Washington’s bipartisan war on Iran did not begin with Gaza. Gaza exposed it

For decades, Washington has insisted that its hostility toward Iran is a response to Iranian “aggression,” “terrorism,” or the Islamic Republic’s supposed refusal to “behave like a normal state.” Yet the synchronized threats issued by both Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the aftermath of Gaza’s annihilation reveal a more uncomfortable truth. American policy toward Iran has little to do with Iranian actions and everything to do with preserving an Israeli‑centered regional order at any cost.

To understand this moment, one must begin with an inconvenient historical fact that the United States foreign policy establishment prefers to forget. The United States was not always Iran’s enemy and Iran was not always the problem.

Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran was one of Washington’s most reliable pillars in the Middle East. The Shah’s regime, installed and protected after the CIA‑backed overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, served American strategic interests faithfully. It purchased billions of dollars in American weapons, stabilized oil markets and acted as a regional gendarme against Arab nationalism and leftist movements. Repression, torture and political imprisonment were not obstacles to partnership. They were, in fact, quietly subsidized. A 1955 treaty of amity formalized this relationship of cooperation and mutual interest between Washington and Tehran.

Iran became an enemy not because it threatened the region, but because it defied American ownership. The Islamic Revolution shattered a core assumption of United States Middle East policy, namely that regional states exist to be managed, disciplined and aligned with American power. Iran’s crime was not extremism but autonomy. Its refusal to subordinate itself to Washington and later to normalize relations with Israel without conditions marked it for permanent punishment. By the end of 1979, diplomatic ties were severed and sustained sanctions were imposed.

From that point onward, United States policy toward Iran became doctrinal rather than strategic. Iran was transformed into an abstract villain, immune to evidence, negotiation or context. Even when Tehran cooperated, whether against the Taliban after the attacks of September 11, 2001, or through painstaking compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, Washington responded with betrayal and recrimination.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, concluded between Iran and the P5+1 in 2015, constrained Iran’s nuclear program and opened it to strict inspections. Contrary to claims that Iran violated the deal, international tracking of its nuclear material showed Tehran compliant with the agreement’s terms. Yet in 2018 the United States withdrew unilaterally under President Trump and reimposed sanctions, rejecting the verification mechanisms that had worked and destabilizing the diplomatic architecture that had taken years to construct. The withdrawal was welcomed by Israeli hardliners who saw any détente with Tehran as an existential threat to their regional strategy.

Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign since then has inflicted devastating economic pain on ordinary Iranian citizens while providing little leverage toward genuine diplomacy. It has strengthened hardliners and eroded incentives for moderation. Sanctions that were supposed to bring Tehran to heel have instead reinforced narratives of resistance and emboldened regional actors that Washington designates as proxies.

This is where Gaza matters. The devastation of Gaza did not cause Washington’s renewed threats against Iran. It exposed their logic. As Israel flattened an entire population under the language of self‑defense, Iran became the necessary external villain, the shadowy puppeteer blamed for regional resistance movements that are, in reality, rooted in local histories of occupation, dispossession and authoritarian governance.

By framing Iran as the master controller of Hamas, Hezbollah and every act of resistance in the region, Washington absolves Israel of political responsibility and transforms colonial violence into a defensive necessity. Palestinian resistance is stripped of agency, history and political meaning, recast instead as an Iranian export product. This narrative is not merely dishonest. It is strategically convenient.

It also performs a second function. It locks the United States into Israel’s wars, whether Americans want them or not. The influence of pro‑Israel lobbying groups in Washington is not a conspiracy. It is a documented reality. Their power lies not in secret control, but in ideological discipline. United States politicians are permitted to debate tactics, but seldom the premise. They may question Netanyahu’s tone, but never the assumption that Israel’s security overrides all other considerations, including American interests, regional stability or international law.

This discipline explains the eerie bipartisan consensus that emerged even as Gaza descended into mass death. President Trump threatens Iran as a campaign prop while positioning a “massive armada” toward the region in the name of nuclear diplomacy and deterrence. President Biden, on the other hand, maintains a posture of “ironclad” commitment to Israel while condemning some Iranian actions but continuing to supply Israel with sophisticated weaponry even as human rights organizations and international observers increasingly describe Gaza as suffering genocidal violence. Yet the conclusion is identical. Iran must be deterred so Israel can act without restraint.

The result is a policy framework that is both morally bankrupt and strategically incoherent. Iran is more regionally entrenched than ever, precisely because United States pressure has eliminated incentives for moderation. Sanctions have empowered hardliners, not weakened them. Israel, meanwhile, is more diplomatically isolated than at any point since its founding, while American credibility as a defender of international law has collapsed in full view of the Global South. Arab leaders themselves are increasingly public in rejecting the notion that Iran is the principal source of instability in the region. Oman’s foreign minister, for example, declared that Israel, not Tehran, is the chief source of insecurity, a striking departure from decades of Washington‑aligned regional narratives.

And yet Washington persists. The greatest irony is this. The United States claims to fear a regional war with Iran while relentlessly pursuing the policies that make such a war more likely. Sanctions without diplomacy, threats without off ramps, and unconditional support for Israeli violence ensure perpetual escalation. What is presented as deterrence functions in practice as provocation. Iran has publicly warned that any attack on its territory or forces will be treated as an act of war, reflecting the very dynamic Washington claims to want to avoid.

Gaza did not radicalize Iran. Gaza revealed Washington. It revealed a foreign policy establishment incapable of distinguishing between alliance and subservience, between security and impunity. Until the United States confronts the reality that its Iran policy is driven less by strategic calculation than by ideological loyalty to Israel, it will continue sacrificing regional peace and potentially American lives to preserve a collapsing narrative.

And Iran, whatever one thinks of its political system, will remain the enemy not because it is uniquely dangerous, but because it refuses to kneel.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.