The US Middle East policy and its aggression toward Iran

The US continues to threaten Iran. It is sending warships and additional military forces to the region to intimidate Iran. It also aims to weaken Iran through economic sanctions and support for anti-government protests within the country. However, it should not be forgotten that no matter how weakened Iran may become, it still possesses a state tradition, a deep-rooted national memory, an experienced army, and military technology that cannot be compared to Iraq or Syria.

The US, of course, has significant reasons for its aggressive stance. In recent years, its influence in the world and the Middle East has been waning, its capacity for hegemony is eroding, and its ecological dominance is weakening. The US itself admitted this in its defense strategy document at the end of 2025. It no longer has the power to reach every corner of the world. It does not have the capacity to maintain occupying forces in two countries simultaneously. Yet, at the beginning of the century, it was maintaining occupying forces in two countries at once. It invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. It was able to change governments through color revolutions in three countries; as seen in Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, and Kyrgyzstan in 2005.

The US no longer has this power. This is one of the reasons for its anger and its emphasis on hard power. The US could not prevent the rise of China or the rapid recovery and increasing influence of Russia. In addition to the growing influence of these two countries in the Middle East, the US could not prevent the strengthening of their relations with Iran. The US could not do in Iran what it did in Iraq and Syria. And it is very difficult for it to do so.

For a long time, the US has prioritized containing China. It is making its political, military, and diplomatic preparations accordingly. Therefore, instead of intervening in problems in the Middle East personally and directly, it puts its regional allies more to the fore. It wants its allies to take more initiative. It prefers proxy wars. It engages terrorist organizations and non-state actors more actively. It resorts more to social engineering, perception management, psychological warfare, hybrid warfare, and asymmetric warfare methods. Its actions in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, and Sudan prove this.

The regional actor that benefited most from the US invasion of Iraq was Iran. Iranian influence over Syria already dated back a long time. Furthermore, Iran stood out with its anti-Israel stance and the tension it experienced with Saudi Arabia. Ultimately, until a few years ago, Iran had been increasing its influence in the Middle East for years.

US PRIORITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The US is an imperialist state. For this reason, its priorities regarding the Middle East are numerous and varied. These priorities have geopolitical, strategic, and economic dimensions. There are aspects related to the region's rich energy resources and energy routes.

If one were to rank them from the US perspective, the security of Israel is always in the first place. Subsequent items can be listed as the control of energy resources and routes, the containment of Iran, the reduction of its effectiveness, the regime change, the establishment of a Kurdish state, the rolling back of China's increasing influence, the stopping of Russia's growing weight, and the support of Saudi Arabia and the Arab countries it leads.

The US interest in Middle Eastern energy resources is more than 100 years old. For example, on May 31, 1919, the US Department of State sent the following letter to all its diplomatic missions around the world: "Report on the status of control over oil resources, prospects for development, and the possibilities for US involvement in oil production in all places where oil is found or is likely to be found." In other words, the US had its eyes on the Middle East, Mesopotamia, and the lands of the Ottoman Empire, which was being liquidated, even back then. On May 3, 1920, Bedford from the Standard Oil of New Jersey oil company obtained a text of an agreement made between France and England on April 27 to share the oil in the aforementioned lands from the French delegates in San Remo. He forwarded the document to Washington through the US embassy. Washington was very angry. Because in return for the docility it showed in accepting British control of Mesopotamian oil, France would receive one-quarter of the oil. If the oil were operated by private companies, this share would be 25 percent. The oil to be operated by private companies in this region would be under constant British control. The necessity of taking action to protect US rights in this region without delay had now emerged. (Lawrence Evans, The Partition of Turkey 1914 – 1924, Milliyet Publications, Istanbul, 1972).

When examining the world and Middle East policies of the US, the imperialist character of this country must always be taken into account. As an imperialist state, it wants to reach new markets and seize energy resources and precious minerals. Its priorities, threat definitions, goals, and alliances are shaped accordingly. If one considers the period after World War II, when the US significantly increased its weight in the world, the following can be seen: The bipolar order, the Cold War years, had begun. Most of the colonies had gained their independence. Among these countries that gained their independence, there were those that had been exploited by Europeans since the 15th century, as well as those that had come under the control of imperialism in the 19th century. These countries were not industrialized enough to be capitalist, nor did they have the workers or class consciousness to adopt the socialist model. A large portion of these countries are in the Middle East and Africa.

