24.09.2026

How did we get here?

To understand the wars engulfing the Middle East today, it is not enough to begin with the February 28 combined assault on Iran by the US and Israel or even October 7 2023 and Gaza, says Yassamine Mather

The present crisis in the Middle East is the outcome of a much longer transformation of the regional order. Its origins lie in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the failure of the Arab uprisings, the wars in Syria and Yemen and the gradual emergence of a network of forces associated with Iran across the region.

At the same time, the Middle East has been transformed economically. China has become increasingly important as a trading partner, even while the United States has retained overwhelming military influence. The result is a region in which economic relations, military alliances and political loyalties no longer fit neatly together. The current wars have exposed all these contradictions.

The years 1978-79 represent a decisive turning point. Two events in particular altered the political landscape: the Iranian Revolution and the upheavals in Afghanistan that culminated in Soviet intervention.

The Iranian Revolution removed one of Washington’s most important regional allies. Under the shah, Iran had been central to the US security architecture in the Middle East. The Islamic Republic that replaced the monarchy was deeply hostile to Washington, opposed Israel and presented itself as a challenger to the conservative Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf.

Whatever one thinks of the politics of the Islamic Republic - and there are many reasons for the left to oppose it - this represented a fundamental change in the balance of power. The US lost a major ally. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies faced a regime claiming that their political order was illegitimate. Iraq, meanwhile, suddenly confronted a state on its border born of a revolution. Saddam Hussein’s government feared both Iranian regional ambitions and the possible political impact of 1979 on Iraq’s own population.

These tensions contributed to the Iran-Iraq war, which began in 1980 and continued for eight devastating years. Neither side achieved the decisive victory each had initially sought. Yet the war profoundly shaped the Islamic Republic. Iranian leaders repeatedly returned to the experience of surviving a war against an opponent that enjoyed considerable external support. The political and military institutions of the Islamic Republic learned to think in terms of endurance: surviving a stronger enemy, absorbing losses and making prolonged conflict expensive for an opponent.

The origins of Iran’s later emphasis on ballistic missiles, drones and asymmetric warfare have to be understood partly in this context. Iran could not compete directly with the US, and later Israel, in conventional military technology. Its strategy therefore developed around cheaper weapons, missiles, dispersed military capabilities and relationships with armed organisations outside Iran itself.

The next decisive transformation came after September 11 2001. The US responded to the attacks by launching wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. The declared objectives included destroying al-Qaeda, overthrowing hostile governments and restructuring the Middle East. Yet one of the most striking consequences was the strengthening of Iran.

Washington removed two governments that had been major enemies of Tehran. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was hostile to Iran. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq represented an even greater strategic threat. Iran had lived for decades alongside a powerful Iraqi military state. The US invasion removed it at a stroke.

Even more importantly, Saddam’s regime was replaced by a political order in which Shia Islamist parties became extremely influential. Some of their leading figures had spent years in exile in Iran and had developed close relationships with the Islamic Republic. The irony was extraordinary. The administration of George W Bush identified Iran as part of an ‘axis of evil’, yet US policy created conditions in which Iranian influence could expand.

Post 2003

Post-2003 Iraq illustrates the point. The political system created after the invasion had institutionalised sectarian and ethnic divisions. The presidency came from the Kurds, the premiership from the Shia majority and the parliamentary speakership from the Sunnis.

Iraq consequently became a terrain of competition between the US, Iran and numerous religious and ethnic factions. Iranian influence is considerable, but this does not mean that Iraqi organisations are simply puppets controlled from Tehran. They have their own political constituencies, economic interests and organisational histories. That distinction remains important today.

The uprisings beginning in 2011 opened another period of dramatic change. Mass movements challenged authoritarian governments across the Arab world. Yet the initial hopes associated with these revolts were rapidly overtaken by counterrevolution, foreign intervention and civil war.

In Egypt the revolution failed to produce a lasting democratic transformation. The Muslim Brotherhood came to power and was subsequently overthrown. In Libya, western military intervention was followed by the division of the country. Syria descended into a catastrophic war, involving domestic forces and competing regional and international powers.

The Syrian conflict increasingly assumed the character of a proxy war. Iran and Hezbollah played an important role in keeping Bashar al-Assad’s government in power. Russia subsequently became directly involved. On the other side, the US and regional allies supported various opposition forces, while Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states attempted to shape the anti-Assad camp. Jihadist organisations also expanded dramatically in the chaos. This history is important, because simplistic descriptions of the conflict often obscure the extent to which multiple outside powers attempted to manipulate the Syrian war for their own strategic purposes.

Iran’s intervention in Syria strengthened the perception that a regional bloc was emerging around Tehran. Hezbollah already represented a major political and military force in Lebanon. Iran now possessed close relationships with forces in Iraq and Syria as well.

Yemen added another dimension. The Houthis captured Sana’a in 2014, and Saudi Arabia intervened militarily the following year. The war was often presented simply as another confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. But this interpretation is insufficient. The Houthis are not merely an Iranian creation. They have their own social base, political history and domestic objectives. Iranian support became increasingly important, but treating them simply as instruments controlled from Tehran misunderstands both Yemen and the character of Iran’s regional relationships.

By the end of the 2010s, Iran had therefore developed something unusual. It was not part of a conventional military alliance comparable to Nato. Instead there existed a network of states, political organisations and armed movements, extending from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and southwards towards Yemen. Israel regarded this network as an increasingly serious strategic threat.

During precisely the same period, another transformation was occurring. China was becoming economically more important throughout the Middle East. The Belt and Road initiative, launched in 2013, expanded infrastructure, investment and trading relationships across the region. China’s dependence on imported energy made the Persian Gulf particularly important.

This produced an unusual contradiction. The Gulf monarchies remained militarily and politically aligned with the US, while their economic relationships with China expanded rapidly. Iran also turned towards China, as western sanctions restricted its access to investment and international markets. Iran’s relationship with China has sometimes been described by sections of the Iranian opposition as though Tehran had simply ‘sold the country’ to Beijing.

This exaggerates the character of the relationship. China’s dealings with Iran need to be understood as part of its wider economic strategy across the Gulf, including extensive relationships with Saudi Arabia and the other Arab monarchies. China, however, has not tried to match US military power in the region. That distinction became increasingly important after October 2023, which transformed the situation.

Regional effects

Whatever arguments exist about the events leading to the Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza, the war created a much sharper regional division. Gaza could no longer be treated as an isolated Palestinian question.

Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and various Iraqi and Syrian groups associated to different degrees with Iran increasingly appeared as parts of the same regional confrontation. Israel likewise treated Iran as the strategic centre of the threat it perceived.

At the same time, the war produced a profound crisis for the Arab governments. There was a visible gap between popular anger over Gaza and the policies pursued by governments such as Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf monarchies. Iran attempted to exploit this contradiction politically, presenting itself as the state most consistently opposed to Israel. This did not necessarily translate into substantial practical assistance to the Palestinians. Iranian propaganda and regional political positioning often exceeded what Tehran was actually prepared or able to do. Nevertheless, the political effect mattered.

The war also spread geographically. The Houthis began targeting shipping associated with the conflict, bringing the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab into the confrontation. The consequences extended far beyond Israel and the US. Disruption of shipping routes affected international trade, including China’s, despite Beijing’s attempt to remain outside direct military confrontation. China therefore confronted the limitations of its strategy. It had benefited from avoiding the enormous military costs borne by the United States in the Middle East, but its economic interests still depended on regional stability and secure shipping routes.

During 2024, Hezbollah became increasingly involved in the confrontation with Israel. Israel intensified military operations in Lebanon, and the conflict eventually included the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The significance of Hezbollah, however, cannot be understood simply through its relationship with Iran. Hezbollah is embedded in Lebanese society and politics. It has parliamentary representation, a substantial social base and relationships extending beyond its immediate Shia constituency. At different points it has possessed allies among sections of the Christian population and influence elsewhere through political and economic networks.

For this reason, the idea that Hezbollah can simply be removed from Lebanese politics through outside pressure underestimates the organisation’s domestic roots. Its relationship with Iran remains crucial, but again the language of puppets and proxies obscures more than it explains.

The widening conflict also brought Iran itself increasingly into direct confrontation with Israel. In April 2024 Iran launched its first large direct missile and drone attack against Israel. This represented an important transition. A conflict that had previously been conducted largely through indirect confrontation was becoming increasingly state-to-state. The threshold separating shadow war from open warfare had been crossed.

The June 2025 confrontation marked another stage. Israel attacked targets in Iran, not least military and nuclear facilities. Iran responded with missiles and drones. The US subsequently became directly involved. The importance of this episode was not simply its duration. It demonstrated that the previous system of controlled confrontation had broken down.

Iran’s military strategy reflected lessons developed over decades. Tehran could not match the technological and air superiority of Israel and the US. Instead it relied on missiles, drones, dispersed capabilities and the assumption that surviving the initial attack was itself strategically significant. The logic is essentially one of endurance. If Iran cannot achieve conventional military superiority, it can attempt to make war prolonged and expensive. Relatively inexpensive drones and missiles can force opponents to employ enormously expensive defensive systems. Infrastructure, shipping and regional military bases become vulnerable.

This does not mean Iran can ‘win’ such a war in any straightforward sense. It has suffered enormous destruction itself, and prolonged conflict imposes severe costs on a population already facing economic deprivation. But it does mean that calculations based on rapid military victory can prove dangerously misleading.

The geography of the Middle East makes regional war a global economic problem. Two maritime routes are particularly important: Bab al-Mandab, connecting the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean; and the Strait of Hormuz, connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the wider world. Disruption of either route has international consequences. Disruption of both creates a much more serious problem. This is where the economic consequences of war become inseparable from military strategy.

Restrictions on oil supplies push energy prices upwards. Higher energy prices contribute to inflation. Central banks then confront pressures that cannot be solved through monetary policy alone. An interest-rate decision cannot create an oil tanker route through a blocked maritime passage.

The effects also extend beyond countries directly dependent on Gulf oil. The US is certainly not dependent on Middle Eastern energy, but it is not insulated from the world economy. Oil prices are world prices. European economies are vulnerable though. Asian economies are vulnerable too. China is particularly exposed because of its enormous dependence on imported energy and international  trade.

The assumption that a regional war can be geographically contained therefore becomes increasingly implausible.

Survival?

This raises the central political question inside Iran. How can a country suffering war, sanctions, inflation and infrastructure destruction continue functioning?

Predictions of the imminent collapse of the Islamic Republic have been made repeatedly. Yet Iranian society continues to function, albeit in contradictory ways. Construction projects continue. Public events take place. Everyday life adapts. None of this means that the economic crisis is imaginary. Factory workers, nurses and other sections of the population have protested over wages and deteriorating living conditions.

There is therefore a limit to endurance. If conditions deteriorate to the point where large sections of the population cannot secure basic necessities, economic crisis can become a crisis of the social order.

But sanctions and war have contradictory political consequences. External attack does not automatically produce rebellion against the government: it can temporarily strengthen nationalist sentiment and allow the state to consolidate support. People who loath the Islamic Republic might well oppose attacks on their homeland. This is one of the central weaknesses in strategies based on the assumption that military and economic pressure will automatically produce regime change.

At the same time, indefinite war creates its own political opposition. There is already disagreement within the Iranian establishment over how the conflict should end. On the one hand there are those advocating compromise and negotiations. Former president Hassan Rouhani represents a particular version of this conciliatory tendency. On the other hand there are forces within the establishment who reject both unconditional compromise and the idea of endless war.

Parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has expressed opposition to an open-ended conflict. His position is particularly significant because it reflects currents closer to the military and Revolutionary Guard establishment than those represented by Rouhani. At the opposite extreme are forces advocating continued war until victory. The real political struggle may therefore increasingly become one over what constitutes an acceptable settlement.

The same problem appears elsewhere. Washington can demand that the Iraqi government suppress armed groups associated with Iran. Implementing such demands is considerably more difficult. Such organisations are embedded in Iraq’s political system. Attempts to outlaw or militarily destroy them could generate conflict within the Shia political establishment itself.

Similarly, Hezbollah cannot simply be wished out of Lebanese society. And the Houthis cannot be understood as an organisation that would disappear if Iranian assistance ended.

This is perhaps the greatest problem with interpreting the contemporary Middle East exclusively through the concept of Iranian proxies. Iran certainly provides weapons, money, training and political support to allied organisations. But these movements possess their own histories and constituencies. The relationship is neither one of complete independence nor simple command from Tehran. Destroying Iran would therefore not resolve the conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen or Palestine.

Turkey represents another complication. Ankara has been rhetorically vocal over Gaza and highly critical of Israel. Yet its economic relationships with Israel have historically been far more complicated than its public rhetoric suggests.

There is also a deeper strategic tension. Turkey has its own ambitions as a major regional power. Any Israeli strategy aimed at establishing overwhelming predominance across the Middle East would eventually intersect with Turkish interests. This does not mean that an Israeli-Turkish military confrontation is inevitable. It does mean that the regional struggle cannot be reduced to Israel versus Iran.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and the Gulf monarchies all have their own interests. China has enormous economic interests. Russia remains involved. The US continues to possess military bases throughout the region. The Middle East is consequently becoming increasingly multipolar while remaining militarily dominated by Washington. That is an unstable combination.

The trajectory from 1979 to the present reveals a remarkable historical irony. Again and again, military interventions intended to weaken one adversary have created conditions for another to become stronger.

The Iran-Iraq war consolidated important aspects of the Islamic Republic’s military state. The US invasion of Iraq destroyed Iran’s greatest regional enemy. The Syrian war expanded Iranian and Hezbollah involvement. Attempts to isolate the Houthis did not eliminate them. The Gaza war transformed what had been a series of connected but partly contained conflicts into an increasingly regional confrontation.

Now the assumption appears to be that the destruction of the Islamic Republic would resolve the problem. That conclusion is equally questionable. Iran is not the sole cause of instability in the Middle East. The current crisis is the product of a regional order constructed through decades of dictatorship, foreign intervention, military occupation, sectarian politics, failed revolutions, economic inequality and competing projects for regional dominance. Iran’s Islamic Republic is part of that order, not an alternative to it.

Its anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric should not obscure its own authoritarian character, repression of workers and political opponents, or its pursuit of regional state interests. Equally, opposition to the Islamic Republic should not require accepting the proposition that US or Israeli military power can liberate Iranian society. For the Iranian population, these are not abstract questions. It faces an authoritarian state internally and the destruction produced by war and sanctions externally. Asking them to choose between those alternatives reproduces the political logic that has trapped the region for decades.

Gaza war

The danger now is that what began as the Gaza war in 2023 has developed into something much larger: a chain of conflicts linking Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran and the Persian Gulf. The Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz connect those conflicts directly to the world economy. Meanwhile the competing powers continue to behave as though military escalation can eventually produce a stable regional settlement - even though the history of the last four decades suggests precisely the opposite.

The danger today is therefore not simply another Middle Eastern war. It is the emergence of a regional system in which war itself becomes permanent: a confrontation without a decisive victor, spreading across borders, shipping routes and economies, while governments on every side tell their populations that one more military escalation will finally provide security. There is little in the history of the region since 1979 to justify that expectation.

Events in September 2026 have amply confirmed this assessment.

The striking feature of the present situation is that military escalation and negotiations are occurring simultaneously. Washington has not abandoned the possibility of negotiations with Iran, but neither has the military confrontation ended. At the same time another front has reopened dramatically in Yemen, bringing Saudi Arabia, the Houthis and the strategic Bab al-Mandab passage directly into the wider crisis.

The present US-Iran conflict has lasted for months. The expectation that overwhelming US and Israeli military superiority would produce immediate triumph proved misplaced. The war has instead acquired precisely the characteristics Iran’s military strategy has historically sought: duration, economic disruption and geographical expansion. This is also why the November US midterm elections enter Iranian calculations. A prolonged war accompanied by expensive petrol, inflationary pressures and disruption to international trade has domestic political consequences inside the US.

Yet it would be wrong to conclude from this that Tehran has simply rejected negotiations. Iranian officials have continued to send signals that they are prepared to negotiate, but on conditions that Washington may find extremely difficult to accept.

On September 20 Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, publicly described proposals that he said had been transmitted to Washington through Qatar. They included an end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon; an end to attacks on Iranian territory; the lifting of the US naval blockade; the release of frozen Iranian funds; and an end to American support for opponents of the Islamic Republic.

The US had not publicly accepted these conditions as of September 22 and the UN general assembly. Indeed Trump threatened to “wipe out” Iran unless it “behaves”. But the existence of such proposals is important, because it demonstrates that the Iranian leadership is not united around the idea of indefinite war.

The contradictions discussed earlier inside Iran therefore remain. One current wants to extract a settlement from Washington without appearing to capitulate. Another fears that concessions will simply encourage further American demands. More conciliatory figures want an agreement even at considerable political cost. And there remain forces prepared to argue that Iran should continue the war until Washington is forced into a more favourable settlement.

Donald Trump faces contradictions of his own. The US possesses overwhelming conventional military superiority, but military superiority does not translate automatically into a political settlement. Washington can continue attacking Iran and blockading its ports, but doing so does not necessarily produce Iranian capitulation. Meanwhile the economic costs of the conflict spread far beyond Iran.

That explains the peculiar mixture of threats, military pressure and diplomatic signalling. It also helps explain why the reopening of the Yemeni front is potentially so dangerous. The renewed Saudi-Houthi confrontation has changed the strategic picture considerably. The Houthis have expanded their position along Yemen’s Red Sea coast and gained greater control over territory overlooking Bab al-Mandab. Their forces have also resumed missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia.

For Riyadh, this could hardly have occurred at a worse moment. With the Strait of Hormuz heavily disrupted, Saudi Arabia has become increasingly dependent upon alternative export routes towards the Red Sea. Bab al-Mandab consequently assumes even greater importance. Saudi Arabia has therefore turned to the US. In September Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked Trump for American military assistance against the Houthis. According to reporting based on officials familiar with their discussions, Trump did not agree to direct US military strikes: Washington instead offered intelligence-sharing and targeting assistance.

This distinction is important. The US is already deeply involved in the regional conflict, but the Trump administration appears reluctant, at least for the moment, to open another front in Yemen. That reluctance should not be confused with disengagement. US Central Command has been working with Saudi forces on intelligence and military planning. Saudi Arabia has also sought air-defence assistance from other states, as stocks of missile interceptors have come under pressure.

The extraordinary implication is that months of regional war are beginning to expose limits even in the weapons inventories available to the US and its allies. Saudi Arabia itself has reportedly approached Britain, France, Egypt and Pakistan for assistance with air defence. Yet there has so far been little indication that these governments want to become directly involved in another Yemeni war. Andy Burnham has agreed to nothing more than a single Voyager refuelling aircraft and some extra military advisors.

The reluctance is understandable. The Saudi intervention, beginning in 2015, was supposed to prevent the consolidation of Houthi power. A little more than a decade later, the Houthis remain a formidable political and military force and now occupy an even more strategically important position.This history should make Washington cautious about the assumption that another bombing campaign can provide a simple solution.

Escalate or deal

This brings us to the central question: is Trump preparing another major attack on Iran, or preparing for negotiations? The evidence at present suggests that these are not necessarily alternatives. Washington is maintaining the capacity for further escalation, while also testing whether military and economic pressure can produce an acceptable agreement. The danger lies precisely in this combination.

Both sides may believe that additional pressure will improve their position at the negotiating table. Iran can tighten pressure around Hormuz, while the Houthis can threaten Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea. Washington can intensify its blockade, retain overwhelming air power and threaten renewed attacks. Israel has its own military calculations and objectives.

A major new attack on Iran could produce renewed Iranian attacks on American bases in the Gulf. Those attacks could draw Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates further into the conflict, irrespective of whether their governments wanted such involvement. Direct US intervention against the Houthis could likewise lead the movement to abandon its current distinction between Saudi and American shipping. The Red Sea and Persian Gulf fronts would then become even more closely connected. And the economic consequences would not remain confined to the region.

We therefore return to where this argument began. The crisis cannot be understood simply as the product of decisions taken in Washington, Tehran or Jerusalem during the last few months. The structure of the confrontation has been developing since 1979.