By Iqbal Jassat
As the US-led war on Iran expands, questions are mounting about Washington’s strategy and ultimate objectives. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)
The lessons from Iran, if incorporated in the study of international relations, will be that the era in which Washington could dictate terms without consequence is steadily eroding.
Events at the G7 Summit in Evian were overshadowed by news of the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This was hardly surprising since the story broke about America’s dramatic turnaround and widespread speculation about the details of the MoU, as well as the reasons for it.
It would be fair to say, thus, that the most significant outcome of the G7 Summit in Évian was not the signing of the MoU. It was the public collapse of the illusion that military superiority automatically translates into political victory.
For months, Washington and Tel Aviv insisted that Iran would eventually be forced to surrender. The language was harsh, pointed and uncompromising. Iran’s missile program would be destroyed. Its nuclear capabilities would be dismantled. Its regional alliances would be broken. Its leadership would face collapse under the combined weight of military pressure, sanctions and international isolation.
None of those objectives were achieved.
The contradiction became impossible to conceal when President Donald Trump stood before the world at the G7 and defended Iran’s right to retain conventional ballistic missiles.
The same missiles that had been presented as an existential threat suddenly became acceptable. The same missile program that justified war was transformed into a reality that Washington was prepared to live with.
Contrary to the wishful thinking of some political pundits, this was not a minor adjustment in policy. It was a public admission that the original objectives could not be achieved.
Absent from much Western reporting is the extent of this reversal. The final agreement contains no dismantling of Iran’s missile deterrent. It contains no regime change. It contains no surrender of Iran’s political system. It contains no disarmament of Iran’s regional allies. Even the nuclear issue was largely deferred into future negotiations rather than resolved through force.
The shock registered on the gaping mouths of G7 leaders as well as Israel’s war criminals was obvious, for the outcome exposed the enormous gap between public rhetoric and strategic reality.
For years, American foreign policy has been built around the assumption that economic pressure, military dominance and international isolation can force adversaries to comply with Washington’s demands. Iraq was supposed to demonstrate that reality. Libya was supposed to reinforce it. The sanctions architecture imposed on Iran was designed around the same logic.
The MoU signed by Trump at the G7, demonstrates the limits of that model.
Iran’s leadership calculated that surrender would be more dangerous than resistance. Despite suffering enormous military and economic damage, Tehran retained enough leverage to make continued escalation prohibitively expensive for its adversaries.
The critical factor was not military strength alone.
The Strait of Hormuz exposed a vulnerability that military planners could not bomb away. As energy markets reacted and global supply chains faced disruption, the economic consequences of a prolonged conflict became increasingly unacceptable. Oil prices surged. Shipping costs escalated. Insurance markets were shaken. European governments demanded an end to the crisis. Gulf states that had quietly supported pressure on Iran suddenly became advocates for de-escalation.
The beneficiaries of the original confrontation were clear. Arms manufacturers secured contracts. Security establishments expanded their authority. Lobbying organizations intensified demands for escalation. Media institutions repeated assumptions about inevitable Iranian defeat. A vast ecosystem of political and economic interests promoted the belief that only one outcome was possible.
Though the MoU demolished that narrative, the reaction from Israel was even more revealing. The Israeli political establishment expected the conflict to fundamentally alter the regional balance of power in its favor.
Instead, Netanyahu and his criminal gang of genocidaires found themselves confronting an agreement negotiated largely without their input and one that preserved many of Iran’s capabilities Israel had spent years attempting to eliminate.
The frustration expressed by them and echoed across the regime’s media was not simply about the agreement itself.
It reflected the recognition that military escalation had failed to produce the strategic transformation that had been promised.
This is why the agreement carries implications far beyond Iran, particularly for governments across the Global South who are expected to study the outcome closely.
Indeed, so will Russia and China. The lesson they will draw is not that America lacks power. The lesson is that American power now operates within constraints that did not exist during the unipolar era.
The lessons from Iran, if incorporated in the study of international relations, will be that the era in which Washington could dictate terms without consequence is steadily eroding.
The MoU therefore marks something larger than the end of a conflict. It marks another stage in the transition from a unipolar order to a multipolar one. The significance of the MoU lies not in what was announced. It lies in what was conceded.
The campaign to impose American terms concluded with Washington accepting realities it once declared unacceptable.
– Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the South Africa-based Media Review Network. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. Visit: www.mediareviewnet.com
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