Divergent American Hegemonic Responses to Nuclear Ambitions: Why the United States Deters North Korea but Strikes Iran
- Nader Rahimi
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
The nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran pose two of the most persistent and consequential proliferation challenges facing the United States in the post–Cold War era. Yet while both countries have defied Washington’s preferences, the American response has been strikingly different. With North Korea, the United States has relied on deterrence and containment, accepting a tense but manageable standoff. With Iran, U.S. policy has oscillated between diplomacy, crippling economic sanctions, covert cyber sabotage, and, most recently, direct military strikes. The drumbeat of war with Iran now dominates the headlines once again, raising urgent questions about the strategic logic—and the political pressures—behind Washington’s approach.
These divergent approaches reflect systematic differences in nuclear status, alliance pressures—particularly the influential role of Israel in shaping U.S. policy—regional security dynamics, domestic political constraints, and the geostrategic centrality of the Middle East.
Understanding these structural and political distinctions is essential to explaining why the United States deters some proliferators while actively seeking to prevent others.
For over two decades, and under multiple U.S. administrations, North Korea has continued to develop nuclear weapons despite sustained American opposition. Today, it is widely recognized as a de facto nuclear weapons state, having conducted multiple nuclear tests and developed increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile capabilities. Although Washington does not formally recognize Pyongyang as a legitimate nuclear power, its arsenal is strategically entrenched. As a result, U.S. policy centers on deterrence, missile defense, sanctions enforcement, and military readiness rather than preventive military action.
Iran, by contrast, long remained a threshold nuclear state. As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran maintained that its nuclear program was peaceful, even while enriching uranium to high levels. Because Tehran had not crossed the nuclear threshold, U.S. policymakers viewed its trajectory as potentially reversible.
This logic culminated in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated under President Barack Obama, which imposed limits and monitoring mechanisms on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. The agreement was later abandoned by President Donald Trump, reflecting deep domestic divisions over diplomacy versus coercion. However, diplomacy was not the only instrument employed. As early as 2010, the United States and Israel reportedly deployed the Stuxnet cyberweapon against Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility, sabotaging centrifuges and delaying uranium enrichment.
The logic of prevention reached a dramatic apex on June 22, 2025, when U.S. forces launched Operation Midnight Hammer, striking multiple Iranian nuclear facilities—including Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—during the broader Iran–Israel war. The operation involved U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers and Navy assets targeting hardened nuclear infrastructure. Unlike the North Korean case, where preventive strikes are widely viewed as prohibitively escalatory, Iran’s nuclear development was treated as a program that could still be forcibly degraded.
Alliance dynamics further explain divergent American approaches. In East Asia, the United States maintains robust alliances with South Korea and Japan. Both face immediate threats from North Korea’s conventional artillery and nuclear arsenal. Yet their overriding priority is stability and deterrence rather than preventive war. The proximity of Seoul to North Korean artillery makes large-scale conflict potentially catastrophic within hours. Consequently, U.S. strategy selectively emphasizes extended deterrence, military exercises, missile defense, and crisis management.
The Middle East presents a different alliance configuration. Iran’s nuclear ambitions intersect with the security concerns of Israel and Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These states view Iran not merely as a nuclear aspirant but as a regional hegemonic rival that supports proxy networks across Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Their perception of a multidimensional Iranian threat intensifies pressure on Washington to adopt a more assertive posture.
Among U.S. partners, Israel exerts a uniquely strong influence on American Iran policy. Israeli leaders have consistently framed a nuclear-capable Iran as an existential threat. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a vocal critic of the JCPOA and actively lobbied U.S. policymakers against it.
The U.S.–Israel strategic partnership—grounded in deep intelligence sharing, military cooperation, and political alignment—ensures that Israeli threat perceptions carry significant weight in Washington. Israeli intelligence operations and cyber efforts have historically intersected with U.S. counterproliferation initiatives. During the Iran–Israel war, this alignment culminated in direct U.S. military intervention through Operation Midnight Hammer.
No comparable allied pressure exists in the North Korean context. While South Korea and Japan are deeply concerned about Pyongyang’s arsenal, they generally prioritize stability and risk reduction over preventive confrontation. Alliance pressure in the Middle East thus amplifies American sensitivity toward Iran’s nuclear ambitions in ways that have no parallel in East Asia.
Iran’s geographic position further sets it apart from North Korea. It controls the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime chokepoint through which a substantial portion of the world’s oil supply passes. Unlike energy-poor North Korea, Iran is itself rich in oil and gas, giving it significant leverage in global energy markets. The Trump administration’s policy toward Iran aimed to compel the regime to alter its external behavior—its alliances, trade relationships, and regional posture—so that they no longer conflicted with U.S. strategic interests. Within this framework, the internal character of the Iranian regime was largely considered secondary to its geopolitical behavior.
Iran policy has been highly politicized within the United States. The JCPOA became a defining partisan issue, symbolizing broader disagreements over diplomacy, coercion, and American involvement in the Middle East. The 2025 strikes further intensified debate about executive authority, war powers, and the risks of regional escalation.
Conclusion
The United States’ divergent responses to North Korea and Iran are best understood not as inconsistency, but as the product of structural and strategic realities. North Korea, an entrenched nuclear power, is managed through deterrence: its operational arsenal and the fragile regional balance make preventive strikes prohibitively risky. Iran, by contrast, long remained a threshold nuclear state whose path to the bomb was still reversible. In Tehran’s case, alliance pressures—especially from Israel—intensified the political and credibility costs of inaction, while Iran’s geostrategic centrality in the Middle East and its pivotal role in global energy markets magnified the stakes of proliferation. These combined factors explain why Washington confronted two fundamentally different nuclear challenges: containing a de facto nuclear state in East Asia versus actively preventing nuclear emergence in a strategically vital Middle Eastern theater.
This contrast raises a fundamental question: to what extent is U.S. policy toward Iran driven by America’s own strategic calculations, and to what extent does it reflect Israel’s security priorities and political influence? Are the American people fully aware of the degree to which U.S. policy may advance the agenda of the Israeli government, potentially at the expense of American security and at the risk of entangling the country in prolonged conflicts in the Middle East. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was widely seen as shaped in part by strong Israel lobbying efforts, and today the escalating rhetoric surrounding a new war in the Middle East bears notable similarities to the prelude to the Iraq War.
Examining these dynamics suggests that U.S. hegemonic behavior is selective, politically driven, and conditioned by structural imperatives—rather than guided by any abstract commitment to rhetorical consistency.
This article is written by Nader Rahimi, Associate Professor at Boston University, a scholar, author, translator, and activist. His original writings and translations have appeared in numerous anthologies and publications, including Moonstone Press, Parsagon: The Persian Literature Review, and Columbus Free Press
Comments