INTERNATIONAL
From Venezuela to Greenland, now back to Iran again?
US President Donald Trump's foreign policy from Greenland threats to Iran tensions heightens global friction and shows the limits of US pressure. - REUTERS/Filepic
AS 2026 dawned, the world watched in disbelief as the United States launched a military operation in Venezuela on January 3 that resulted in the overthrow and capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife — forcibly transported to New York to face charges in U.S. courts, a dramatic gambit justified by Washington as targeting “narco-terrorism.”
Before the dust had settled from that intervention, the White House ignited a fresh diplomatic firestorm by threatening to seize Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory, “by all means necessary” unless Denmark ceded sovereignty — a threat that strained transatlantic relations and provoked European resistance.
Only after pushback from European capitals did President Donald Trump step back from outright annexation, pivoting toward a negotiated “framework deal” that would expand U.S. military access without violating Danish sovereignty.
But even as that crisis subsided, the global spotlight snapped westward to the Middle East: Washington has now dispatched a U.S. naval armada toward Iran against the backdrop of nationwide unrest and intensifying tensions between Tehran and the United States.
These successive flashpoints suggest a foreign policy operating at full throttle — bold, unilateral, and fraught with peril.
Yet beneath the headlines lies a deeper strategic quandary, especially in relation to Iran.
Trump’s Post-JCPOA World
During his first presidential term (2017–2021), Donald Trump infamously withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran.
He argued that the deal, while constraining Iran’s uranium enrichment, did nothing to curb its development of ballistic missiles, support for regional proxy forces, or intervention in neighbouring states. Washington reimposed sweeping sanctions in pursuit of what it dubbed “maximum pressure.”
The result was strategic backfire: Iran accelerated elements of its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits, hardline factions consolidated power in Tehran, and regional tensions spiked.
The absence of meaningful mechanisms within the JCPOA to rein in Iran’s missile programs and proxy networks was a central flaw that Trump’s administration sought to exploit — but ultimately could not fix through withdrawal alone.
Second Term Escalations and the Nuclear Question
The pattern of coercion continued into Trump’s second term.
In the summer of 2025, U.S. and allied strikes targeted select Iranian nuclear facilities, degrading infrastructure but not eliminating the program entirely.
That episode marked a significant escalation — the first direct U.S. strikes on Iran’s enrichment sites — and underscored the limits of kinetic force to resolve nuclear stalemate.
Now, in January 2026, Washington has signalled its resolve anew by mobilizing carrier strike groups toward the Persian Gulf, a clear message that American patience is finite as Iran continues its enrichment, missile development, and support for groups such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and militias in Iraq and Syria.
Iran’s Strategic Trinity
What does the U.S. really want? In public statements and diplomatic backchannels, Washington has pressed Iran to halt its nuclear program beyond peaceful research, cease backing of proxy actors across the Middle East and curtail its ballistic missile development.
Taken together, these form a strategic trinity that is virtually sacred to the Islamic Republic’s national defence doctrine.
They are not easily divisible; Tehran sees each component as a pillar of deterrence and regime survival.
For Iran’s leaders — from the Supreme Leader to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — these programs are not optional concessions.
They represent a comprehensive security architecture deemed essential in a region where conventional military capacities are dominated by U.S. and allied forces.
In that sense, U.S. demands are a high-threshold ultimatum: expectations that Tehran simply will not, and perhaps cannot, meet without existential risk to its own regime logic. The result is a strategic impasse.
Regime Change: The Only Remaining Option?
If diplomacy and pressure cannot bring Iran to heel, what then?
For Washington, regime change looms as the only viable alternative — but not in the abstract.
The insistence that Iran must abandon its strategic trinity effectively amounts to seeking a leadership change that would reorient Tehran’s core doctrines.
Yet advocating for regime change plunges the United States into a complex moral and geopolitical dilemma.
How?
Any overt push to topple Tehran’s leadership risks full-scale war with a defiant regional adversary.
It could trigger broader spillover conflicts involving proxies and adversaries.
It may disrupt global energy markets, with Iran being a major oil producer.
It challenges the international norm against unilateral interventions under the UN Charter.
Moreover, Iranian domestic dissent — fuelled by economic hardship and political repression — does not
assure a liberal or Western-aligned successor. A power vacuum could just as easily empower even more uncompromising actors.
Unintended Consequences and the Limits of Power
Trump’s recent flurry of foreign policy moves — from Venezuela to Greenland to Iran — reflects a worldview that prizes assertiveness over multilateral constraint.
Yet the volatility it has unleashed underscores a hard truth: military might and unilateral pressure alone cannot solve foundational geopolitical conflicts.
In the case of Iran, the United States faces a dilemma not merely of tactics, but of strategy.
Demands that require Tehran to dismantle its strategic core without offering a viable pathway to mutual security produce only stalemate and escalation.
What is required instead is an approach that recognizes the limits of coercion while seeking mechanisms — whether through renewed negotiation frameworks, regional security architectures, or calibrated confidence-building measures — to address the very fears driving Iran’s strategic behaviour.
From Venezuela to Greenland to Iran, 2026 may come to be seen as an inflection point in global order — not because of a decisive American victory, but because of the stark limits of power in a multipolar world increasingly resistant to unilateral dictates.
The question now is not simply whether Iran relents, but whether the United States can imagine a strategy that both protects its interests and avoids catastrophic confrontation.
Phar Kim Beng, PhD, is Professor of ASEAN Studies and Director of the Institute of Internationaliation and ASEAN Studies (IINTAS) at the International Islamic University Malaysia.
