From Imperial Containment to Catastrophe: Why the US-Israeli Strategy Against Iran Collapsed

Bamo Nouri

An award-winning senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of West London, an Honorary Research Fellow at City St George’s, University of London, and a One Young World Ambassador. He is also an independent investigative journalist and writer with interests in American foreign policy and the international and domestic politics of the Middle East. He is the author of Elite Theory and the 2003 Iraq Occupation by the United States.

Inderjeet Parmar

A Professor of international politics and Associate Dean of Research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City, University of London, a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and a columnist at The Wire. He is an International Fellow at the ROADS Initiative think tank, Islamabad, and author of several books including Foundations of the American Century. He is currently writing a book on the history, politics, and powers of the US Foreign Policy Establishment.

Introduction

The military escalation of June 2025 – marked by Israel’s unprovoked and illegal attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and the first-ever direct US military aggression on Iranian soil – exposed the limitations of a decades-long US-Israeli strategy. What began in 1979 as a policy of containment evolved into a hybrid campaign of sanctions, covert action, proxy warfare, and intermittent military pressure, to force regime change. But instead of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program or collapsing the regime, this approach hardened Tehran’s resilience, reinforced its deterrent posture, and entrenched its influence across the region. It has exposed the limits of American empire in the region.

This analysis argues that Washington and Tel Aviv consistently misread the ideological depth and structural entrenchment of the Islamic Republic and its regional alliances, especially the so-called “Axis of Resistance.” While historical US efforts focused on isolation and economic pressure, Israel pursued increasingly aggressive military tactics culminating in the 2025 aggression, an operation premised on flawed assumptions; that dissent would fracture the regime, that Iran’s response would be limited, and that decisive victory was within reach.

The paper explores the failure of this strategic paradigm across three dimensions: the evolution of US-Iran tensions since 1979, Iran’s asymmetric regional strategy anchored in Iraq, and Israel’s 2023–2025 campaign to dismantle Iran’s influence. It concludes that, far from achieving regime change, the confrontation highlighted the limitations of imperial coercion and the enduring strength of Iran’s regional posture, raising important questions about the future of US-Israel strategy in the Middle East.

Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies