Ma`rifat Siyasi

The confrontation between Iran and the United States is one of the most enduring conflicts in the international system, yet conventional analyses have reduced it to geopolitical rivalry. This article employs a comparative-explanatory method and draws upon the theoretical framework derived from the thought of Martyr Ayatollah Khamenei to answer how the civilizational logic governing each country shapes its patterns of action in the international arena. The framework is organized at three levels: civilizational foundations (the clash of self-founded humanism versus monotheistic-natural disposition), meaning system (the binary opposition of "freedom/tyranny" versus "arrogance/oppressed"), and strategic culture (hegemonic exceptionalism versus adaptive resistance). Applying this framework to the discursive, security, economic, and cultural arenas demonstrates that the behavior of the two countries reflects these three levels. The case study of the Ramadan War of 1405 (2026) confirms this framework, showing that the Iran-U.S. confrontation is not a geopolitical conflict but a civilizational and inevitable clash over fundamental concepts such as sovereignty, justice, and the desired world order.