How much more credibility can the US afford to lose?

In a piece published by The Daily Star on July 16, 2008, titled “The Iranian missile tests,” I tried to capture the nuclear illusion—an illusion not of Iran’s making, but one constructed and amplified by US-Israeli strategic narratives that persists even today. Despite the relentless portrayal of Iran as an imminent nuclear power, the evidence even then pointed in the opposite direction: the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate, representing 16 intelligence agencies, concluded with high confidence that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 and was acting within rational strategic limits. Yet that reality was buried beneath waves of speculation, threat inflation, and geopolitical theatre. What endured was not the emergence of a nuclear Iran, but the persistence of a narrative powerful enough to justify pressure, polarisation, and ultimately conflict—setting the stage for a world in which winners and losers are determined less by facts than by the strategic manipulation of fear.

For nearly two decades, global political discourse was held captive by a single assertion: Iran stood on the brink of becoming a nuclear weapons state. The warnings were constant, urgent, and perpetually imminent, yet each passing year renewed the alarm without seeing the predicted outcome. What never materialised was the bomb; what instead materialised was war. This stark disjunction between prediction and reality is a systemic failure that compels a deeper inquiry into how a hypothetical threat was transformed into a real catastrophe, and what that transformation reveals about the evolving structure of global power.

By 2008, it was clear that Iran lacked both nuclear weapons and the conventional military capacity to pose an existential threat. Its defense spending was a fraction of that of the US—estimated at around $11.08 billion compared to over $600 billion for the US at the time—while its air force relied largely on ageing platforms and its naval strength remained confined to coastal deterrence.

Yet these realities did not moderate the discourse. Iran was elevated to be shown as one of the gravest threats in the international system, not because of what it demonstrably possessed but because of how it was strategically framed. Iran consistently maintained that its nuclear programme served peaceful purposes and engaged in negotiations that permitted monitored enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. Still, suspicion displaced proof, and capability was treated as intent for harm.

The persistence of the claim that Iran was “months away” from a bomb—repeated for nearly 20 years—should have invited scepticism. Instead, repetition became validation. From the mid-2000s through the late 2010s, successive Israeli leaders warned that Iran was “on the threshold of,” “a year away,” or “months away” from producing nuclear weapons, yet the threshold itself never arrived. When the distinction between what a state can do and what it intends to do is blurred, policy becomes driven by baseless projection, not evidence. And as we can see now, a system that acts on imagined threats eventually produces real disasters.

The parallels with Iraq are unmistakable. There, too, weapons of mass destruction that did not exist became the basis for justifying an invasion, despite inspections and contested intelligence. The first casualty of such a reality is credibility. The consequences extend far beyond the battlefield.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply—nearly 20 million barrels per day—passes, remains a structural fulcrum of global stability today. Even limited disruption can trigger spikes in oil prices, transmitting inflationary shocks across the global economy and raising the risk of synchronised slowdown and stagflation. What elevates this moment beyond a regional conflict is the emergence of geopolitical economics—the deep entanglement of geopolitical behaviour with economic systems and currency stability. In this framework, the strength of a currency is no longer determined solely by macroeconomic fundamentals, but by the credibility of the political system that underwrites it. The US dollar’s global dominance rests on predictability, rule-based conduct, and institutional trust. When policy shifts from evidence-based restraint to narrative-driven intervention, that foundation begins to fracture. Global actors respond not with abrupt withdrawal, but with gradual diversification that is reflected in rising gold purchases by central banks and the increasing use of non-dollar settlement mechanisms in parts of Asia and among BRICS economies. This is how systemic change occurs: not through sudden collapse, but via incremental erosion.

At the same time, the geopolitical landscape is undergoing a quiet but consequential realignment. The US remains militarily preeminent, yet its strategic position is increasingly constrained by declining trust among allies and partners. European nations are exploring more autonomous security arrangements, Middle Eastern states are hedging their alignments, and the BRICS grouping benefits from this erosion of confidence, positioning itself within a gradually decentralising global order. This is the paradox of contemporary power. Military superiority can secure outcomes on the battlefield, but it cannot sustain leadership in a system where legitimacy and trust determine long-term influence. Power today is not merely the capacity to act; it is the ability to persuade others that one will act predictably and within a framework of shared rules.

In seeking to eliminate a perceived threat, the US has contributed to a broader environment of systemic insecurity. The world did not confront a nuclear-armed Iran; it now confronts the economic, institutional, and geopolitical consequences of acting as if such a reality already existed. In the process, Iran and its 92 million people may be pushed into uncertainty for years to come.

The question is not about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but about the future of US power. A superpower cannot indefinitely sustain leadership through force combined with narrative construction. Durable leadership requires discipline—evidence-based policy, strategic restraint, and a commitment to credibility. Without such recalibration, the most enduring casualty will not be territory or alliances, but credibility itself. When credibility erodes, power does not necessarily disappear—but it only lingers, no longer leading.

Dr Abdullah A Dewan is professor emeritus of economics at Eastern Michigan University in the US and former physicist and nuclear engineer at BAEC. He can be reached at aadeone@gmail.com. 

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries, and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.