On May 24, Iran rejected President Trump’s most recent false peace proposal, which revealed his misrepresentation of Iran’s stance and highlighted the vast gaps remaining on issues such as nuclear enrichment, control over the Strait of Hormuz, peace in Palestine and Lebanon, lifting of US sanctions, war reparations, and Iran’s $100 billion in frozen assets.
Iran’s demands for a peace deal are firm, responding to the US’s history of using negotiations as a smokescreen for surprise attacks and the facade of one-sided ceasefires crafted with Israeli terms, under which the US and Israel repeatedly disregard and breach all agreed ceasefires, including those currently in place in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
Given that agreements with the United States or Israel lack credibility, it is difficult to envision an arrangement that would truly safeguard Iran from future aggression. Unless US policy undergoes a significant shift, the US and Israel will persist in violating the UN Charter by continuing attacks on Iran regardless of any agreements.
Iran’s most effective defense measures have been to develop strong military deterrents capable of harsh retaliation and to maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz, even at the expense of disrupting global oil and gas markets. The US and Israeli assaults forced Iran to defend itself, igniting a conflict that is altering the dynamics of the Middle East and potentially the wider world.
The United States’ struggles in this war are prompting a reconsideration of the neoconservative strategies it has dogmatically employed since the 1990s. These tactics—sanctions, threats, bombing, killing, destruction, occupation, escalation, and leaving nations embroiled in strife and instability—have been applied across Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Palestine, and Lebanon without ever admitting failure or challenging the narrative of American superiority.
The consistent US disregard for international law that supports this policy seems to block the path to peace in the current global climate. Yet, the collapse of the neoconservative agenda amid the turmoil in the Persian Gulf offers the US and the global community a pivotal moment to recommit to a more peaceful and democratic global order.
Since the Cold War’s conclusion, the United States has effectively exempted itself from myriad treaties, international laws, and agreements governing global relations, starting with the UN Charter, which bans the threat or use of force among nations, and the Geneva Conventions, designed to protect civilians, prisoners-of-war, and wounded military personnel.
These accords were established and universally ratified following World War II to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” as stated in the UN Charter preamble. Upon returning from Yalta in 1945, President Roosevelt told a joint Congress session that the United Nations was being built as a “permanent structure of peace.”
FDR emphasized, “It ought to spell the end of the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries—and have always failed.” He proposed replacing these with a universal organization where all peace-oriented nations could finally unite.
The UN Charter reinforced the longstanding prohibition against international aggression and the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact’s renunciation of war as policy, violations of which led to death sentences for German leaders at Nuremberg for war crimes.
However, bolstered by Western hubris post-Cold War, a new US leadership cohort—figures like Madeleine Albright and Dick Cheney—viewed the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions as hindrances to the expansion of US global influence through extensive and unrestricted military interventions.
Confident that their military supremacy released them from adherence to post-1945 treaties, the US and its allies unleashed armed forces to attack and invade nations, employing torture, rape, and murder of detainees, along with massacring civilians.
US officials assumed their military dominance was so overwhelming that neither the UN, international tribunals, powerful states, nor global populations could hold America accountable for flouting international legal norms governing warfare.
Ironically, and causing great consternation among US leaders, this supposed supremacy and impunity has instead squandered America’s opportunity to enhance the wellbeing of its citizens and those worldwide.
The purportedly unrestricted military freedom gained by rejecting international laws and organizations has proven detrimental. True limitless military dominance does not exist short of a catastrophic nuclear conflict. The belief that America’s vast investments in armaments and warfare would secure decisive victory has turned out to be illusory—as even Trump is discovering.
As Americans critically evaluate global conditions and the conflicts manipulated by warmongers, it becomes clear that war and force do not bring lasting peace or prosperity to the US or others. The more nations targeted by the Pentagon and CIA, the greater the death toll and resource expenditure, fueling worldwide perceptions of the US as a threat to life and future security.
Governments worldwide confront tough decisions about whether to prioritize their people’s needs or acquiesce to the US’s hegemonic and undemocratic demands.
Despite proclaiming itself a beacon of democracy and liberty for 250 years, the United States accelerates its decline by wasting trillions and much of global goodwill on a doomed and costly effort to assert imperial dominance.
When America rose to prominence in the early 20th century, its leaders recognized that blatant imperialism would fail amid widespread efforts for liberation from European colonialism. Thus, FDR and his peers anchored the UN system on sovereign equality among nations, establishing a global framework agreeable to all.
As with any legal and political system, the UN’s success depends on whether the greatest powers accept to abide by the same rules as others. The veto power acts like a “poison pill,” undermining the system, as Albert Camus foresaw when it was introduced in 1945.
Camus wrote in Combat, the clandestine French Resistance newspaper, “If this report is accurate, … it would effectively put an end to any idea of international democracy. The world would be ruled by a directorate of five powers… The Five would thus retain forever the freedom of maneuver that would be forever denied the others.”
Still, the UN has developed the “Uniting For Peace” mechanism, allowing the General Assembly to convene Emergency Special Sessions when the Security Council’s veto blocks action on global crises. This procedure resolved the Suez Crisis in 1956 and has, albeit irregularly and insufficiently, addressed the Palestine crisis since 1997.
Following a General Assembly request in the Emergency Special Session on Palestine, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end immediately. Consequently, the General Assembly passed a resolution demanding Israel terminate its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by September 2025.
Israel has failed to comply, so the General Assembly must consider further measures such as arms embargoes and economic sanctions. The capacity to enforce these exists—it only requires sufficient political resolve.
While the US and Israel continue to perpetrate brutal war crimes, exempting themselves from repercussions, the global community slowly—though far too slowly—is acknowledging the need for collaboration to uphold the “permanent structure of peace” that all nations pledged to maintain, essential to the survival of millions and humanity’s future.
As US leaders come to terms with their inability to dominate the world through coercion, the American public is increasingly recognizing the even greater power they hold: the choice to reject these unlawful conflicts and to champion peace and cooperation with all inhabitants of this shared planet.
Original article: ZNetwork
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