The Tension Between the Geopolitical and the Political in the Iran War
The agreement reached Sunday between Iran and the United States does not end the war. It is essentially a 60-day ceasefire agreement, during which the major issues of the war will be negotiated. There are two dimensions that will determine the success of these negotiations. One is the ability of the two sides to reach accommodation. The other is the willingness of the public in general, and of factions within each country, to resume the war if talks fail. The degree of national solidarity concerning a war always affects the outcome, but in this case, it is fundamental.
Three nations are involved in this war: the United States, Iran and Israel. The negotiations during the ceasefire will be heavily influenced by internal politics, with each nation having internal divisions, all of different natures and pointing in different directions.
In the United States, the disagreement over the wisdom of the war, and the economic price being paid, is substantial. The justification was based on Iran’s nuclear program. However, many in the Republican Party saw the war as a violation of the principles that President Donald Trump ran on in his election campaign, namely no more of the endless wars the United States has fought over the past 80 years. Other Republicans agreed that the war was worth fighting to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Democrats opposed the war essentially because of their loathing of Trump. Some of the war’s critics in both parties were of the belief that it was not in the American interest but was being fought because of Israeli influence on Trump. And many became hostile to the war when the economic cost, specifically rising oil prices, began to be felt. At this point, with the details of Iran’s nuclear program – the fundamental reason given for the war – still to be negotiated, and with public pressure on Trump and threats to Republicans’ control of Congress, the president is in a difficult negotiating position.
In Israel, the war was fought for two reasons. One was the threat of Iran’s nuclear power. The other was Iran’s support and funding of non-state Islamic forces, primarily Hezbollah. Therefore, Israel’s objective in the war has been to bring about the collapse of the Iranian regime. In October 2024, Israel invaded Lebanon, where large Hezbollah forces are deployed, in an attempt to destroy the group. The U.S.-Iran ceasefire covers Lebanon, which the Israelis have refused to accept to this point, given that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees Hezbollah as a fundamental threat to Israel. This has led to a possible breach with the United States in the coming negotiations. For Israel, loss of American support would be dangerous, if not catastrophic, but the same could be said of prematurely ending the war with Hezbollah. There is already significant opposition in Israel to Netanyahu, and the possibility that he might risk a significant break with the United States is generating even greater hostility. This leaves Netanyahu in a tough position, one that might end his political career.
Iran itself is in a difficult internal position. The massive anti-government demonstrations before the war began revealed significant and widespread hostility to the government. The real government of Iran is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which brutally suppressed the demonstrators. But now the IRGC itself also seems significantly divided between those who are willing to reach any agreement with the United States, however limited, and those who see this as a betrayal of the fundamental principles that guide them. It is harder to see the relative strength of these two factions than it is to see the divisions in the U.S. and Israel, but they are there, since the faction that put down the demonstrations clearly has different values from the one willing to reach a ceasefire with the United States and negotiate.
In conflicts where the population is deeply divided, the ability to continue to wage war is limited. At this point, it would seem that all three combatant nations have deep political divides. Therefore, the geopolitical dimension – the force that drives nations to make wars and end them – is in all three nations facing powerful internal political forces that could reshape geopolitical considerations. Is the U.S. demand for an end to Iran’s nuclear program – a geopolitical imperative – stronger than the domestic political reality? Is Israel’s geopolitical need to destroy Hezbollah greater than its geopolitical need for close American ties, and which is more important to its citizens? Does the geopolitical need for Iran to be more secure as a nuclear power outweigh the ideological divisions of the nation – both between the IRGC and the population, which has shown its hostility to the regime, and between the IRGC faction that wants to continue the war and the faction that, fearing defeat, wants to end it?
A geopolitical analysis of this particular war must face the political reality inside each nation. Internal politics will heavily influence each nation’s policies and strategies. In an effort to manage internal dissent, each side will say things that force the other two to respond – a dynamic that undermines the negotiation process. This might mean that accommodation by all sides is impossible, but given the dynamics and unpredictability of the political dimension, it may well make a stable solution. Whereas geopolitical considerations are easier to predict, political outcomes are more unreliable, especially since all three countries are increasingly divided politically. We are in a strange moment when the needs of all three nations are in flux and decision-making is being shaped by the dissonance among their respective elites.