The Middle East’s changing strategic landscape

The multiple wars that have erupted since Oct. 7, 2023, have already changed the strategic landscape in the Middle East — and more change is likely to follow.

For many years, Israel and Iran maintained an uneasy equilibrium of mutual deterrence and limited hostility. Iran had built up a “forward defense” strategy of allied Arab militias that it was satisfied could deter Israel and would keep the Iranian homeland safe. Israel was worried about this militia network — especially Hezbollah in Lebanon — but largely coexisted with those irritants and figured that neither would launch a major offensive attack.

Whether the Iranians had previous knowledge of Oct. 7 or not, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar permanently overturned that uneasy equilibrium. The attack by an Iranian ally, followed by the opening of a second front the next day by Hezbollah and Iran’s other militia allies, put paid to the notion that Iran’s militia network was one of forward defense, as it had spearheaded the largest offensive operation against Israel since 1973. The attacks also changed Israel’s calculations about this network from uneasy coexistence to acute existential alarm and a desire to defeat both the network and its patron.

Until September 2024, Iran could be satisfied that its forward militia strategy was working. Hamas had dealt Israel a historic blow and was still surviving after a fierce, year-long onslaught, while Hezbollah in the north was holding the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to a standoff. But after the devastating Israeli escalation against Hezbollah, the landscape has profoundly changed. Iran has lost its primary deterrent against Israel — Hezbollah — that it had been building up for decades. None of its other militia allies provide such a deterrent. And the war has now moved from Gaza and Lebanon to Iran proper. The entire forward defense strategy, established after the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, was designed to prevent just such an eventuality. Both Gaza and Lebanon are declining in strategic relevance as the war between Israel and Iran enters a direct phase.

The loss of Iranian deterrence is due to several factors. One of them is, of course, the strong blow that Hezbollah has received — both to its leadership and capacities. But the other has to do with the change that the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 has wrought on Israel. Deterrence is a largely psychological factor creating an incentive structure that leads the opponent to decide against attack or escalation. The Hamas attack changed, for most Israelis, both their incentive to go to war and their pain threshold. 

Before Oct. 7, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was confident that while his fighters were willing to die for their cause, Israelis were soft and focused on their startups, beaches, and the good life. After the surprise attack, that has fundamentally changed, with most Israelis now committed to fighting offensive wars and willing to suffer and risk their lives to change the strategic equation. Sinwar’s move not only strengthened the right wing in Israel, but after the initial blow, it has also made Israel much more eager and willing to fight. It is hard to deter such a foe.

Next steps for Iran

If indeed Iran’s forward defense strategy has collapsed, what does that mean for Iran and for the region as a whole?

First, Iran must figure out how to proceed from here. Not only has it lost its militia network’s deterrence capacity, but it has also riled up its Israeli opponent to such a degree that Israel is now actively attacking the Iranian homeland, something that seemed improbable just a couple of years ago. 

Iran is desperate to find a new path toward restoring deterrence against Israel. Its main tool is the use of its missile and drone arsenal. But Israel, backed by the United States, has defenses against this tool, and the stockpile of Iranian missiles is limited, hence its deterrent power diminishes each time it uses another batch. Also, Israel appears willing to take civilian and military losses if a few of these missiles get through and cause significant damage, as such damage could be exactly the justification and motivation Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to dramatically escalate his attacks on Iran. It is hard to imagine deterrence being restored simply by military means. 

The other pathway for Iran would be a diplomatic one that reduces the pressure on Tehran by offering concessions on various files to blunt Netanyahu’s escalatory onslaught while also placating the incoming US administration. These concessions could relate to Iran’s Arab assets, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, both of whose strategic value has already greatly diminished, and perhaps also concessions relating to other Arab assets in Yemen or Iraq. This is part of the “brilliance” of the forward defense strategy: defeat or degradation of such forces would be not at Iran’s expense but at the expense of client Arab militias. 

Another set of concessions could be offered to the US and relate to the nuclear file. If this were to be the case, the US should insist, unlike in the last round of negotiations, that all three major files — nuclear, missiles, and militias — must be on the table. This is because Iran’s regional presence has been proven to be offensive and not defensive, and militias and missiles have been used in these offensive operations.

Iran’s interest is essentially to blunt Israel’s current escalatory trajectory and buy several years of time. It needs to use this time to rebuild the elements of its forward defense that have been degraded, and to reconsider its national defense strategy, perhaps including the nuclear option, in order to restore deterrence.

Initially, after the latest Israeli strike, Iran seemed to be implementing this long-term approach of seeking to avoid an escalation. Indeed, Iranian leaders repeatedly mentioned not wanting to fall into Israel’s trap of being drawn into a major war. But politics, between the hardliners and pragmatists within the regime, seems now to be favoring the hawks, who are insisting on a major response. 

On the Israeli side, it is clear that Netanyahu is not escalating to de-escalate nor is he interested in a cease-fire and a freezing of the current status quo. He and much of the Israeli leadership sense an opportunity. Iran has not been this vulnerable in many years; and it will not be this vulnerable again if it is given time to recover, and especially if — after the latest round of attacks — it opts to build a nuclear weapon. 

Iran seems to be playing into that scenario. Reports suggest that it plans a large attack, but that it likely will be launched mainly from Iraq. Indeed, Iran seems to be setting up the Iraqi Hashd to be a partial strategic replacement for Hezbollah. First, this underscores the scandalous reality that Iran can engineer military operations in several Arab countries with complete disregard for the will of the governments or peoples of those countries. Second, it is doubtful that using a different country from which to launch an attack will serve much of a purpose at this point, in terms of reducing the likelihood of a direct Israeli response on Iran.  

No good options

After the next round of Israeli attacks on Iran we might be left with several scenarios.

1. Iran has been hit hard and opts to urgently negotiate and make concessions to stop the onslaught.
2. Iran has been hit hard but absorbs the blows, and delivers blows to Israel, without any fundamental change in policy — continuing to support Hamas, Hezbollah, and its other proxies, and figuring that it can weather the storm. Within this scenario, Iran could also hunker down and opt for a rush toward a bomb.
3. A third scenario is that Iran widens the war to have an impact on Gulf shipping and even possibly oil assets of Arab Gulf states aligned with the West. In this scenario Iran will bank on American and overall international panic about an energy price spike and economic recession to bring strong pressure to bear on Israel to stop its onslaught.
4. A fourth scenario sees Iran and its proxies inflict more pain on Israeli civilian and economic infrastructure than the Netanyahu government can bear, and Netanyahu opts to forego a direct escalation with Iran.

In all cases, the region is facing a major reckoning, and the clock is ticking. Israel’s major opportunity is during the American transition, when an outgoing administration has little leverage to influence Israeli actions. With a new president in power in the White House and a four-year political runway, managing the US relationship might be trickier.

 

Paul Salem is MEI’s Vice President for International Engagement. He focuses on issues of political change, transition, and conflict as well as the regional and international relations of the Middle East.

Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images