cold War proxy battles to the post-9/11 invasion — left the country fractured and unstable.
In Libya, NATO’s 2011 intervention toppled Muammar Gaddafi but plunged the nation into chaos, with rival militias and foreign powers carving up influence. Syria has been torn apart by civil war, exacerbated by US and allied support for armed factions.
Lebanon has repeatedly been destabilised through US backing of Israeli military campaigns and economic pressure. Yemen has suffered devastating humanitarian consequences as US support for Saudi-led military operations turned the country into one of the world’s worst crises.
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Even Egypt, once a centre of Arab independence, has been reshaped through US influence, military aid, and political engineering that undermined democratic movements.
Against this backdrop, Iran stands out as the only country with enough political and economic resilience to withstand the imperialist agenda.
Despite sanctions, sabotage, and isolation, Iran has maintained a degree of stability and development that frustrates Washington’s designs. It has built alliances with Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and other regional actors, creating a counterweight to US and Israeli influence.
For decades, Washington has waged ideological, diplomatic, and trade wars against Iran, while attempting to destabilise its neighbours to weaken Tehran’s position.
The ongoing war against Palestine, carried out through the US proxy state of Israel, is also part of this broader agenda: a campaign to secure regional dominance by crushing resistance movements and independent states.
This is why the current confrontation cannot be understood as the ‘beginning’ of a new war. The strikes, counterstrikes, and threats of escalation are simply the latest chapter in a long-running conflict. The war has never ended; it has shifted forms, from coups and sanctions to proxy battles and direct military assaults.
To frame today’s events as the start of something unprecedented is to erase decades of history and obscure the continuity of US policy in the region.
Moreover, the narrative of a looming ‘third world war’ serves a political purpose. It dramatises the moment, heightening fear and urgency, while distracting from the fact that the United States has been waging war — directly and indirectly — across the Middle East for generations.
The idea of a ‘new’ war suggests that peace once existed, and that it is now being shattered. But for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, and Iran, peace has been elusive for decades. The war has been their constant reality, even when Western headlines moved on.
Recognising this continuity matters. It shifts the debate from one of ‘preventing escalation’ to one of confronting the deeper structures of imperialism that perpetuate endless conflict. It forces us to ask not how to avoid a new war, but how to end the war that has already been raging for generations.
That requires acknowledging the role of US policy in destabilising the region, and the way Israel functions as a proxy state and strategic buffer against rivals such as Iran and Russia. It requires seeing Iran not as the aggressor, but as a state that has survived decades of assault precisely because it refuses to submit.
The danger today is real. Military strikes and retaliations can spiral into broader regional conflict. But the greater danger lies in misunderstanding the nature of the confrontation. If we continue to treat each flare-up as a ‘new’ war, we will fail to see the underlying continuity — and we will fail to challenge the imperialist logic that drives it.
The war that never ended will continue, consuming lives and futures, until that logic is dismantled.
Dr Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a scholar and researcher in Governance and Political Transformation, with a focus on political development, public leadership, popular politics, and worker education.
- This article was first published in the March 13, 2026 print edition of Muslim Views under Mphutlane wa Bofelo’s monthly column, ‘Left Perspectives – Critical opinions on the intersection between politics, governance and development’.
