Heg unsustainable. Current strategic rivalry with Iran proves that attempts to maintain dominance exacerbates conflict and fuels broader global instability.

Based on the NSS, the United States is actively engaged in a strategic rivalry with Iran, Russia, and China. Such rivalry revolves around the zero-sum nature of power, influence, and resources. “[Further,] pairs of states regard each other as significant threats to goal attainment. There are two main types of dyadic situations at this end of the continuum. Dyads encompass either roughly comparable states or circumstances in which one of the rules is much more potent than the other.”15 The strategic rivalry is intensified by the weakening international system and dominant power. Among the intense conflict zones around the world, perhaps the most intense is where Iran and the United States face off against one another in the Middle East. There is a dyad. One direction is between equal powers (US-Russia and China), and the other is between unequal forces when one is more potent than the other. In the US-Iranian strategic competition, the United States is powerful, Iran less so. Two different events signal the end of a hegemonic era and a return to power politics: (1) the appearance of the new powers that want to ensure their interest within the international system, and (2) the fact hegemonic power is not able to maintain hegemonic stability. (It is essential to mention that some scholars attribute hegemonic stability to nuclear power parity, while others credit stability to the distribution of power among states.16) I use “hegemonic stability” in the context of a power capable of maintaining relative peace by containing challenging forces on the scene that the system of hegemonic stability has weakened. We are facing the fact that there are strategic rivalries erupting all over the world. Some powers are trying to challenge US hegemonic power, such as China, Russia, Iran, and Turkey and to some extent Brazil and India. Haass has described this era as a “trend towards disorder that has been a function of structural changes in the international system.” Further, he described diffusion of capacity that presents challenges such as “the actual and potential spread of nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems, terrorism, a spike in the numbers of refugees and displaced persons, a chaotic Middle East, a Europe under siege, a precariously balanced Asia-Pacific, mostly ungoverned cyberspace, an inadequate response to climate change, a growing rejection of free trade and immigration, and the potential pandemic that could cost many millions of lives.”17 Ian Bremmer has called this era one of “Geopolitical Creative Destruction.”18 Creative destruction is an economic theory introduced by the famous Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter. He contended that the opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation. . . that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, destroying the old one, and creating a new one.19 Both Haas and Bremmer are conveying the same message. Haas talked about the “difficulties of protecting the unipolar system if the United States cannot impose order. . . . [N]o country can contend with global challenges on its own given the very nature of these challenges.”20 Haas describes the world based on the assumption that the United States will assume the CEO position in close relations with other powers to maintain global law and order while US power goes unchallenged. However, it seems Haas was not concerned about the future institutions of the new order. For his part, Bremmer accepted the idea of a unipolar world while paying closer attention to forming the new order’s institutions. Many people may ask themselves why the US global (unipolar) position has weakened. There are many explanations why we are witnessing the gradual deterioration of the old order: Japan’s economic malaise and crises in Europe including the 2016 Brexit vote; each complicated by the 2008 economic collapse that limited US financial power.21 The question is, what type of world do we intend to build? There are at least two options on the horizon: unipolar versus multipolar global systems. The United States, as the only superpower, is trying to preserve the world order in a manner wherein the United States maintains economic and military hegemony at the global level (unilateral system). However, other forces favor the multipolar system, which allows them to have an equal footing within the international system (multiple centers). For instance, the National Intelligence Council, a US government think tank, projects that “by 2025, China and India will have the world’s second- and fourth-largest economies, respectively. . . . [U]nless rising powers such as China and India are incorporated into this framework, these international regimes’ future will be uncomfortably uncertain.”22 It is crucial to understand Drezner correctly. He sounded alarmed in 2007 regarding incorporating China and India in US-led international organizations as the only way to preserve the status quo and US global superiority. In 2021, 8 China is not fully incorporated within those US-led international organizations. In contrast, China is taking entirely different routes by collaborating with Russia on economic, military, or security issues. India is indecisive at best, which eventually will damage the US position as the sole superpower sooner or later. It is essential to mention that China has agendas as a rising superpower. India’s economy is performing better, but India is not yet the next rival. Both countries have large merchant navies and ocean access, but at the same time they face severe strategic competition on the seas. Both countries’ naval power is not enough to protect them in the long run. Consequently, they have to solve two different problems. First, they have to increase naval power, which is not an easy task, and it will take decades to prepare adequate naval forces. Second, the United States Navy can potentially limit both countries’ economic growth by blocking merchant ships or their navies’ access to the sea. The question does not end at China or India’s unwillingness to be part of US-led international organizations: the United States cannot ignore Iran and its future within the global system. Iran plays a crucial role in providing access to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and vice versa. Consequently, the future of a unipolar versus multipolar global system will be determined in Iran. The battle is not about capital or resources; the primary struggle is land access to important population centers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. This land access provides for the free flow of capital and resources into China, Russia, and India. In the Middle East, perhaps one of the most organized countries with some power capabilities is Iran (after Israel). US-Iranian relations have experienced many ups and downs and are mainly based on the center versus periphery problem. However, we see a new reality that has changed the nature of the US-Iranian relations for the foreseeable future. The rise of Iranian power has challenged the US position in the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, and therefore both sides have been locked in the strategic rivalry. This rivalry has two aspects: (1) the Iranian geopolitical posture creates a new world order, and (2) growing Iranian power may undermine the interests of the United States and its regional allies. To understand the root of this struggle, we have to consider local and worldwide events that changed Middle East history. At the regional level, we must understand the consequences of the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf Wars, and the Iraqi regime’s collapse in the overall regional balance of power. On the global level, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a significant game-changer in the region. The absence of the Soviet Union as a competing superpower allowed the United States to fill the power vacuum and created a new regional order. However, the United States’ regional foreign policy slights the Caucasus and Central Asia, while Russia, China, Iran, and Turkey have significant influence in the region.