Luthfy Hamzah is Senior Research Fellow at IINTAS and a specialist in trade, political economy, and strategic diplomacy in Northeast Asia.
** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.
Your gateway to global news, insights, and stories that matter.
Before the dust had settled from that intervention, the White House ignited a fresh diplomatic firestorm by threatening to seize Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory, “by all means necessary” unless Denmark ceded sovereignty — a threat that strained transatlantic relations and provoked European resistance.
Only after pushback from European capitals did President Donald Trump step back from outright annexation, pivoting toward a negotiated “framework deal” that would expand U.S. military access without violating Danish sovereignty.
But even as that crisis subsided, the global spotlight snapped westward to the Middle East: Washington has now dispatched a U.S. naval armada toward Iran against the backdrop of nationwide unrest and intensifying tensions between Tehran and the United States.
These successive flashpoints suggest a foreign policy operating at full throttle — bold, unilateral, and fraught with peril.
Yet beneath the headlines lies a deeper strategic quandary, especially in relation to Iran.
Trump’s Post-JCPOA World
During his first presidential term (2017–2021), Donald Trump infamously withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran.
He argued that the deal, while constraining Iran’s uranium enrichment, did nothing to curb its development of ballistic missiles, support for regional proxy forces, or intervention in neighbouring states. Washington reimposed sweeping sanctions in pursuit of what it dubbed “maximum pressure.”
The result was strategic backfire: Iran accelerated elements of its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits, hardline factions consolidated power in Tehran, and regional tensions spiked.
The absence of meaningful mechanisms within the JCPOA to rein in Iran’s missile programs and proxy networks was a central flaw that Trump’s administration sought to exploit — but ultimately could not fix through withdrawal alone.
Second Term Escalations and the Nuclear Question
The pattern of coercion continued into Trump’s second term.
In the summer of 2025, U.S. and allied strikes targeted select Iranian nuclear facilities, degrading infrastructure but not eliminating the program entirely.
That episode marked a significant escalation — the first direct U.S. strikes on Iran’s enrichment sites — and underscored the limits of kinetic force to resolve nuclear stalemate.
Now, in January 2026, Washington has signalled its resolve anew by mobilizing carrier strike groups toward the Persian Gulf, a clear message that American patience is finite as Iran continues its enrichment, missile development, and support for groups such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and militias in Iraq and Syria.
Iran’s Strategic Trinity
What does the U.S. really want? In public statements and diplomatic backchannels, Washington has pressed Iran to halt its nuclear program beyond peaceful research, cease backing of proxy actors across the Middle East and curtail its ballistic missile development.
Taken together, these form a strategic trinity that is virtually sacred to the Islamic Republic’s national defence doctrine.
They are not easily divisible; Tehran sees each component as a pillar of deterrence and regime survival.
For Iran’s leaders — from the Supreme Leader to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — these programs are not optional concessions.
They represent a comprehensive security architecture deemed essential in a region where conventional military capacities are dominated by U.S. and allied forces.
In that sense, U.S. demands are a high-threshold ultimatum: expectations that Tehran simply will not, and perhaps cannot, meet without existential risk to its own regime logic. The result is a strategic impasse.
Regime Change: The Only Remaining Option?
If diplomacy and pressure cannot bring Iran to heel, what then?
For Washington, regime change looms as the only viable alternative — but not in the abstract.
The insistence that Iran must abandon its strategic trinity effectively amounts to seeking a leadership change that would reorient Tehran’s core doctrines.
Yet advocating for regime change plunges the United States into a complex moral and geopolitical dilemma.
How?
Any overt push to topple Tehran’s leadership risks full-scale war with a defiant regional adversary.
It could trigger broader spillover conflicts involving proxies and adversaries.
It may disrupt global energy markets, with Iran being a major oil producer.
It challenges the international norm against unilateral interventions under the UN Charter.
Moreover, Iranian domestic dissent — fuelled by economic hardship and political repression — does not
assure a liberal or Western-aligned successor. A power vacuum could just as easily empower even more uncompromising actors.
Unintended Consequences and the Limits of Power
Trump’s recent flurry of foreign policy moves — from Venezuela to Greenland to Iran — reflects a worldview that prizes assertiveness over multilateral constraint.
Yet the volatility it has unleashed underscores a hard truth: military might and unilateral pressure alone cannot solve foundational geopolitical conflicts.
In the case of Iran, the United States faces a dilemma not merely of tactics, but of strategy.
Demands that require Tehran to dismantle its strategic core without offering a viable pathway to mutual security produce only stalemate and escalation.
What is required instead is an approach that recognizes the limits of coercion while seeking mechanisms — whether through renewed negotiation frameworks, regional security architectures, or calibrated confidence-building measures — to address the very fears driving Iran’s strategic behaviour.
From Venezuela to Greenland to Iran, 2026 may come to be seen as an inflection point in global order — not because of a decisive American victory, but because of the stark limits of power in a multipolar world increasingly resistant to unilateral dictates.
The question now is not simply whether Iran relents, but whether the United States can imagine a strategy that both protects its interests and avoids catastrophic confrontation.
Phar Kim Beng, PhD, is Professor of ASEAN Studies and Director of the Institute of Internationaliation and ASEAN Studies (IINTAS) at the International Islamic University Malaysia.
Luthfy Hamzah is Senior Research Fellow at IINTAS and a specialist in trade, political economy, and strategic diplomacy in Northeast Asia.
** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.
Your gateway to global news, insights, and stories that matter.