Thinking Globally about the Iran-Israel Twelve-Day War

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In the early hours of 13 June 2025, Iranians woke up to the Israeli Air Force targeting air defences, ballistic missile bases, and nuclear programme sites. As the war continued, it also disrupted the daily lives of millions of civilians and ‘resulted in at least 5,665 casualties, including 1,190 killed and 4,475 injured, both military and civilian’. (HRANA 2025, 4). This piece seeks to position this war in the context of the global turn in International Relations (IR). Amitav Acharya’s (2014) Global IR has gained momentum in debates regarding how to challenge Eurocentrism in IR. Pinar Bilgin and Karen Smith’s (2024) proposal builds on this and calls for us to ‘think globally about politics’. Drawing from such debates, I argue that an analysis of the Iran-Israel Twelve-Day War that is in the spirit of these two projects requires three approaches.

First, there needs to be a better understanding of those actors that are often constructed as the ‘other’ in both foreign policy and academia by establishing them at the centre of the analysis (Holliday 2020, 5). Second, there should be a multi-scalar analysis rooted in historical contexts (Powel 2020) that appreciates the interconnectivity between domestic and international politics both in the past and the present (Go and Lawson 2017). Third, we need to highlight the agency of those on the periphery of global politics (Bilgin 2021). Together, these approaches highlight complexity.

So, what does such an approach look like when reflecting on the Twelve-Day War? Iran was firmly positioned as the ‘other’. This was not only apparent in the very idea of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Operation Rising Lion, but also in the G7’s reaction. Their Joint Statement firmly favoured Israel: “We reiterate our commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East. In this context, we reaffirm that Israel has a right to defend itself. We reiterate our support for the security of Israel” (G7 2025). In such a situation, reconstructing the ‘other’ as the ‘self’ involves being Iran-centric as the starting point for analysis instead of simply being Israel-centric, or indeed US-centric.

The Twelve-Day War’s historical contexts include multiple processes. These include Iran-Israel relations and Israel’s relationship with the question of Palestine. In addition to Iran-Israel relations since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, it is worth noting that relations began to intensify before Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack. The intensification was played out in Syria in what has been referred to as the ‘shadow war’ (Gardner 2021). Regarding Israel’s relationship with the question of Palestine, Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack has been more violent than previous Gaza wars and Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

In light of this, in January 2024, South Africa submitted the ‘Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip’ to the International Court of Justice (International Court of Justice 2024) and on 16 September 2025, a UN commission found that ‘Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip’ (UN 2025; OHCHR 2025). Thus, while Israel’s attack on Iran began on 13 June 2025, this was not the starting point. Indeed, nor was Hamas’s attack into Israel.

A multi-scalar analysis that appreciates the interconnectivity of domestic and the international politics should highlight domestic contexts in both Israel and Iran. Inside Israel, there have been ongoing debates about Israel’s illiberalism (Cohen 2021) and demonstrations due to concerns regarding Netanyahu’s authoritarianism. In Iran, the Iran-Israel escalation follows what has come to be known as the Jina Uprising, or Woman, Life, Freedom Movement. This was an uprising that was triggered by the killing of the Kurdish Iranian woman Jina Mahsa Amini in custody after being arrested for what the Islamic Republic considers improper hijab. Iranians called for a new revolution and the removal of the Islamic Republic. Crucially, Iranians demonstrated their agency, like many social movements globally, to reject gender-based, religion-based, race-based violence and demand progressive politics (Holliday 2023).

Finally, thinking globally involves highlighting the agency of Iranians to think and act and an appreciation that Iranians are not monolithic. For instance, individuals and social movements associated with Woman, Life, Freedom Movement, who, despite violence exerted against them by the Islamic Republic, rejected Israel’s attack, ‘charging that it 1) violated Iran’s sovereignty and was an act of aggression; and 2) was detrimental to the development of democracy in Iran’ (Holliday 2025).

Furthermore, examining the discourse of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian illustrates the agency to construct Israel using norms and values often associated with a rogue state. For instance, Pezeshkian refers to the ‘Zionist regime’ or ‘Zionist occupying state’ in terms of ‘savage aggression’, ‘illegitimate’ and questions Israel’s commitment to ‘democracy, human rights and international’. It should also be noted, however, that during this war it was reported that over 700 individuals were arrested across Iran in a crackdown by the Islamic Republic (CHRI 2025).

Thinking globally about the Twelve-Day War in the spirit of Global IR shows the complexity of global politics, and highlights contradictions. Iran and Iranians should not simply be seen in terms of the periphery, but rather as having agency and in terms of actors on the global stage.

References

Acharya, Amitav. 2014. “Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Studies.” International Studies Quarterly 58 (4): 647–659

Bilgin, Pinar. 2021. “How Not to Globalise IR: ‘Centre’ and ‘Periphery’ as Constitutive of ‘the International’”. Uluslararasi Iliskiler 18 (70): 1-15.

Bilgin, Pinar and Karen Smith. 2024. Thinking Globally about World Politics: Beyond Global IR. Palgrave Macmillan.

CHRI. 2025. “Iran Launches Sweeping Crackdown: Hundreds Detained, Executions Underway.” January 26. https://iranhumanrights.org/2025/06/iran-launches-sweeping-crackdown-hundreds-detained-executions-underway/

Cohen, Samy. 2021. “Samy Cohen on Israel’s Illiberal Governance.” Illiberalism.org. January 4. https://www.illiberalism.org/interview-with-samy-cohen/

Gov.UK. 2025. “G7 Foreign Ministers’ Statement on Iran and the Middle East.” July 2. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/g7-foreign-ministers-statement-on-iran-and-the-middle-east#:~:text=It%20is%20essential%20that%20Iran,for%20the%20security%20of%20Israel.

Gardner, Frank. 2021. “Iran and Israel’s Shadow War Takes a Dangerous Turn.” BBC News, April 13. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-56724039.

Go, Julian and George Lawson. 2017. “Introduction: For a Global Historical Sociology.” In: Global Historical Sociology, edited by Julian Go and George Lawson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

HRANA. 2025. “Twelve Days Under Fire: A Comprehensive Report on the Iran-Israel War.” Human Rights Activists News Agency, June 28. https://www.en-hrana.org/twelve-days-under-fire-a-comprehensive-report-on-the-iran-israel-war/.

Holliday, Shabnam. 2025. “The Competition over the Values of World Order: Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom Movement and Israel’s ‘Operation Rising Lion’.” LSE Blogs, September 3. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2025/09/03/the-competition-over-the-values-of-world-order-irans-woman-life-freedom-movement-and-israels-operation-rising-lion/.

Holliday, Shabnam. 2023. “Iran’s ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ Movement Highlights Global Issues.” LSE Blogs, February 10. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2023/02/10/irans-woman-life-freedom-movement-highlights-global-issues/.

Holliday, Shabnam J. 2020. “Populism, the International and Methodological Nationalism: Global Order and the Iran–Israel Nexus.” Political Studies 68 (1): 3-19.

International Court of Justice. 2024. “Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).” Order of January 26. https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192/orders.

OHCHR. 2025. “A/HRC/60/CRP.3.” September 16. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session60/advance-version/a-hrc-60-crp-3.pdf.

Powel, Brieg. 2020. “Whither IR? Multiplicity, Relations, and the Paradox of International Relations”. Globalizations 17 (3): 546-559

UN. 2025. “Israel has Committed Genocide in the Gaza Strip, UN Commission Finds.” September 16. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds.