Escalating tensions between the United States and Iran have brought the two countries to the brink of a flashpoint. The unprecedented accumulation of US forces in the Middle East, combined with Washington’s reliance on gunboat diplomacy, clearly increases the risk of war, involving Iran and the region, with widespread regional and global losses.
Following the recent crackdown on protests in Iran, US President Donald Trump has announced that the time has come to remove Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. His administration then deployed the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and supporting fighter jets, as well as a variety of air defense assets throughout the Middle East, including additional THAAD and Patriot missile systems.
As military assets accumulate, President Trump threatens that if Iran does not comply with the deal, “the next attack will be far worse than the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities last June.”
From the U.S. perspective, a favorable agreement would require Iran to destroy its nuclear enrichment program and ballistic missile capabilities while simultaneously rolling back its influence in the region. These maximum demands, combined with the Iranian government’s deep distrust of negotiations with the United States, make an agreement extremely unlikely. Alaeddin Boljerdi, chairman of Iran’s parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, clarified on Monday that civilian nuclear capabilities are a “red line” for Tehran, along with missile and drone capabilities.
This does not necessarily imply a permanent diplomatic impasse. But the Iranian government interprets the U.S.’s maximum demands as a potential threat of regime change, an idea repeatedly emphasized by President Trump and hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv. In this context, further attacks by the United States would pose an “existential threat” to the Islamic Republic and undermine its motivation for restraint.
The impact of U.S. military action against Iran will depend primarily on the type, scale, and targeting of the attack, which could create a serious crisis for Iran, the entire region, and the world at large.
President Trump supports a surgical and targeted military operation that would likely combine leadership decapitations with efforts to inflict significant damage on Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military bases, the Basij forces, an IRGC-controlled militia, and police departments that the United States has designated as responsible for firing on protesters.
Any U.S. effort to force regime change through military means will undoubtedly lead to dangerous domestic and regional consequences. In Iran, an attack could lead to a consolidation of power. But it could also lead to a complete takeover by the Revolutionary Guards or internal conflict.
An attack on Iran similar to last year’s could well result in Iranians uniting under the flag and rejecting regime change for several reasons. First, Iranians fear a scenario of state collapse similar to Syria and Libya. Second, there is no reliable moderate opposition that can lead the change. Third, there is strong sociopolitical cohesion within Iran.
Political institutions, the military, and the Revolutionary Guards are well organized and benefit from the significant resources generated by the sanctions-induced rentier system. Furthermore, important sections of society, especially groups of the working class who are often referred to as “revolutionaries,” are attuned to this structure.
A successful attack on the Islamic Republic’s senior leadership could trigger a succession crisis, create a decision-making vacuum and deepen competition within the regime. Under these circumstances, tensions between state institutions and military security institutions will increase. Given the concentration of hard power in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards, the possibility of establishing a military-dominated state will increase.
The United States and Israel may also seek to encourage the outbreak of civil war to weaken Iran geopolitically. Last month, some U.S. officials, including Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, called for Iran to provide weapons to protesters. That scope could easily extend to armed groups, and there are many armed groups that the United States can rely on that have clashed with Iranian authorities.
These include Mojahideen Khalq (MEK), which was once designated as a “terrorist” organization by the United States and the European Union (EU). The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) is a Kurdish armed group that calls for the secession of Iran’s western Kurdistan province. Al-Awajiyah is an Arab nationalist movement that supports the secession of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan in the southwest. Jaish al-Adl (Jundara) is an armed group active in southeastern Iran. Pan-Turkish groups in the northwest pursue an alliance of ethnic Turks across Turkiye, Azerbaijan, and Iran.
In the face of Washington’s escalating rhetoric and track record of regime change operations, Iran has adopted a so-called madman strategy, sending both conciliatory and confrontational signals. This stance, along with Khamenei’s speech on Monday in which he warned that any military attack on Iran would spark a “regional war,” is clear as Iran has expressed openness to establishing a negotiating framework with the United States, underscoring the nation’s priority to prevent regime change at all costs, even at the risk of regional and global repercussions.
Iran has also vowed to retaliate through its regional allies, potentially drawing Israel and Gulf states into broader regional skirmishes. This could lead to political instability and economic fragility, prompting significant capital flight, primarily from the Gulf, but also increasing the influx of refugees and migrants into Europe.
Furthermore, an Iranian attack on energy infrastructure in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf would cause global oil and gas prices to soar, exacerbating market volatility, inflationary pressures from rising energy costs, and creating spillover effects on fragile economies, further exacerbating migration pressures.
In the current situation, US military escalation poses risks not only to Iran but to the entire region. The history of the Middle East shows that once conflicts are triggered, they spread like wildfire and destabilize entire regions in unpredictable ways.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
