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The first two weeks of the Israeli and American attack on Iran generated an enormous amount of news, propaganda, and speculation. Politicians and experts from all sides are providing contradictory information and analysis, obscuring the reality on the ground and placing an undue burden on the world’s citizens.
As the conflict enters its third week, careful observers may be able to identify important new dynamics that could shape its outcome, the future of the Middle East, and perhaps the global conflict and landscape. They are all new realities and they influence each other to create this destructive moment.
First, the scope of the war expands the military conflict to more than a dozen states in the region, while also involving countries around the world supporting either side. The number of global countries participating in this war is unprecedented. The belief that the country is safe if it does not participate in combat is shattered. This became clear when Iran decided to attack the Gulf states that host US military bases, Iraq and Jordan, and Cyprus and Turkiye, which host US and British troops.
Second, the direct effects of war have disrupted most regions of the world through oil and gas shortages, transportation constraints, soaring prices, and the prospect of economic recession. No country can protect itself from the effects of war, whether at the level of the economy or the level of basic family security such as food, medicine, and household energy needs.
Third, the duration of Israel and the United States’ war against Iran will determine its long-term regional and global impact. The invaders in Washington and Tel Aviv hoped for a quick and decisive victory. They thought they could kill and overthrow the Iranian leadership within days, but after 14 days of relentless attacks, they were unable to do so. Iran and its allies seek a long war that would undermine the military capabilities and political staying power of the attackers, force them to ceasefire, and end their attempts to turn the entire Middle East into a loose collection of supplicants and client states.
Fourth, the ideological underpinnings of the conflict are just as important as the geopolitical realities. Israel and the United States are the pioneers of the last Western settler-colonial movement in the region, by which Zionism has dispossessed the indigenous Palestinian people and now seeks to assert military and economic supremacy over all others in the region. Iran and its allies instead want to deter and reverse the colonial attacks that have plagued nearly every Middle Eastern country since the 19th century and are still militarily active today.
Fifth, the nature of this war indicates that we have entered a new era of war. U.S. and Israeli militaries utilize superior air and satellite assets to destroy military, industrial, and civilian facilities in brutal air operations. With far more limited resources and firepower, Iran and its allies have developed technological and logistical innovations that greatly limit the impact of air strikes and allow them to continue fighting.
Iran has access to sophisticated but relatively inexpensive technology that has helped it penetrate air defenses built by the United States at a cost worth millions of dollars. Evasive drones and hypersonic missiles were able to overload and weaken defense systems such as Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and strike many targets. Even in Israel, which boasts cutting-edge “Iron Dome” technology but is forced to impose strict censorship of its own media and citizens to hide its weaknesses, the damage has been devastating.
Sixth, Iran has learned important lessons from the past century’s attacks by Western Zionists against any force that attempted to resist them. Tehran survived the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of other leaders early in the war, transitioned top leadership, and continues to resist and fight back against its enemies. The country clearly recognizes the importance of a distributed warfare system, including planned leadership succession, durable command and control systems, distributed weapons production and storage facilities, and concealed launch platforms for missiles, drones, maritime weapons, and other critical assets.
Seventh, in most cases complete damage information is not available, making it impossible to accurately assess the full impact of wars to date. More on that later. However, since the first attacks by the United States and Israel, we have seen attacks by all sides continue to ignore the provisions of international law that should protect civilian areas, critical infrastructure, and cultural sites in times of war. Many of the attacks, especially the sheer indiscriminate brutality against civilians, were shocking. This is not surprising given the ongoing horrors of US and Israeli genocide in Gaza and Israel’s threat to turn Iran and parts of Lebanon into a Gaza-like wasteland.
Finally, the war proved that Arab states could not rely on American protection to keep them safe. Many Arab capitals that have spent trillions of dollars over the past half-century buying sophisticated weapons systems and setting up U.S. military bases now expect little or no return on this investment. States need to assess how they can overcome this large gap in their capabilities and sovereignty, and how they can recalibrate their defense strategies and diplomatic focus.
All of these dynamics are interconnected and all point in the same direction: Palestine. The Iran war is a further manifestation of the inherent regional and global instability that has been created by more than 75 years of unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Stability and peace cannot be achieved unless a just resolution of conflicts is achieved. Until then, Arabs, Iranians, and Israelis will continue to live in conflict and fear, while people around the world will continue to suffer the ramifications of the century-long battle between Zionism, Arabism, and anti-colonial resistance movements across the Global South in many areas that have been exposed in the past two weeks.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
