Cycles of Violence: Impact of US Intervention in Overseas Conflicts

Will bombing Iran make Israel safer, America safer, or lead to a further cycle of violence of the nature of October 7th for Israel and 9/11 for America? When Donald Trump first rose to power in 2016, his “America First” doctrine was defined in large part by a vow to disentangle the United States from the costly burdens of global conflict. He decried Washington's role as the world's policeman, denouncing long-term military engagements as “bad deals” for the American taxpayer and vowing to redirect focus inward—toward domestic industry and to securing the southern border. Throughout his presidency and again on the campaign trail in 2024, Trump repeatedly promised swift and sweeping disengagement from foreign entanglements, insisting he could end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours” and bring a resolution to Gaza “within days”, (something that has failed to materialise in both cases with no breakthroughs and diplomatic efforts currently stalling.)

Given the continued support for Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza, recent American airstrikes on Iran alongside Israeli armed forces, far from ending wars, risk deepening existing conflicts and catalysing a potentially broader regional conflict

Following the strikes, the administration stated that the goal had been to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the effectiveness of which has been cast into doubt in recent days. It may also serve to bring both Israel and Iran to the table for a negotiated settlement (which analysts expect would be much like the one President Trump rescinded in 2018).¹ However, the evidence suggests that American intervention in foreign conflicts since the Second World War has not (generally) lead to their quick resolution.² Moreover, it has often further exacerbated the repeating cycles of violence that these conflicts have given rise to, pointing to the limits of American military power as a means for achieving political goals.

This month’s Sign of the Times examines America’s military involvement in key post-war conflicts, drawing the lessons from these to point to indicate whether American involvement results in breaking or perpetuating cycles of violence, and draws on the consequences for America’s homeland.

Recent Events: A Policy Reversal or Merely Adventurism?

The U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan represent perhaps the biggest reversal of Donald Trump’s presidency and have bitterly divided many of his most ardent supporters.³ Since assuming office in January of this year the president clearly seemed to want a negotiated settlement to Iran’s nuclear program, with the US leading multiple rounds of negotiation with Iran on limiting its nuclear program to civilian purposes. The president is known to change his position on topics both domestic (going from a promise to eliminate the national debt “over a period of eight years” to increasing it by US$3.8 trillion with the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’),⁴ and foreign (going from threatening North Korea with annihilation to ‘falling in love’ with Kim Jong Un).⁵ However, the decision to militarily intervene in support of Israel’s operation, Rising Lion, to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities appears to run counter to or risk one of Trump’s longest standing beliefs, the extraction of America from foreign military commitments as an imperative. Given the centrality of this objective to Trump’s America First doctrine, and the apparent depth of this conviction (based on the length and frequency of its restatement), the decision to deploy US arms calls for a reassessment of the president’s ostensible objectives.

While it is impossible to know all the reasons for the president’s decision, there are a couple of facts that stand out. First, the president has found that making international peace deals has proven to be Making international peace deals has proven to be much more difficult than the president has claimed, as evidenced by the lack of progress on Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, and Iran’s nuclear program. much more difficult than he said it would be, as evidenced by the lack of progress on Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, and indeed Iran’s nuclear program. Second, the sixty-day negotiation ultimatum given to Iran has run out exactly at a time when international public opinion has swung to doubting the president’s ability to deliver to the agenda he lays out, (acronym “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) being an expression of that).⁶ Third, Israel’s Operation Rising Lion has proven to provide it with establishing aerial supremacy in Iran for now, executing multiple strikes on infrastructure and killing major political, security and scientific figures in Iran.

Taken together these factors may well have overcome the president’s commitment not to get involved. To date American action has been limited to airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, which was followed by what appears to be a pre-declared and therefore symbolic retaliatory attack by Iran on the “I was elected on getting out of these ridiculous endless wars.”
US President Donald Trump, 9 Oct. 2019 US base in Qatar, while Israel and Iran have continued to trade attacks on each other, despite an ostensibly agreed ceasefire. Currently, it remains unclear whether the US strikes have ‘obliterated’ Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium as the White House has claimed.⁷ What is further unclear is the ultimate purpose of US strikes, whether the goal was the actual complete destruction of Iran’s capabilities, or even the regime change being championed by Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu, and/or simply to force Iran to the negotiating table on nuclear control. Either way, it is unlikely that the president is seeking a prolonged engagement with Iran, preferring to act, declare victory, and move on.

