Two Doctrines, One Conflict

When the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes against Iran in June 2025, the world’s strategic analysts reached instinctively for two of history’s most enduring frameworks to make sense of what had unfolded: Pragmatism, the distinctly American philosophical tradition that judges actions by their consequences, and Realpolitik, the European doctrine that strips policy of moral pretence and reduces statecraft to power, interest, and calculation.

Examining the war on Iran through both lenses does not produce a single verdict — it produces two competing narratives that expose the fault lines at the heart of American foreign policy.

Examining the war on Iran through both lenses does not produce a single verdict — it produces two competing narratives that expose the fault lines at the heart of American foreign policy.

Lens One: Pragmatism — The War as a Test of Consequences

Pragmatism, as a doctrine of statecraft, holds that no policy is inherently right or wrong; it is validated or condemned by outcomes. William James, the great philosophical architect, argued that “the true is only the expedient in our way of thinking.” Applied to war, this demands a ruthlessly empirical question: did it work?

The pragmatist case for the Iran strikes rested on three consequentialist pillars. First, the neutralization of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — particularly the deeply buried facilities at Fordow and Natanz — was presented as a measurable reduction of existential risk. Second, the degradation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ missile and drone arsenal was framed as restoring deterrence stability across the Levant and Gulf. Third, and most politically consequential for Washington, the strikes were expected to produce a chastened Tehran more susceptible to diplomatic re-engagement.

Yet pragmatism is equally merciless when outcomes diverge from intentions. Walter Lippmann, whose........

© Middle East Monitor