U.S. militant exceptionalism and the erosion of international law through support of the Israeli regime against the Islamic Republic of Iran

Document Type : Original

Authors

1 Professor of the Department of Communications, Faculty of Social Sciences; and Transregional and World Studies, Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 PhD in Communications and New Media Studies, University of Vienna; and Member of the Executive Committee, UNESCO Chair on Cyberspace and Culture, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

This article examines the interplay between structural power imperatives, contested global order, and ideational self-conceptions in shaping United States foreign policy, with particular attention to the nexus of militarism, American exceptionalism, and recurrent violations of international legal norms. Integrating three complementary theoretical perspectives including American exceptionalism, offensive realism, and the critical variant of hegemonic stability theory, the study offers a multidimensional analytical framework that captures normative, structural, and systemic dimensions of U.S. conduct. The article applies this tripartite framework to empirical cases involving U.S. military interventions, nuclear modernisation, and its selective adherence to, and reinterpretation of, binding legal obligations. It argues that these behaviours reflect a durable fusion of systemic compulsion, hegemonic maintenance, and identity-based legitimation. In so doing, the study contributes to debates in international relations and international law by demonstrating that the United States’ exceptionalist posture is both a cause and a consequence of its hegemonic role. The analysis offers insights into the persistence of militarised exceptionalism and the structural and normative constraints or lack thereof that shape the prospects for a more equitable and law-bound global order.

Keywords

Main Subjects

حوزة موضوعی: ایران، آمریکا و رژیم اسرائیل

Scope: Iran, US & Israeli Regime

References

Acharya A. (2014). The End of American World Order. Polity Press.
Ameli SR. (2017). American Exceptionalism, Eurocentrism and Otherisation of Muslims. Algorithm.
Arms Control Association. (2024). Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance. December. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nuclear-weapons-who-has-what-glance.
Belknap MR. (2002). The Vietnam War on trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. University Press of Kansas.
Burnham G, Lafta R, Doocy S, Roberts L. (2006). “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey”. The Lancet. 368(9545): 1421-1428. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69491-9.
CEH: Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico. (1999). Guatemala: Memory of silence: Report of the Commission for Historical Clarification, conclusions and recommendations. Tz’inil Na’tab’al.
Del Castillo RG. (1992). The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict. University of Oklahoma Press.
Denzin NK. (2017). The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods. 3rd ed. Routledge.
Domhoff GW. (2006). Who Rules America? Power, Politics, and Social Change. 5th ed. McGraw-Hill.
Dunbar-Ortiz R. (2023). An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. Beacon Press.
Edvardsson AW (2021). A Double-Edged Sword: Use & Abuse of American Exceptionalism. The Catholic University of America ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.  2021. 28320500.
Ercan Su A. (2024). “Robert Gilpin in realist paradigm of international relations discipline: Research program, state and international system”. EUL Journal of Social Sciences/LAÜ Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi. 15(1). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/3998315.
Foos P. (2002). A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the Mexican-American War. Univ of North Carolina Press.
Gavris M. (2021). “Revisiting the fallacies in Hegemonic Stability Theory in light of the 2007–2008 crisis: The theory’s hollow conceptualization of hegemony”. Review of International Political Economy. 28(3): 739-760. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2019.1701061.
George AL, Bennett A. (2005). Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. MIT Press.
Grandin G. (2011). The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War. University of Chicago Press.
Gray C. (2007). International Law and the Use of Force. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.
Greenberg AS. (2013). A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 US Invasion of Mexico. Vintage.
Heath JB. (2022). “Making sense of security”. American Journal of International Law. 116(2): 289-339. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3949923.
Hiro D. (1992). Desert Shield to Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War. Routledge.
ICRC: International Committee of the Red Cross. (2016). Commentary on the First Geneva Convention. Cambridge University Press.
Immerwahr D. (2019). How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States. Random House.
International Committee of the Red Cross (n.d.). International Humanitarian Law. ICRC. https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/icrc_002_0996.pdf.
ICJ: International Court of Justice. (1996a). Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. 8 July ICJ Reports. https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/95/095-19960708-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf.
---------------. (1996b). Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1996. (p. 226). https://www.icj-cij.org/case/95.
Kiernan B. (2002). The Pol Pot regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. Yale University Press.
Korda M, Kristensen HM. (2025). United States Nuclear Weapons, 2025. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. January 30. https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-01/united-states-nuclear-weapons-2025/.
Linn BM. (2000). The Philippine War, 1899-1902. University Press of Kansas.
Lipset SM. (1996). American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. W.W. Norton & Company.
Madley B. (2016). An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873. Yale University Press.
Malloy SL. (2008). Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb against Japan. Cornell University Press.
Mearsheimer JJ. (2001). The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. W.W. Norton & Company.
Mehrling P. (2025). “Charles P. Kindleberger (1910–2003)”. In The Palgrave Companion to MIT Economics (pp. 169-181). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Monteiro NP. (2014). Theory of Unipolar Politics. Cambridge University Press.
O’connor B, Cox L, Cooper D. (2024). “The ideology of American exceptionalism: American nationalism’s nom de plume”. Journal of Political Ideologies. 29(3): 634-655. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2022.2112126.
Osorio JKKO. (2002). Dismembering Lahui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887. University of Hawaii Press.
Owen T, Kiernan B. (2006). Bombs Over Cambodia. Yale University. https://gsp.yale.edu/sites/default/files/walrus_cambodiabombing_oct06.pdf.
Payne KB. (2001). The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and A New Direction. University Press of Kentucky.
Pease DE. (2009). The New American Exceptionalism. University of Minnesota Press.
Pratt JW. (1927). “The origin of ‘manifest destiny’”. The American Historical Review. 32(4): 795-798. https://doi.org/10.2307/1837859.
Sachs JD. (2018). A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism. Columbia University Press.
Schweller RL. (1996). “Neorealism’s status-quo bias: What security dilemma?”. Security Studies. 5(3): 90–121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09636419608429277.
Silva NK. (2004). Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism. Duke University Press.
Sim K, Bilton M. (1992). Four Hours in My Lai. Viking.
Soleimani AOGQ. (2021). “International law review in the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani”. Indonesian Journal of International Law. 18(4): 571-592. https://doi.org/10.17304/ijil.vol18.4.824.
Squiers A. (2018). The Politics of the Sacred in America: The Role of Civil Religion in Political Practice. New York: Springer.
United Nations. (1977a). Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts. 8 June. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.34_AP-I-EN.pdf.
---------------. (1977b). Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts. 8 June. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/protocol2.pdf.
---------------. (1968). Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), opened for signature 1 July 1968, entered into force 5 March 1970. https://disarmament.unoda.org/wmd/nuclear/npt/text/.
---------------. (1949). Geneva Conventions: Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949. Retrieved 7 August 2025. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.33_GC-IV-EN.pdf.
U.S. Congressional Budget Office. (2023). Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2023–2032. https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-05/58915-Rescissions.pdf.
U.S. Congressional Research Service. (2023). The New START Treaty: Central Limits and Key Provisions. CRS Report No. R41219. December 14. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R41219/R41219.61.pdf.
U.S. Department of War. (2023). B61-13 Nuclear Bomb Fact Sheet [Fact sheet]. October 27. https://media.defense.gov/2023/Oct/27/2003329624/-1/-1/1/B61-13-FACT-SHEET.PDF.
---------------. (2022). Nuclear Posture Review 2022. https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.PDF.
U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. (2024). Transparency: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile. U.S. Department of Energy. https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2024-08/U.S.%20Nuclear%20Weapons%20Stockpile%20Transparency%207_22_24.pdf.
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. (2025). Human costs: Civilians Killed & Displaced. Costs of War Project. https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/human/civilians-killed-displaced.
Woodward B. (2004). Plan of Attack. Simon and Schuster.
Yin RK. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. 6th ed. SAGE Publications.
Journal of Countries Studies
Volume 4, Issue 3
Special Issue of Israel Confrontation approach with the World
2026
Pages 439-465

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 11 August 2025
  • Revise Date: 06 September 2025
  • Accept Date: 13 September 2025
  • First Publish Date: 16 September 2025
  • Publish Date: 22 November 2026

Share

How to cite

Statistics