Stepping back, historically, US involvement in overseas conflicts has rarely been short and sharp. Rather than leading to their quick resolution, American intervention has often driven further cycles of violence, prolonging these conflicts and requiring further US commitments to manage, while often failing to achieve the goals that prompted the original intervention in the first place. The exception that proved the rule are the First and Second World Wars, where American intervention was a critical factor in the resolution of the conflict, regime change, restructuring and refunding the post-war societies.. However, America’s success in these two great wars might well also have bred the myth of an infallible and undefeatable United States with a mandate and capability to engage across the world with hard power wherever it deemed necessary.

Cycles of Violence: US Involvement in Overseas Conflicts

America has historically intervened in overseas interstate and intrastate conflicts for both tactical and strategic reasons. Key among these are America’s own immediate national security interests. Notwithstanding Henry Kissinger’s assertion that “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only Will bombing Iran make Israel safer, America safer, or lead to a further cycle of violence of the nature of October 7th for Israel and 9/11 for America? interests”, these interests continue to evolve over time. Forged during the Cold War, the height of American political doctrine on containment⁸ defined its security interests broadly and was prepared to enforce these with military action. Core interests include defending the homeland against physical and cyber-attacks, securing borders, critical infrastructure, and supply chains, protecting the U.S. economy from malign foreign influence, , and securing access to natural resources and strategic materials, among others. America has deemed interventions in foreign conflicts necessary when they directly threaten these interests, whether at home or abroad (in the form of trade routes, alliances or overseas military bases).

On a strategic level, the US has also intervened in foreign conflicts in pursuit of grand strategy, a comprehensive, long-term plan to not only achieve national objectives but to pursue ideological goals, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”
US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger with America acting in a clearly defined global role. American grand strategy too has evolved over time, shifting from containment of the USSR in during the Cold War, to the War on Terror after 9/11, and more recently on Great Power competition with China. Reasons for intervening in foreign conflicts historically have included counter influence from rivals like the USSR or China or supporting the rules-based international order.

These evolving tactical and strategic priorities have provided the basis for America’s intervention in foreign conflicts since the end of the Second World War. Examining conflict zones highlights a series of sobering facts. Firstly, in each of these cases American involvement has neither led to a resolution of the conflict, nor in many cases achieved America’s own primary objectives. Instead, these conflicts have continued to propagate repeated cycles of violence, often with no realistically achievable end in sight. Further, America’s initial intervention in most cases escalated into deeper, longer, or more costly commitments, creating mission creep much like it experienced in Vietnam, where an initial cadre of military advisors to assist South Vietnam against communist insurgents ballooned into the deployment of over half a million US troops.

The four ongoing overseas conflict zones with American involvement including the following¹:

¹For the purposes of illustration, the Israel-Hamas conflict since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza has been listed separately from the wider Palestine conflict.

Several key observations arise from American involvement in these conflicts:

• The Cyclical Nature of Violence in Conflicts is Deeply Rooted. The cyclical nature of violence in intractable conflicts stems from a set of deeply rooted factors: core issues that cannot be solved by force, patterns of tit-for-tat retaliation, historical narratives steeped in victimhood and trauma, and rigid ideological worldviews. These conflicts cannot be settled with a simple negotiation or ‘deal’ because they are often not just about territory or terms, but about identity, history, and meaning.

• US Faith in Hard Power Drives Overcommitment. America’s possession of global military supremacy, and its ability to (in theory) rapidly overwhelm any adversary drives it decisions to and the manner of its intervention in foreign conflicts.³⁰ However, military interventions alone remain insufficient to resolving these conflicts, and often ignite a renewed cycle of violence, leaving the US committed as a participant and exposed to the risk of further violence to itself.

