The Arabic expression “of standing on the palm of a demon (ala kaff ifrit)” describes the present situation in West Asia well — it carries the same meaning as the metaphor “teetering on a knife’s edge”. We are on the verge of an all-out war that might involve a direct, and sustained, clash between Iran and Israel and one that could drag the US into the conflict. America’s Gulf allies, namely the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are also threatened because the Iranians have hinted that their oil fields might come under attack should Iran’s installations be struck.
There are forces in West Asia, led by Iran and its proxies on the one hand, and by Israel on the other, that seek to reshape through violence the political order of the entire region. There is little benefit in pointing fingers at one or the other country since both are now responsible for the present chaos. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find ways to stop them from escalating the conflict, since neither can achieve its ultimate goal and all they offer is more violence and suffering for everyone, including their own people.
After Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, Iran with its “Axis of Resistance” militias seemed to have the upper hand. Its proxies, which include Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hezbollah in Lebanon, various Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen, appeared to have encircled Israel. Many believed that Israel could finally be defeated militarily, and they seemed to have garnered real strategic wins through the principle of the “unity of resistance movements” that Iran and Hezbollah had been advocating. Israeli towns along the Lebanese border were depopulated and some 60,000 Israeli citizens had to seek refuge elsewhere; Israel’s economy was haemorrhaging; and the world’s public opinion was increasingly siding against Israel due to the violence it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza.
Yet, Israel’s “defeat” proved to be an illusion. Israel is a modern industrial and technologically advanced state with a powerful military that enjoys the full support of the US and European allies. Not only has Gaza been systematically destroyed and Hamas’s militia decimated, but during the last few months, we have witnessed Israel’s overwhelming power. Iran and its proxies are now reeling because of a series of big defeats. Israel has penetrated Iran’s air defence and intelligence services, killed Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in a well-guarded Tehran government guest house, and made Hezbollah suffer a series of spectacular military and intelligence defeats.
Hezbollah was created in 1983 by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to threaten Israel and to act as a deterrent against an attack on the Iranian mainland. With Hezbollah’s defeat, Iran has had to enter the fray by directly attacking Israel on two separate occasions, with missiles and drones. These attacks were largely blocked by Israel and its allies and represent a failure for the Islamic Republic both tactically and strategically — its vaunted missiles are not much of a military threat and its strategy of using proxy militias as a deterrent has been upended. As of this writing, Iran awaits an Israeli retaliatory attack that is likely to severely damage its energy infrastructure and perhaps its nuclear facilities.
Despite early Iranian, and now Israeli, battlefield successes, neither country is likely to achieve lasting victory, and the region will remain prone to bouts of violence unless fundamental structural and ideological changes take place. Neither Israel nor Iran wants these changes; yet, without these, there can be no peace and stability in the region. For Israel, it involves agreeing to an enduring solution to the Palestinian question in the form of a viable state. This is what Saudi Arabia has repeatedly called for. Yet being on a winning streak and probably full of hubris, Israel’s leadership is unlikely to heed this call.
For Iran, change means an end to aggressively promoting its revolutionary Islamist ideology of resentment that calls for wiping Israel off the face of the map and expelling the US from West Asia through jihadist violence. Its radicalism has only brought military defeat, and suffering to the people. In short, eliminationist fantasies must cease — neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis will ever disappear, and their respective political aspirations must be accommodated.
Only the US has the military power and political influence to effect a real change in the behaviour of both Israel and Iran, yet Washington has shown itself to be feckless, especially under the leadership of President Joe Biden. Biden’s administration has refused to put effective pressure on Israel to stop its military aggression, as it could have done by enforcing an arms sales embargo, for example. Instead, it has provided Jerusalem with billions of dollars worth of weapons while making meaningless public statements about how it didn’t want Israel to do this or that terrible thing.
Similarly, the Biden administration has never understood how to engage effectively with Iran. Like the Obama administration, it sought to de-escalate with Iran by resuming negotiations on the nuclear file and allowed the economic sanctions on Tehran not to be enforced. As a result, Iran has used its wealth to arm and train its proxies rather than focus on its people’s immediate needs. Biden’s policy was perceived by the Iranian leadership as weakness. This then allowed Iran to encourage its proxies to sow mayhem in the region, from the Houthi attacks on maritime shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to Hamas and Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel. And this has resulted in the mess the region is in today.
Will any of these dynamics change under a new US administration after the November elections? Unfortunately, neither presidential candidate is likely to radically change US policy. Israel will continue to enjoy unconditional American support and Iran will seek to rebuild its military arsenal and its proxy militias. Were Donald Trump to be elected, he would put more economic pressure on Iran, but this is unlikely to yield results unless he is seen as putting pressure on Israel to address the question of Palestinian self-determination. This is not going to happen, unfortunately, because his support of Israel is even more unconditional than the Democrats.
We are likely to see more chaos and instability in this region unless the principal actors themselves realise the futility of their policies. Only divine intervention can make that happen, so let’s start praying.
The writer is professor, Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University and the Nelson Mandela Visiting Chair in Afro-Asian Studies at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala
