As the war in Iran continues, tensions between Israel and the Gulf are looming. Iran’s attacks in the Gulf region mean there will be no return to business as usual. The Arab Gulf states are increasingly leaning towards keeping Iran in line until it becomes something like Cuba: diminished and difficult but contained. Israel, on the other hand, is perfectly content to break the country—to humiliate the Islamic Republic militarily until it becomes like the days of the civil war in Syria: it is broken, with the regime broken and its regional power destroyed.
Apart from some differenceThe Gulf states want to humiliate Iran’s power without pushing it to collapse. In view of this, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait have remained silent pushed for the speedy end of the war; Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have done so indicated their willingness to absorb further escalation if it creates permanent constraints on Iran’s military capabilities. Abu Dhabi officials have done just that he argued for the “final result,” while Oman and Qatar have insisted on coexistence and dialogue. But despite these differences, there is a consensus to see Iran weaken.
As the war in Iran continues, tensions between Israel and the Gulf are looming. Iran’s attacks in the Gulf region mean there will be no return to business as usual. The Arab Gulf states are increasingly leaning towards keeping Iran in line until it becomes something like Cuba: diminished and difficult but contained. Israel, on the other hand, is perfectly content to break the country—to humiliate the Islamic Republic militarily until it becomes like the days of the civil war in Syria: it is broken, with the regime broken and its regional power destroyed.
Apart from some differenceThe Gulf states want to humiliate Iran’s power without pushing it to collapse. In view of this, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait have remained silent pushed for the speedy end of the war; Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have done so indicated their willingness to absorb further escalation if it creates permanent constraints on Iran’s military capabilities. Abu Dhabi officials have done just that he argued for the “final result,” while Oman and Qatar have insisted on coexistence and dialogue. But despite these differences, there is a consensus to see Iran weaken.
For Israel, math it is different: Weakening governance to the point of collapse is an acceptable outcome. If that means chaos, fragmentation, or the collapse of Iran as a unified actor, that is price that Israel is ready to pay. Indeed, some Israeli strategists see it as an ideal outcome.
The reality, however, is that both approaches may not be as transformative as their proponents hope. There is a serious risk that Iran will end up not like Cuba or Syria, but rather like North Korea—a fortress state that continues to be more dangerous, not less. How that triangle of results is resolved depends largely on actors whose calculations differ widely and whose beliefs may exceed their control.
Israel has a long time pushing for war with Iran. Operation Epic Fury reflects a strategic sequence that has been in the making for years, launched in conjunction with the US government that is more in line with Israeli designs than any in recent memory.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar he said the goal of the war is to “remove the existing threats that Iran poses to Israel in the long term,” while acknowledging that “regime change may be the result.” He has ever he announced the war was effectively won with no indication of when it might end—and the Israel Defense Forces have he announced plans for at least three more weeks of operations to undermine Iran’s defense industry.
All this indicates that Israel’s goal is to gradually destroy Iran’s ability to project power, even at the cost of instability and fragmentation. Israel does not need the collapse of the Islamic Republic, but it sees a unique opportunity to pursue its highest goals. From the point of view of the Israeli government, the window for such action is about to close, as it knows that the United States supports it Israeli adventurism it breaks down across the political spectrum.
For now, however, the perception among American and Israeli leaders is that Israel’s strategic dominance is desirable and achievable. But a regional order built on Israel’s permanent supremacy, with Iran and the Arab states expected to agree to it, is not a recipe for stability. It is an invitation to more conflict.
Opposition to Iran’s structures is widespread among the Arab population. But it is what it is opposition to Israeli rule, and that opposition is structural, not ironic. The Gulf states see the Israeli regime as inconsistent with their own sovereignty and security concerns, not to mention the views of their citizens. This creates a major tension in the ongoing regional order, which is often underestimated by advocates of Israel’s strategic hegemony.
Whether Iran ends up resembling the Cuban quarantine model or the Syrian partition model depends primarily on internal consistency, not external intervention. For now, solidarity holds. Iran’s security apparatus is brutal and inflexible. It showed no meaningful divisions before the war began on February 28, which is not surprising in a situation where secession is costly and there is no planned alternative.
Throughout Iran, the government maintains a near monopoly on the use of force. There is nothing comparable to Idlib in Syria before the fall of the Assad regime, nor to Benghazi at the beginning of the Libyan revolution. Mojtaba Khamenei’s successor represents an attempt at institutional consolidation and closure in the regime of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) under wartime conditions. Whether that consolidation holds up under sustained military pressure — or whether it simply focuses on the weaknesses above — is one of Iran’s key unknowns.
While the IRGC’s resources are diverted, the government may also come under pressure from the periphery: the Kurds in the northwest, but also the Balochi in the southeast, the Azeri regions, and the predominantly Arab Khuzestan. If the US and Israel ultimately choose to use ethnic minorities, this could serve as a trigger. In Iraq after 1991 and in Syria after 2012, Kurdish forces a consolidated territory that the center could no longer control. Their goal was to consolidate independence, not to overthrow the government, but it still had a debilitating effect. In Iraq and Syria, the consolidation of the periphery seemed permanent and contributed to the collapse of the regime.
If—and when—change comes to Iran, it will be determined by whoever within the country has the organizational capacity, regional presence, and legitimacy to fill the vacuum. The field is narrow. The last demonstrations of December and January spread in more than 200 cities, but opposition lack of unity leadership. In exile, that is split up on ideological, ethnic, and generational bases: royalists, Mojahedin-e Khalq, nationalists, and various ethnic movements that agree less than the end of the Islamic Republic. Washington, meanwhile, oscillates between maximalist rhetoric and tactical silence. That is not a strategy.
Gulf States they want Iran contained, not collapsed, and the quarantine model provides a way to square that circle. The problem is that escalation depends on America and Israel, not the Arab Gulf. And neither the United States nor Israel considers the security of the Arab Gulf in making its decisions.
Between different approaches in the Middle East, and a volatile president in Washington, it is possible that everyone could end up with the worst situation: North Korea. Pyongyang has endured more decades of isolation than anything Tehran is currently facing, and it has never collapsed. It survived the collapse of its protectorate, famine, and total economic isolation — not by reform, but by becoming more repressive, more militarized, and more nuclear. If quarantine strengthens the Islamic Republic without bringing it down, this is the clearest example: a state that survives by pretending to be more dangerous, not less.
But the analogy has limits. Pyongyang has maintained a strong bodyguard in Beijing and Moscow; Tehran, increasingly, has nothing. North Korea’s ethnic kinship has shielded it from the central pressures that Iran faces on all sides—pressures that are now being encouraged from the outside. The assumption that survival means victory ignores Iran’s material situation: a collapsing currency, inflation, and deep discontent, all exacerbated by protracted conflicts like the IRGC’s economic base and defense industries. ability to erode Iran may be as tough as North Korea but under greater stress and less shelter: North Korea and Syria mixed.
The possibility of a completely closed, nuclear-armed fortress government simultaneously contending with the pressures of Syria- or Iraq-style fragmentation is one that quarantine advocates cannot adequately control. The Iraq comparison is instructive: The 12 years between 1991 and 2003 produced massive displacement, massive internal repression, and conditions that made the 2003 outcome a disaster – even if Saddam Hussein’s regime endured. Living under pressure does not equate to relaxation.
The Islamic Republic can survive for a while without making the necessary reforms for long-term survival or full regional integration. Whatever policymakers in Israel, the United States, or the Gulf look forward to in this war, they may ultimately have to deal with worse outcomes.
