On April 8, Associate Professor of History Ahmad Shokr hosted an event addressing American and Middle Eastern political history titled “The Iran War in Context.” To accommodate unexpectedly high attendance, the event was moved from its original location in Old Science Hall 203 to Singer 033.
Shokr began with a twenty-minute introductory lecture before opening the floor to questions from the audience. He stressed that the war in Iran “is a pivotal moment in the history of the United States, the Middle East, and the world” and will potentially “hasten” a shift in the global dynamic of power.
According to Shokr, the Iran war is now “straining” all three pillars upon which the U.S. has based its global dominance since the end of the WWII: military footprint, economic hegemony, and control over oil along with its related revenues.
The first pillar has historically taken the form of hundreds of military bases overseas, military alliances, and the “ability of the U.S. Navy to protect global maritime shipping links.” The second pillar is visible in the reliance of the international economy and “global foreign exchange reserves” on the U.S. dollar, while the third pillar manifests in America’s strategic control over oil resources as it has gradually become the “the most valuable rock commodity in world trade.” Shokr later clarified that these tactics have only developed since 1945, situating the postwar dynamic within the country’s “much longer history of imperial practices.”
U.S. military hegemony is strained by the physical destruction of U.S. military bases in the Middle East, threats of leaving the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), escalated international conflicts, and “failure … to protect the most important energy chokepoint in the world economy.” The petrodollar system, a network of global oil trade and revenues denominated in U.S. dollars and a cornerstone of the U.S. dollar hegemony, is now under pressure since Iran has been using the alternative currency of Chinese yuan. This shift in turn constrains the second pillar — the global dominance of the U.S. dollar. Lastly, the impact of U.S. global control over oil, already in decline due to the gradual substitution of renewable energy, was further undermined by the collapse of petrochemical exports from Gulf countries.
Narrowing his focus to the past five decades in the Middle East, Shokr then provided a framework for understanding how and under what conditions the current war came to be. He asserted that the conflict is a result of two long-term processes: the “long gulf war” (as it has been termed by Rutgers historian Toby Jones) and the “de-regionalization of the Palestinian question.”
The historical origins of the “long gulf war” can be traced back to two major events in the year of 1979 that left lasting impacts on Iran’s international position. The year began with the Iranian Revolution (1978-1979) toppling the“pro-American” Pahlavi monarchy and ended with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan during the Afghan War (1978-92). In response, then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced the Carter Doctrine, which stated that anyone attempting to control the Persian Gulf would be repelled by all means, including military force.
Shokr described the Doctrine as entailing the establishment of permanent U.S. bases, sales of massive weaponry to Gulf states, the influence of petrodollars — as oil is often priced and traded through USD — and military interventions designed to prevent regional leaders from “threatening these arrangements.” This “security architecture” remained in function over the following decades — thus, the term “long Gulf War” — and manifested in various acts of intervention, such as backing Iran in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This system of military and political dominance, Shokr argued, “provided the framework in which Israel has pursued its own regional objectives for years.”
The second process concerns the geopolitical landscape surrounding Palestine. Within two decades following the Nakba (the mass expulsion of Palestinians amid the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948), political and military struggles in Palestine became “by and large, regionally organized.” Shokr characterized this era as one in which Palestinian liberation movements operated under a “framework of Arab unity,” with armed forces receiving direct support from nearby Arab states. This consequently induced a “fairly systematic Israeli effort, often backed by the United States, to neutralize regional states who have shown any kind of opposition to Israel or strong support for Palestine.” Such an effort can be seen in Israel’s relation with nearby Arab states, through events such as the Abraham Accords. When this approach doesn’t work, military actions often ensue, exemplified by Israeli attacks on Iraqi nuclear facilities in the ’80s and ongoing strikes in Lebanon.
Shokr asserted that these two processes had converged in the current turmoil, arguing that Israel sought “regional dominance … within a U.S. security framework … built over the last half century through this process of a long Gulf War.” He referenced a New York Times article that outlined the process behind Trump’s decision to launch the war, with the Israeli government represented by its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu playing a “central role.”
“In doing so, however, Israel may have helped … create the conditions for the erosion of the old U.S. security framework in the Gulf, and it may even soon hit the limits of its own regional ambitions,” Shokr said, while also saying he does not want to “forecast too much into the future.”
Shokr subsequently invited audience members to contemplate a series of questions. Regarding the latest updates on the war, he said the main concern in the short term was whether the two-week ceasefire Iran and the U.S. reached on April 7 would hold. This entailed a range of uncertainties surrounding Israel’s role and influences in the negotiation process, Iran’s level of agency in transforming its political system, and the future of Iranian nuclear programs.
Over the course of the week following Shokr’s talk, a first round of negotiations between the two countries, mediated by Pakistan, occurred and failed to reach an agreement after a 21-hour talk on April 12. As of April 15, an exchange of messages between Iran and the U.S. has been reported, with President Trump indicating an upcoming second round of negotiation. Meanwhile, Israel and the Lebanese government are engaged in a separate series of talks as of April 14, not yet halting their military conflict and not yet yielding any result from the negotiations.
Regarding the longer term, Shokr raised questions about power dynamics in the Middle East. Referring back to his points about U.S. security architecture in the region, he questioned whether that will face a turning point, and even be substituted by another framework. He also raised questions on changes to the U.S. relationship with Israel and other Gulf countries, as well as potential “rifts” among the Gulf countries themselves.