• Victory in Conflicts is Declared Prematurely, with Goals Remaining Unachieved. US interventions have too often focused on highly tactical short-term actions to achieve long-term strategic results, with victory often being declared at the completion of the actions, rather than upon the achievement of the results that they alone cannot bring about.³¹ Root causes, well analysed and understood by its academics, do not make their way into its intervention strategies.

• US Interventions Lack Long-Term Planning and Multi-dimensional Power Deployment. Many US interventions lack a coordinated strategy that integrates military force with the diplomatic engagement, economic investment, and social engagement required to resolve long-standing conflicts, working with national and institutional partners to secure long term stability. This leaves America with the risk of a longer-term retaliation, which it sees as disconnected from its own actions.³²

• Regime Change Remains Highly Complex and Difficult to Achieve. America’s track record in executing regime changes since the Second World War remains poor, given that military superiority doesn’t guarantee lasting political outcomes, toppling regimes without a plan creates long-term instability and power vacuums, and new regimes require significant political, financial and military support that American taxpayers are reluctant to give. Many of today’s wars have been credited with prior American involvement in some form of regime change in some form.³³ Periphery Wars are Expensive in Terms of US Power, Dollars, Time, Lives and Yield. The relationship between the great power of the day and its allies at the ‘periphery’ is considered an important determinant of its power.³⁴ It raises the question of not only over-stretch, which is clear in the discord within MAGA ranks, but also whether a superpower is in charge of itself and its allies or the other way around. The latter has become a contentious issue of importance to the future relationship between America and Israel, with critics questioning whether America or Israel is in charge of American Middle East policy.³⁵

These same factors have time and again contributed to what are ultimately perceived as failures of US foreign policy, be it the Vietnam War, the deployment of troops in Somalia, or the US led NATO intervention in Libya, all which failed to achieve their goals as well as triggered further violence on the ground. Of course, not all US interventions in overseas conflicts are failures and some, like the NATO operation in Serbia and Kosovo have successfully broken cycles of violence and created enduring states of peace.

Conclusion: Breaking the Cycle: The Need for Long-Term Engagement

What does good look like in terms of interventions that break, rather than propagate the cycle of Intra-state cycles of violence driven by ethnic, sectarian, or ideological divisions can be particularly violent and brutal, but they can also be broken, even after decades of strife violence in conflicts? “Good” in this context meaning efforts that are not merely reactive but entail comprehensive approaches that over time address the root causes of conflict. This requires long-term and multidimensional engagement, in which hard power coercion may play a role, but is ideally a highly limited one. As Sun Tzu pointed out, the greatest strategies in history were those that no one know about since they were forestalled by diplomacy and intrigue.

Intra-state cycles of violence, often driven by ethnic, sectarian, or ideological divisions, and involving non-state actors, can be particularly violent and brutal, but they can also be broken, even after decades, as can interstate conflicts between deeply entrenched sovereign opponents, who will always seek to defend themselves against perceived threats and pursue their national interests. The exact blueprint required to solve any one conflict is of course unique, but several prominent cases point to the key elements of the approach required.

Ultimately, breaking entrenched cycles of violence demands a sustained commitment that extends well beyond ceasefires and treaties; it requires the patient alignment of security, politics, economics, and social reconciliation over years, often decades. Only such long-term, multidimensional engagement can convert fragile truces into durable, self-reinforcing peace. The alternative is repeating cycles of conflict, waxing and waning based on events, but over time coalescing into a forever war, with neither side ever winning and neither side being defeated, locked in perpetual conflict.³⁶

American Intervention in Iran-Israel Conflict in Context

The complex roots of conflict

The conflict between Iran and Israel is both long-standing and deeply entrenched, going back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Since this time Iran has called for the elimination of the Israel in a complex conflict grounded in religion, ideological opposition to Zionism and Iranian support for Palestine, regional rivalry and encirclement fears (on both sides), and Iranian opposition to what it deems as Western Imperialism. For much of this period, Iran has fought with the use of regional proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen, who have waged asymmetric war against Israel.³⁷

