Henry Kissinger posed a deceptively simple question about Iran back in 2006: does the country want to be a cause - an ideologically driven state with claims to regional hegemony - or a nation, focused on security and development? Two decades later, the answer has arrived in the form of a war that diplomatic engagement never managed to prevent.

James F. Jeffrey, a former senior diplomat who served in seven U.S. administrations, has returned to Kissinger's framework in Foreign Affairs to explain the current conflict's origins, "Hvylya" reports. Between 1979 and 2023, Jeffrey writes, Iran "succeeded in expanding its regional power by presenting itself as both a cause and a nation, never forcing the outside world to come to a definitive conclusion."

Tehran built alliances with Assad's Syria, Shia militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen. By 2005, Jordanian King Abdullah II warned of a new "Shiite Crescent" across the Middle East. Yet Western leaders kept treating Iran as a nation that could be managed through engagement. President Barack Obama even advocated in 2016 that Saudi Arabia "share" the region with Tehran.

The 2015 nuclear deal reflected that belief - and its limits. The agreement acknowledged Iran's right to enrich uranium with no restrictions after 15 years and demanded no accountability for what U.S. intelligence had already confirmed was a weapons development program. Meanwhile, Iran's proxy wars across Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza caused roughly 1 million deaths and 17 million displaced people between 2004 and 2023.

The October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel forced a reckoning. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias all fought Israel, and Iran itself launched two massive missile barrages in 2024. A 12-day U.S.-Israeli campaign in June 2025 damaged Iran's nuclear and missile infrastructure. But Iran refused to accept defeat and began rebuilding both programs. Israel and the United States concluded that Iran had chosen to remain a cause, not a nation - leaving military action as the only path forward.

Earlier, "Hvylya" reported on how local fractures rather than Iranian direction explain the rise of Middle Eastern militias.