June 2025 was witness to the Israel-Iran war that involved Israeli strikes aimed at eliminating Iran’s military and nuclear prowess, and Iranian retaliatory attacks with the purpose of inflicting maximum possible destruction on Israel. The war involved lethal strikes by American weapons on Iranian nuclear reactor sites, followed by an Iranian strike against American bases in Qatar—a scenario coined up for Iran “not to lose face”. Finally, Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire which we hope would prevail despite leaked news of both parties breaching the ceasefire.
It is now time to contemplate and explore the events that led to the war, in an attempt to comprehend its magnitude and learn a few lessons. I believe that no one is better poised to do that than American political scientist and international relations scholar John Mearsheimer, 77, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at University of Chicago. Prof Mearsheimer was recently hosted on Youtube’s Breaking Points, the podcast presented by Krystal and Saagar. Today I present excerpts of the views voiced by the Professor on Breaking Points.
“I think the argument that we have solved the nuclear problem with Iran is wrong, and if anything, it’s more likely than ever that Iran will get nuclear weapons. Almost everybody I know argues that if Iran wants nuclear weapons there’s nothing you can do to prevent them from getting nuclear weapon; they have so much capability, and even if we were to destroy all of the existing facilities, they could rebuild them underneath a bigger mountain and eventually have nuclear weapons.
“To talk about regime change is changing the objective. Trump initially said that this was simply about taking out Iran’s nuclear capability; he probably now realises that we have not done that. So now we’re talking about regime change on the assumption that if we put in a new regime, those new Iranian leaders are not going to want nuclear weapons. This too is delusional. What Iranian in his or her right mind doesn’t want a nuclear deterrent at this point in time? Furthermore, we’re not going to get regime change, in all likelihood if you look at what’s happening inside Iran… People are coming together to support the regime… So I think this is not going to work to cause regime change any more than it’s going to work to eliminate nuclear capability.
“I think this has done great damage to the nuclear proliferation regime with regard to our reputation around the world. I mean the United States is correctly seen as a rogue State. Even in East Asia today, allies like Japan and South Korea are basically condemning us for what we’ve done… First of all the duplicative diplomacy here, and then this idea that we have the right just to run around the world attacking countries whenever we see fit. Furthermore, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the United States is supporting the Israeli genocide in Gaza… America’s reputation is in tatters; sure we’re the most powerful State on the planet, but I think almost everybody outside of Israel and the United States and a few European leaders understand that the United States is basically out of control.
“There’s no question in my mind that the Israelis understood that if they started a war against Iran, the focus would be on Iran especially if they brought the Americans in, and that would leave them free to ramp up the genocide, and possibly drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. It’s very clear that that is their goal… and it’s quite clear to me that starting a major war with Iran goes a long way towards helping them cleanse Gaza.
“American policy makers believe that the principal threat that the United States faces today is from China; China is widely seen as a peer competitor, and the United States has been interested in pivoting to Asia since 2011 when Hillary Clinton who was then Secretary of State said ‘We’re going to pivot to Asia’. But we cannot pivot to Asia in any meaningful way in large part because of the Ukraine war and what’s going on in the Middle East, and if you look at all the naval and air assets that we have in the Middle East now that should be in East Asia, you see that we have greatly weakened our strategic situation in East Asia and we are in a poor position at this point in time for purposes of containing China, this is not in our interest.
“Any policymaker or any politician or aspiring politician who criticises Israel will find out very quickly that that person has the lobby’s gun sight on him or her…The lobby will go to great lengths to destroy that person’s career and make sure that he or she never gets elected to office… If you support Israel hook, line and sinker, you’ll get big-time support from the lobby… If you support Israel, if you back it, and you push the American military to do things that are said to be in Israel’s interest, your job prospects once you retire will be much better. I could go on and on about this, but Israel lobby has enormous influence in the United States.
“I think that Obama fully understood that the lobby was powerful but nevertheless its policies were not good for the United States; he understood that Israel is an albatross around their neck. He would never say that publicly… But he understood that getting a deal with Iran made sense, and he worked overtime to fashion a deal, and had a number of European countries: the French, British and Germans, plus the Russians and Chinese on his side. He was able to barely push through the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action), the nuclear agreement with Iran. But he took tremendous heat along the way from the Israelis and from the lobby. Then when Trump came to power in 2017, he made it clear that he was going to do away with the JCPOA, and of course in the summer of 2018, he walked away from it… Then the Trump administration started dealing with this issue again a few months ago, and Trump himself was talking about working out a deal that looked like JCPOA. Then the lobby moved in unsurprisingly and made it clear to Trump that there was not going to be a deal like JCPOA… In May again, the Trump administration was maintaining ‘we’re going to negotiate with Iran, we’re going to curtail their nuclear weapons programme that’s all we want’… Then they shifted to early June saying ‘no nuclear enrichment’… Witkoff and Trump both did 180-degree turn, said the Iranians cannot have any nuclear enrichment at all which was allowed in the original JCPOA, and the Iranians said that was unacceptable and here we are today. Bottom line is that common sense won a victory during the Obama period, but that was quickly overturned by Trump, then it looked like Trump might win a victory for common sense this time, and it was quickly overturned by the lobby. So, you see the power of the lobby at every turn, it’s almost impossible for a president to have any manoeuvre room when it comes to dealing with issues that are dear to Israel’s heart.”
Watani International
4 July 2025
