Newsletter #11 - CediChronicles
Saluto,
Why did the US attack Iran?
If you read or watch the news, you’ll hear plenty of reasons: US imperialism, stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, a distraction from the Epstein files, or Trump’s reckless personality.
So the aim of this newsletter will not be to reveal the real reason, because there just isn’t one. An event of this scale has more than one cause.
But I still want to help you make sense of those multiple reasons, so the three articles I’ll suggest follow the framework of levels of analysis. This framework, developed by Kenneth Waltz, groups explanations of state behaviour across three levels: the individual, domestic politics, and the international level. Let’s make it concrete with the three articles suggested here:
Trump’s War by The Times
This article argues that contrary to his campaign promises of peace, Trump has pivoted to aggressive military interventionism.
The explanation here is at the individual level: the war is happening because of who Trump is.
How the Iran war exposed cracks in Trump’s Republican coalition by the BBC
This article shows how the war is creating tensions inside the Trump administration, particularly with his MAGA base.
Thus, the explanation here is at the domestic level: foreign policy decisions create winners and losers among an administration, so they fight among themselves to push for their foreign policy preference. (and with the war with Iran, the MAGA base lost)
You can access the article here.
Twice Bombed, Still Nuclear: The Limits of Force Against Iran’s Atomic Program by War on the Rocks
This article tells us that the reason for the war is the Iranian nuclear program. It’s the most commonly cited cause for this war by the US administration, most analysts and IR experts.
The explanation here is at the international level: the war is happening because Iran, with its aggressive regional stance and funding of proxy groups, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.
You can find the article here.
💭 My takeaway from the last two weeks:
The three levels of analysis should help you think more systematically about the reasons you hear in the media landscape.
Now for my take. With the current US administration and Trump being constantly in the news, it can lead us to overestimate his role compared to structural dynamics. Because let’s take a step back and look at confrontations between the US and Iran over the years:
Mossadegh overthrown in 1953
The Islamic Revolution and US hostage crisis in 1979
US support for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)
241 US military personnel killed by Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Beirut in 1983
… I started this wanting to provide you a list of the major confrontations between the two countries, but we are not even past 1983.
So while it's undeniable that Trump played a role, this collision has been building for a long time.
If you only have time for one article, I suggest the one on how military force might not be enough to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
Happy reading,
Dr Cedric Pfanner
PS: The framework comes from Kenneth Waltz’s Man, the State, and War (1959); worth reading if you really want to go deeper.
Also, originally it’s called the three images framework, but got popularised as the three levels framework.