During the Cold War years, the US saw the USSR and communism as a threat. In the Third World, in countries that joined the Non-Aligned Movement, it wanted to prevent the development of anti-imperialist leftist currents and anti-imperialist nationalist movements. In the Middle East, the US saw Arab socialism, which stood out in Arab countries with its nationalist, anti-imperialist, pro-independence, and leftist character, as a threat. These movements in Arab countries were influenced by the Committee of Union and Progress tradition in Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the Kemalist Revolution. The movement led by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt in the 1950s (the name comes from Cemal Pasha, one of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress) and the Ba'ath movement (Ba'ath means "resurrection"; there are differences between the Ba'ath movements in Syria and Iraq) that stood out with similar claims in Syria and Iraq unsettled the US in those years.

The fact that these movements in Arab countries established close relations with the USSR also worried the US. In response to these movements, the US supported Islamist movements in these countries. The Green Belt Project, which aimed to surround the USSR with Islamist regimes in Muslim countries, was put into effect during that period. With the project brought to the agenda in 1977 by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security advisor to US President Jimmy Carter, Islamist currents were supported in Turkey, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia-US relations developed further, and the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) in Egypt received great support from the US.

DIMENSIONS OF THE US-IRAN TENSION

With the overthrow of the pro-US Shah of Iran in Tehran and the coming to power of Khomeini as a result of the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, the importance the US attached to the Green Belt Project increased even further. The US, which wanted 4 countries (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan) to be in full harmony with the US within the scope of the Green Belt Project, lost its influence in Iran when the Islamic Revolution took place in Iran in 1979. Immediately after, it provoked Iraq against Iran. During the Iran-Iraq War that took place between 1980 and 1988, the Arab world, with the exception of Syria, and the West supported Iraq. The total loss of life in Iran and Iraq exceeded 1 million. The economies and industries of both countries suffered a major blow. Western arms companies sold large quantities of weapons throughout the war to both these countries and to countries with close relations with the US, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

Iran is one of the important countries in the region. Containing Iran and changing its regime are among the priorities of the US. For this purpose, it has been applying economic sanctions for years. It is excluding Iran politically and diplomatically. It is threatening and squeezing it militarily. It is trying to prevent Iran's nuclear activities. The US sees Iran as one of the biggest obstacles to a Kurdish state that would be established by the division of four regional countries (Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey). Israel, one of the US's two strategic partners (the other strategic partner is England), is also in constant tension with Iran; the two countries carried out airstrikes against each other for 12 days in 2025. The two states see each other as an existential threat. In recent years, Israel has also dealt heavy blows to Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which are supported by Iran. The regime change in Syria and the increasing influence of the US and Israel over Damascus are also a major defeat for Iran.

The US is also trying to prevent Iran's oil exports. It imposes sanctions on countries that trade with Iran or threatens to impose sanctions. It has also added the Revolutionary Guards in Iran to its list of terrorist organizations. It has also pressured the European Union to ensure it takes a decision in this direction. The US is also pressuring Egypt and Saudi Arabia to keep their relations with Iran at a distance. It is also forcing the Gulf countries led by Saudi Arabia to take a stance against Iran.

WILL US SANCTIONS ON IRAN REACH THEIR GOAL?

Iran has lost great influence with the overthrow of Assad in Syria, where it had invested for many years and given great support, and with Israel dealing successive blows to Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Iranian-backed Shiite Crescent, the Axis of Resistance, and Iran's proxy forces beyond its borders have suffered heavy losses. In the current situation, only the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen are continuing their struggle.

The sanctions, economic embargo, efforts to encourage the public to revolt against the regime, and attempts to make PJAK, the Iranian branch of the PKK terrorist organization, more effective, which the US has applied to Iran since the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, have not yielded the result it hoped for so far. The US, which is trying to contain Iran, has also wanted to weaken Iran through proxy wars. Iran increased its influence in the region after the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

US economic sanctions have been effective. They have prevented Iran from developing technologically. They have pushed down oil and natural gas exports. However, they have not yet succeeded in bringing Iran to its knees. Poverty, unemployment, the high cost of living, corruption, and oppression in the country have increased anger toward the regime. However, it has been observed that when there is foreign intervention, the Iranian people put aside their reactions to the regime and their disagreements, and defend their country against external threats. Besides these, possessing nuclear deterrence is a goal that different political views in the country share and agree upon.

In conclusion, Iran is a country with a strong state tradition and a deep-rooted historical background. It uses Persian nationalism, the Islamic Revolution, Shiism, anti-Americanism, anti-imperialist rhetoric, and hostility toward Zionism and Israel in its foreign policy in the right place, at the right time, in the right dose, and according to the interlocutor. Even if Iran has received heavy blows in recent years, the influence it has reached as a regional actor, its alliance relations, military power, state structure, and national culture are important. Despite the anti-regime opposition and significant problems on the domestic front, it should not be forgotten that Iran will resist the US, and in the worst-case scenario, Iran is incomparably stronger than Syria or Iraq.