The question hangs in the air, unasked but unavoidable. As the United States and Iran move towards an agreement that would re-establish diplomatic engagement and nuclear oversight, a senior British diplomat, Sir John Bowen, has reportedly posed the question that many in the corridors of power and in the shattered cities of the Middle East have been turning over in silence: what was the war for?
Two decades of conflict, of sanctions and drone strikes, of belligerent rhetoric and proxy battles, have yielded what appears to be a return to the negotiating table. The strategic void that now gapes is one of purpose. The original justifications for the West’s confrontation with Iran centred on the nuclear programme, which, it must be remembered, was itself accelerated following the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. With the prospect of that deal being revived, or at least superseded by a new framework, the foundational rationale for the sustained hostility evaporates.
The science, so often invoked in climate debates, provides an uncomfortable parallel. The greenhouse gas concentrations that continue to rise are indifferent to political theatre. In the same way, the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, real or imagined, has been a constant regardless of the diplomatic state. But the energy expended in maintaining that threat has been staggering. The financial costs, the loss of life, the radicalisation of entire populations, these are the feedback loops of geopolitical systems. They have their own momentum.
Bowen’s query, if it was indeed phrased as bluntly as reported, cuts through the noise. It recalls the question asked of the Iraq War architects: What has been achieved? In that case, the answer was a vacuum of power, a shattered state that became a breeding ground for extremism. In Iran, the situation is more complex. The regime has been further entrenched. Its nuclear knowledge, once basic, is now sophisticated. The enrichment capacity has been built, and it cannot be uninvented.
What the agreement might buy is time. Time for the biosphere, which continues to strain under the weight of a warming planet, to receive some reprieve from the distraction of conflict. Time for the energy transition, which requires international cooperation, to advance without the drag of sanctions and supply chain disruptions. But time is not an indefinite resource. The climate does not negotiate.
The strategic void Bowen identifies is perhaps best filled not with a retreat from engagement, but with a reorientation of priorities. The United States and its allies have expended immense resources on the Middle Eastern security architecture. Those resources could be shifted towards the decarbonisation of the global economy, towards climate adaptation, towards the technologies that might mitigate the worst of the collapse. But this requires a clarity of purpose that has been absent.
For the climate correspondent, every political decision now must be weighed in terms of its effect on the carbon budget. The Iran deal, if it leads to a reduction in regional tensions and a lowering of the temperature of global conflict, is a net positive. Less military spending, less burning of fossil fuels in tanks and warships. But the void must be filled with substance. The war, as Bowen suggests, was for something. That something must now be defined, not by the past, but by the future. A future that depends on our collective ability to stop asking what the war was for, and to start asking what the peace can achieve.
