America’s Iran policy a complete and utter failure

The escalating conflict between Israel and Iran in recent months is frequently explained as another extension of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza. After all, Hamas enjoys a close relationship with Iran, and both share the goal of eliminating the Jewish state.

But there’s more to it than that.

As a scholar of security studies who has researched conflicts in the Middle East for over 20 years, I would argue that a decade of US foreign policy in the region has failed to contain Iran’s ambitions and has instead substantially contributed to the current escalation.

As is clear from recent events along Israel’s northern border, Washington’s ability to project power and manage American interests in the Mideast has eroded so dramatically since 2010 that Iran has only limited concerns about the consequences of its proxies attacking US forces and directly attacking US allies such as Israel.

Iranian victories

The government of Iran, a Shia Muslim nation in a Sunni Muslim region, expands its regional influence by funding and militarily supporting violent proxy organizations in neighboring countries. Those groups, in turn, attack and destabilize those nations.

Over the past decade, this canny strategy arguably has turned Iran into the Mideast’s most influential superpower.

Until the early 2010s, Iran’s only real foothold in the region was Hezbollah, the Shia political and military group it fostered in Lebanon in the early 1980s. Today, Iran’s alliances include the Houthi rebels in Yemen and a loyal network of Shia militias in Iraq.

In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has allowed Iran’s elite fighting force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, to build a massive military presence.

Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, triggering