But the conflict has also involved direct confrontation between the parties, particularly given Iran’s ongoing nuclear ambitions and efforts, which Israel has sought to curtail with periodic pre-emptive strikes on Iranian facilities and leaders, leading to violent reprisals from Tehran. Significantly, however the casualty toll of the conflict remains substantially lower than in most other regional conflicts. However, the most recent strikes on nuclear facilities have been heavily criticised by the IAEA given their potential implications for nuclear safety, security and safeguards, as well as regional and international peace and security.³⁸ Further, their legitimacy has further been put into doubt by recent declarations by the US intelligence community that there was no evidence that Iran currently had a nuclear weapons programme³⁹, despite Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu warning of an imminent threat from an Iranian nuclear bomb for more than 30 years.⁴⁰

Merely an episode, not an endpoint

The recent U.S. and Israeli airstrikes are merely the latest episode in a long-running cycle of “Nothing we do should lead to the heightening of tensions and the rekindling of political conflicts …”
Nelson Mandela, Launch of Truth and Reconciliation commission, 1995, Session of South African Parliament confrontation. While the newly agreed ceasefire appears to be holding, a lasting peace, particularly in a conflict where the U.S. is deeply entangled, will require far more than the destruction of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Although Iran’s military capabilities may have been temporarily degraded, they are likely to be rebuilt over time. Moreover, Tehran retains a range of retaliatory options, from closing the Strait of Hormuz to engaging in asymmetric warfare through regional proxies or sponsoring attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets. In this context, de-escalation and a return to diplomacy remain the most viable path toward durable stability, which the UN Security Council and countries in the region, among other, have called for⁴¹.

Path ahead remains to be addressed

Iran, and every regime in the world that fears American power, might well have concluded that their long-term security relies on the possession of nuclear weapons capabilities.

At a minimum, the international system will need to guard against advanced proliferation. For Iran, a Iran, and every regime in the world that fears American power, might well have concluded that their long-term security relies on the possession of nuclear weapons capabilities. renewed and more resilient version of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which curbed Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, will be essential to prevent further escalation. A new deal will need to incorporate stronger verification mechanisms and clearer pathways for economic reintegration, giving Iran tangible incentives to limit its nuclear ambitions. Unlike its predecessor, any future agreement would have greater ability to survive were it to be multilaterally guaranteed and include the backing of key global powers, not just the U.S. and Europe, but also China and India, (and potentially Russia) which hold American interventions abroad have resulted in attacks, often decades in the making, on America assets and American citizens overseas significant economic leverage with Iran and could play an important role in sustaining diplomatic momentum. Their inclusion would lend the agreement greater legitimacy (and may make it harder for any one party (e.g. America’s president) to unilaterally walk away, as happened in 2018). While such a comprehensive multi-lateral deal would be complex and time-consuming to negotiate, it offers the best chances of preventing further outbreaks of violence between Iran and Israel.

Ultimately, the question arises whether a lasting peace can ever be possible without addressing the root causes of the issue. On the one hand, the prospects for regime change in Iran, whether through internal uprising, elite fracture, or external pressure, remain highly uncertain and, in the near term, relatively low. On the other hand, the facts would suggest that the ability of American hard power, at least in its current mode, to resolve a situation remains low too. Further, the current administration’s ongoing failure to broker peace deals across conflicts in the Middle East and Europe indicates that its transactionalist approach to foreign relations is also not yielding the results it has hoped for. Achieving more than temporary ceasefires in conflicts will therefore likely require multi-faceted and long-term engagement in what has been termed a comprehensive peace offensive.⁴²

Consequences for America

The question of whether President Trump’s actions in Iran will make Israel safer, America safer, or lead to a further cycle of violence with features such as October 7^th for Israel and 9/11 for America is an important one. Case history of previous wars suggest that there is no killing without consequence. The consequences are manifold for America itself, and hard costs include the loss of lives, the direct cost of weapons donated and used, the disruption to the non-military aspects of its economy, the psychological cost of war to its combatants and people. The soft, and just as real, costs include a loss of its soft power and diplomatic influence over others and a decline in respect for its effectiveness. In addition, it has resulted in attacks, sometimes decades in the making, to America and Americans.⁴³ 9/11 is seen as an attack whose root causes go back 20 years to America’s support for the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan,⁴³ but there are many other examples as the table below indicates:

Sources: U.S. State Department Archive (2001); Global Terrorism Database (START, University of Maryland), US Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice, National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)

For President Trump, the lead up and aftermath exhibited a division in the ranks of his supporters who saw a betrayal in becoming engaged in a foreign conflict. Two of the most powerful influencers, Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, engaged in discussion called against the adventurism of American engagement and feared it would derail the MAGA agenda. While this may be welcome to political adversaries, it points to the domestic political cost of embroilment.

A transactional approach to resolution of conflicts in isolation does not seem to have yielded results in numerous entrenched conflicts. It has resulted in deepened divides and ‘forever wars’. The overriding conclusion that war is an ineffective mechanism for resolving issues, and reflects a failure of diplomacy and strategy, with negative consequences for all parties involved, should lead to the lessons of successful resolution of conflicts through other means. These forever wars suggest that all violent options have been exhausted, and war continues, calling for the need to try peace.

The Leader: Endnotes

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2. Kavanagh, J., Frederick, B., Stark, A., Chandler, N., Smith, M. L., Povlock, M., Davis, L. E., & Geist, E. (2019) Characteristics of successful U.S. military interventions (RAND Research Report No. RR 3062 A). RAND Corporation. Retrieved from

3. Sources: Carlson, T. [@TuckerCarlson]. (2025, June 17). Tucker and Steve Bannon respond to Israel’s war on Iran and how it could destroy MAGA forever [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/tFM6L6TopsM

4. Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. (2025, May ?) CBO estimates $3 trillion of debt from House‐passed OBBBA. Retrieved from https://www.crfb.org/blogs/cbo-estimates-3-trillion-debt-house-passed-obbba

5. Rampton, R. (2018, September 30). ‘We fell in love’ – Trump swoons over letters from North Korea’s Kim. Reuters. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/world/we-fell-in-love-trump-swoons-over-letters-from-north-koreas-kim-idUSKCN1MA03L

6. Armstrong, R. (2025, May 2). Taco trade theory and the US market’s surprise comeback. Financial Times. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/e81ae481-fbb6-47e7-bd6b-c7d76ca5ab69

7. Financial Times. (2025, June 26). Early intelligence suggests Iran’s uranium largely intact, European officials say. Financial Times. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/0808eeb8-341c-4a4e-8ccf-0db07febef91

8. Kennan, G. F. (1946, February 22). Long telegram from the chargé in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the Secretary of State (No. 511). Retrieved June 27, 2025, from National Security Archive, George Washington University website.

9. Masters, J., & Merrow, W. (2024, May 31). U.S. aid to Israel in four charts. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

10. ibid

11. United Nations. (n.d.). Security Council documentation (quick search). UN. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from https://research.un.org/en/docs/sc/quick

12. O’Dell, H. (2023, December 12). How much financial assistance has the US given Palestinian territories? Global Affairs. Retrieved from https://globalaffairs.org/commentary-and-analysis/blogs/how-much-financial-assistance-has-us-given-palestinian-territories?utm_source=chatgpt.com

13. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (2023, November 7). Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel: Flash Update #32. https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-32

14. United States Congress. (2024). H.R. 8034 – Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024. Congress.gov. Retrieved [today’s date], from https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8034https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2023/2024/Costs of War_US Support Since Oct 7 FINAL v2.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

15. Stone, M. (2025, February 28). U.S. State Department okays potential sale of munitions to Israel for estimated$2.7 billion. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-state-dept-okays-potential-sale-munitions-israel-estimated-27-bln-2025-02-28/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

16. World Bank. (2025, February 18). New report assesses damages, losses, and needs in Gaza and the West Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2025/02/18/new-report-assesses-damages-losses-and-needs-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank

17. Wright, L. (2011, May 8). The Double Game. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/05/16/the-double-game

