Former Iranian nuclear negotiating adviser Seyed Mohammad Marandi has accused Washington of pursuing a war of economic asphyxiation against Tehran through improvised strategy shifts.
Speaking in an interview with academic Glenn Diesen, Marandi stated that the United States lacks a coherent foreign policy framework and instead advances through constant improvisation in its ongoing pressure campaign against Iran.
Marandi served as an adviser to Iran during multilateral nuclear negotiations in Vienna. Diesen is a Norwegian professor of political science at the University of South-Eastern Norway who specializes in Eurasian geopolitics and international relations.
According to analysis published on August 25, 2026, by Swiss-based commentator Iscánder Santana, Western governments have portrayed Iran as the primary villain in the Middle East for decades to justify sanctions, isolation, and indirect military pressure.
Santana noted that the dominant narrative in Western capitals rejects any nation that challenges external dictates while preserving its own sovereign political project.
Western Sanctions and Selective Diplomacy
The Western foreign policy establishment routinely promotes democracy, human rights, and universal values, but acts under a highly selective logic when applying those principles abroad.
Western leaders support aligned governments while condemning geopolitical rivals, assigning moral labels according to strategic convenience. Under this pattern, nations including Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, China, and Iran are categorized together despite having vastly different political and economic realities.
Attempting to impose liberal democracy by decree without understanding the internal history and governance of individual societies has proven to be a major failure of modern empires.
Collapse of the End of History Theory
The global geopolitical shift has disproved the end of history thesis popularized by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama. Fukuyama argued in his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man that Western liberal democracy represented the final form of human government.
International relations have instead returned to an era marked by armed conflicts, economic sanctions, power rivalries, and growing multipolarity. The global order no longer revolves around a single center of power, creating strategic anxiety in Western capitals that respond with increased coercion and propaganda.
Strait of Hormuz and Regional Security
Tensions surrounding Iran extend beyond bilateral financial sanctions into vital maritime trade routes. The Strait of Hormuz remains a critical chokepoint for global energy supplies, connecting crude oil exporters in the Persian Gulf to international markets.
Oman continues to act as a key mediator in regional maritime security negotiations. Meanwhile, the Houthi movement in Yemen exerts persistent pressure on commercial shipping lanes and infrastructure across the Red Sea and the Gulf.
These factors have transformed regional friction into an interconnected web of risk where energy markets, commercial trade, and global security continually overlap.
Political Fractures and Corruption in Ukraine
A similar pattern of prolonged conflict eroding internal stability is unfolding in Ukraine. Tensions have emerged over calls for new elections raised by Ukraine's former defense minister, which drew a direct response from President Volodymyr Zelensky.
At the same time, investigative records from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, known as NABU, demonstrate that high-level corruption investigations continue to reach close to the center of government power.
NABU was established in 2015 as an independent agency responsible for investigating official corruption among Ukrainian state officials. The ongoing war has exacerbated underlying political and institutional strains rather than suppressing them.
Risks of Global Escalation
Current geopolitical instability poses a severe danger of cascading escalations across multiple flashpoints, including Ukraine, the Middle East, the Red Sea, and the Strait of Hormuz. The international order faces growing volatility as major powers normalize sanctions, economic coercion, and threats as standard diplomatic tools.
Santana concluded that the hegemonic order faces systemic crisis because Western powers attempted to govern global affairs through moral superiority, ultimately multiplying conflicts when non-conforming nations resisted.
