A new Al Jazeera documentary, Iran: The Making of a War examines how more than seventy years of political rivalry, foreign intervention and strategic miscalculation produced one of the most dangerous conflicts of the current era the escalating confrontation between Iran, Israel and the United States.

From Coup to Confrontation
The film opens with the 1953 coup, in which the American Central Intelligence Agency played a central role in removing Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. That intervention set in motion a decades-long transformation: from a Western-aligned monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, through the 1979 Iranian revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to the collapse of relations with Washington following the US hostage crisis that same year.

The documentary traces how, in the years that followed, a parallel and increasingly bitter rivalry took hold between Iran and Israel a relationship defined over subsequent decades by proxy wars fought through allied militias across the Middle East, covert intelligence operations, and mounting international disputes over Iran’s nuclear programme. According to the film’s producers, these long-simmering tensions eventually escalated into the direct military confrontation that now carries serious and unpredictable consequences for the wider region and beyond.

Why It Matters
The documentary arrives at a moment when Iran-Israel tensions remain a central axis of instability in the Middle East, with ripple effects reaching Gulf security, global energy markets, and Africa’s own diplomatic and economic ties to Tehran, Tel Aviv and Washington. By situating the present crisis within a seven-decade arc of coups, revolutions and broken diplomacy, the film offers viewers a historical grounding often missing from day-to-day coverage of the conflict.
The full documentary is available to watch via Al Jazeera at

https://aje.news/makingofawar.

Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.
International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP
[email protected]
+233-555-275-880

References
Al Jazeera https://www.aljazeera.com/video/featured-documentaries/2026/8/1/iran-the-making-of-a-war