18. Mohammad Yousaf, Mark Adkin: The Battle for Afghanistan. Barnsley 2007, S. 116–118

19. U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2010, May 5) Afghanistan’s security environment (GAO Report No. GAO 10 613R). Retrieved from https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-10-613r

20. Government Accountability Office. (2021, February 9). U.S. spending on Afghanistan reconstruction at risk of fraud, waste, and abuse. Retrieved from https://www.gao.gov/blog/u.s.-spending-afghanistan-reconstruction-risk-fraud%2C-waste%2C-and-abuse

21. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. (n.d.). Drone Strikes in Afghanistan. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war/afghanistan

22. The Costs of War Project. (n.d.). The Costs of War Project. Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/

23. U.S. Government Accountability Office. (1991, September 24). Operation Desert Shield/Storm: Costs and funding requirements (GAO Report No. NSIAD 91 304). Retrieved from https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-91-304.pdf

24. Pike, J. (2011, July 5). Operation Southern Watch. GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/southern_watch.htm

25. Belasco, A. (2009, July 2). Troop levels in the Afghan and Iraq wars, FY2001–FY2012: Costs and other potential issues (Congressional Research Service Report No. R40682). Retrieved from https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R40682.pdf

26. World Bank. (2020). Iraq: Reconstruction and investment (Country Economic Memorandum). World Bank. Retrieved from https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/846201597292562703/pdf/Iraq-Reconstruction-and-Investment.pdf

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29. Lopez, C. T. (2024, September 9). U.S.–Iraq higher military commission continues talks on security cooperation. U.S. Department of Defense. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3900019/us-iraq-higher-military-commission-continues-talks-on-security-cooperation/

30. Freedman, L. D. (2025, April 14). The age of forever wars: Why military strategy no longer delivers victory. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/age-forever-wars

31. An example is President George W Bush’s “mission accomplished” speech on May 1, 2003, six weeks after the invasion of Iraq, given the extensive counterinsurgency, nation building and reconstruction efforts that were still required

32. Public discourse in the US for example has tended to isolate 9/11 as a standalone event, obscuring the connection to earlier U.S. Cold War strategies. Jackson, Richard (2005). Writing the War on Terrorism. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

33. Downes, A. B., & Monten, J. (2012, September 1). Why foreign-imposed regime change is rarely a path to democracy (Policy Brief). Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/why-foreign-imposed-regime-change-rarely-path-democracy

34. Hirsh, M. (2024, October 2). Can the U.S. still prevent an all-out Middle East war? As Israel plans its response to Iran, Biden is attempting a diplomatic Hail Mary. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/10/02/israel-iran-hezbollah-war-us-leverage-biden/ Walt, S. M. (2024, March 21). The United States has less leverage over Israel than you think: A close look at the foundations of U.S. influence—and the lack of it. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/21/us-israel-leverage-biden-netanyahu/

35. Pangambam, S. (2025, June 5). Jeffrey Sachs: Is the US subordinated to Israel? (Transcript). The Singju Post. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from https://www.singjupost.com/prof-jeffrey-sachs-is-the-us-subordinated-to-israel-transcript/

36. Orwell, G. (1949). 1984. London: Secker & Warburg

37. U.S. Department of State. (2023) Country reports on terrorism 2023. https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2023/

38. International Atomic Energy Agency. (2025, June 13). Statement on the situation in Iran. IAEA. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/statement-on-the-situation-in-iran-13-june-2025

39. Megerian, C., & Klepper, D. (2025, June 18). US spies said Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon. Trump dismisses that assessment. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/gabbard-trump-intelligence-iran-nuclear-program-51c8d85d536f8628870c110ac05bb518

40. The history of Netanyahu’s rhetoric on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. (2025, June 18). Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/6/18/the-history-of-netanyahus-rhetoric-on-irans-nuclear-ambitions

41. United Nations. (2025, June 24) UN urges renewed diplomacy on Iran nuclear deal. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164901

42. Kiniger-Passigli, D. (2024, July 31). Time for a peace offensive. Cadmus Journal. https://www.cadmusjournal.org/article/volume-9/issue-2/time-peace-offensive

43. Cook, R (2005, July 8) The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/jul/08/july7.uksecurity