'Iranian struggle is interwoven with broader geopolitical chessboard'

Reneva Fourie

On 13 June, Israel launched an unprovoked attack on Iran. Following a series of missile strikes between the two countries, Trump gave the green light to an unprecedented and illegal bombing campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan on 22 June. Iran retaliated, striking American military bases in the region. It did not take Trump long to declare a ceasefire effective 24 June, the sustainability of which remains uncertain. 

The war should never have happened. The fires of war that raged across West Asia demonstrated a deep failure of global leadership, a significant erosion of international law and the questionable morality of leaders like Donald Trump. Despite positioning himself as a champion of peace, Trump has been fully complicit in the unfounded aggression against Iran. 

Just as the United States supplied significant armaments, intelligence and political support to enable Israel’s ongoing, brutal genocide in Gaza, as well as attacks in the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, and directly attacked Yemen, it enabled the Israeli bombardment of Iran.

Furthermore, the US proceeded to bomb sites crucial to Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy programme, which were under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), knowing fully that they were not military installations. They were serving Iran’s civilian nuclear energy programme – crucial for medicine, industry, and scientific development.

The operation, involving B-2 stealth bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles, was fuelled by hubris, ambition and a blatant desire to reestablish US dominance through the use of force. As with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the general instability caused in West Asia, Trump and his allies act with impunity, invoking humanitarianism while slaughtering civilians, talking democracy while toppling elected governments, and preaching peace while arming allies. 

Trump’s actions in Iran are symptomatic of a broader trend of the West’s total disregard for the very legal structures it once built. They were a declaration that international law would remain subject to the whims of imperialist powers. The IAEA, once viewed as a neutral overseer, failed to condemn the US’s bombings.

The United Nations (UN) is now functionally impotent, paralysed by US veto power. The International Criminal Court has at last gotten the courage to issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu. Still, the US has, as a result, imposed sanctions against key ICC staff and refused them entry into the US. This is not merely a lapse of diplomacy but the open collapse of the post-World War II international legal order. 

Iran’s resilience is remarkable. It has endured decades of sanctions, sabotage, and assassinations. Its scientists have been murdered, its diplomatic offices targeted, and its infrastructure crippled. Yet Tehran has not built nuclear weapons. Instead, it has worked to achieve energy independence and scientific advancement.

The recent attacks on Iran are not about nuclear non-proliferation; they are about control. The grooming of Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah, as a potential replacement for the Islamic Republic’s leadership signals the regime change intentions. Ultimately, Iran’s defence of its sovereignty and territorial integrity triumphed.

Undoubtedly, the meeting between the Iranian foreign minister and Putin contributed to Trump’s sudden declaration of a ceasefire. Whether Iran will be given a break from the ongoing American-Israeli-European efforts at destabilisation remains to be seen as the terms of the ceasefire agreement are unclear.

Vigilance has to be maintained as the Iranian struggle is tightly interwoven with the broader geopolitical chessboard. Iran is not isolated. Its fate is tied to that of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria’s former government, Yemen, and even powers like Russia and China.

If Iran falls, it will not stop there. It could lead to the eventual destabilisation of Russia through the creation of terrorist corridors from the Middle East into Central Asia and even the provocation of civil war in China via Xinjiang. These plans are openly discussed in think tanks and are likely to be expressed through military policy.

The current generation of Western leadership, Trump foremost among them, appear tragically disconnected from the horrors of war. They launch drone strikes from safe rooms, drop bombs from computer consoles, and discuss regime change as if it were a board game. But the human cost is not abstract. It is measured in the bodies of Palestinian children, in the rubble of Iranian cities, and in the famine-stricken streets of Sanaa.

Israel’s recent battlefield setbacks, which should have prompted a reassessment, have deepened its striving for bloodshed. As the massacre in Palestine continues unabated, the backing by Trump and other Western leaders has rendered even modest diplomacy to bring peace to Palestine and the region at large difficult.

As international law burns, the only voices of restraint now emerge from the Global South, countries that remember colonisation, that know the price of conflict, and that understand that today’s ally could be tomorrow’s victim.

The military aggression witnessed in West Asia was never Iran’s fight alone. It is the fight of every sovereign nation that believes in dignity, self-determination, and peace. The Global South must break its silence and unite against Western imperialist tyranny. That includes building independent financial systems, revitalising non-aligned movements, and reclaiming the UN.

Despite its flaws, the UN remains the best global forum capable of managing international peace, but only if reformed. The Security Council must be overhauled, and funding must come from a broader base, not merely Western powers who use their contributions as leverage. The Global South must become the moral and structural backbone of a new international order.

While resistance is necessary in the face of aggression, the end goal must not be perpetual war. The true challenge lies in restoring peace built on justice and dignity. The alternative is a slow descent into a world war sparked by political vanity and sustained by legal decay. Unless the world acts decisively, the crimes being committed today will become the precedent for tomorrow, and the fires burning in Gaza and Isfahan may one day consume us all.

* Dr Reneva Fourie is a policy analyst specialising in governance, development and security.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.