Both sets of questions provoked inquiries into the future of the international geopolitical order. Shokr said, rather than a “global security guarantee, the United States has been acting as a potential liability in the eyes of many of its allies, in the eyes of many of its clients.” The current Iran war, he claimed, reflects to the world that the U.S. is “incapable of serving its principle,” which, previously “for decades … [was to] guarantee maritime shipping lanes.” On the other hand, there are now other emerging global actors, such as Pakistan, which is mediating the current war, and China, who “convinced Iran to accept the ceasefire agreement.” In many ways, a shift in global hegemony from unipolar to multipolar becomes “almost undeniable,” Shokr argued.
“But the real question is, what kind of multipolar world … will emerge in the future,” he added. “Is it going to be a multipolar world of aggression, rivalry, and hyper nationalism, or will it be a multipolar world in which superpowers can agree on a new set of rules that govern their relations and cooperation with each other? Only time will tell.”
Following these questions, Shokr opened the floor for questions and conversation.
The first question was about Iran’s ten points regarding the Strait of Hormuz. Shokr pointed out that global powers likely won’t be able to control the strait given their geographic distance from it. Shokr also pointed out that the strait isn’t closed to the world, but rather it was only closed off to the “Americans and the British.”
While Iran enforced the closing of the strait with military weapons such as drones, a big part of the “blockade” was also due to the war-risk insurance premiums. Ever since the start of the war, they have “suddenly skyrocketed, and none of the ships wanted to take the risk of paying such a high insurance premium without a guarantee that they would be able to pass,” Shokr explained.
Another big concern that Shokr addressed around this time was the idea of sending American soldiers onto Iranian soil. He implored audience members to consider what took place during America’s intervention in Iraq, and how that war has impacted the country’s consciousness of global wars. What was originally major support for the war in Iraq turned into widespread and deep-seated disapproval. Shokr made the claim that if the U.S. were to send soldiers to Iran, where the territory — and the potential battle field — is much larger than Iraq, “it would make the Iraq war look good” by comparison.
In response to a student who asked why all countries should not be allowed “to have nuclear rights,” Shokr cautioned against the assumption that the Iranian government is pursuing it. Shokr noted that under an assessment by the head of the International Atomic Energy, “Iran did not have an active program” working to develop nuclear weapons. To illustrate this even further, Shokr highlighted the three phases — uranium enrichment, weaponization, and test phase — that Iran would have had to go through to get to a threat level. He went on to assert that Iran has consistently made concessions over the past several decades, including reducing their stockpile of uranium to “avert the war.” If they wanted to access their uranium, he said, Iran would have to go through other countries.
Shokr brought up an additional concern — namely, Israel’s role in the conflict while the ceasefire remains in place. Israel was not made aware of the ceasefire “until the last minute,” Shokr said, expressing his concerns that Israel might violate this ceasefire with continued attacks on Lebanon, which Iran interprets as a breach of the truce. Unless the U.S. enforces its powers in this war, he cautioned, it stood to continue a cycle of “rinse and repeat”
The following question concerned the “plight of the Iranian people,” drawing attention to the possibility of the populace overthrowing the government and obtaining more agency. Shokr noted that with external aggression threatening Iranian sovereignty, limited space remained for a popular uprising. If anything, he said, the conflict might have instead “bolstered” support for the government. While it is “hard to measure these numbers [of support rate],” a rising support rate was corroborated by Shokr’s personal conversations with Iranians.
A student then raised a question on whether the signs of dropped oil prices and recovery in the stock market, following the ceasefire, signal a reversible economy. “That ship has long sailed,” Shokr answered, deeming the economic damage of this war as inevitable, only varying in its intensity. J.P. Morgan predicted that waves of supply shocks would continue until the end of the month, he highlighted. “It’s going to affect many other aspects of our lives [aside from higher gas prices].”
The following question returned the conversation to the tension in private institutions with ties to corporations such as Cisco — which provides VPN service to Swarthmore, and is also “named by Iran to be one of the most complicit American companies in this war.” Shokr expanded the scope of such institutions to involve “all sorts of things,” both educational and noneducational. He also stressed that it has become particularly difficult for people to navigate through these institutions.
What is new and especially alarming about the war, Shokr said, is that while “public disapproval of the war is so high [domestically],” public mobilization against the war is surprisingly low.
The last two questions drew focus back to the Middle East. An audience member recalled the previous conversation on Iran’s domestic dynamic, and asked Shokr about his opinion on whether a government is able to sustain regional power if internal legitimacy is close to collapsing. As Shokr affirmed that he does not think any regime could be maintained through mere coercion, the audience member followed up, asking if he would envision any changes to Iran’s political structure with the killing of many of its religious leaders, which the audience member viewed as a main source of oppression within the country.
Shokr offered an alternative view of the Iranian political structure. He described that “different centers of power … [and] organizations” are acting in the country, and most of them are “internally variegated.” Among those, some factions may step into higher power with conditions created by the war — “[but] do I expect that the political system in Iran will remain as competitive as it was in the last twenty years? I don’t think so.”
The last question concerned the regional actor of Ansar Allah in Yemen, more commonly known as the Houthis. Playing a “prominent role” prior to this war, Ansar Allah actively threatened shipping in the Red Sea as a response to the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Shokr described their presence in the current Iran war as limited nevertheless. He speculated that this might be due to the group “primarily being used as a deterrence against Saudi Arabia,” arguing that these dynamics are all part of a “coordinated strategy” between Ansar Allah, Iran, and Hezbollah.
“The thing to start to keep in mind when we watch this war is that, it’s very obvious that one side has been prepared for this war for a long time, [longer] than the other side. Iranians have probably been prepared for the last 30 years. The worst-case scenario for them would be a U.S. ground invasion, most likely from the South, a scenario that they have been actively [planning] for,” Shokr said. “They’ve thought about different possibilities and they’re prepared. I don’t think Trump spent more than three or four weeks planning the attack. And it shows in the ways that the war has played out. ”
