The future of an escalating US-Iran conflict

There’s no reason to believe Tehran’s gains in the Middle East can be reversed Iran’s efforts to challenge the United States in the Middle East are reaching an inflection point. After decades of reshaping the domestic political environments of different r

On Jan. 18, Pakistan struck facilities belonging to Pakistani rebels in the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, making it the first country since the end of the Iran-Iraq War to conduct strikes on Iranian soil. The attack was retaliation for Tehran’s unprecedented decision to attack Iranian Baluch rebels in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province a day earlier.

Shortly after Pakistan’s counterstrikes, the air and naval services of the Iranian armed forces and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps began military exercises along nearly its entire southern coastline. The drills were specifically designed to detect, intercept and engage attacking warplanes.

The location of these exercises – the Persian Gulf – is noteworthy.

While Tehran figured Pakistan’s response sought little more than to reestablish a credible deterrence, it still had to assume that the U.S. could help its ally by striking Iran directly – something Washington has not done despite 45 years of unremitting hostilities. The closest it came was in 2020, when a U.S. drone strike killed IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.

The purpose of attacking Pakistan (and Iraq and Syria) was to signal to the U.S. that things could get ugly in a direct U.S.-Iranian confrontation. Iranian leaders have been trying to leverage the efforts of the Biden administration to prevent the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza from expanding into a broader regional conflict.

This explains the Houthi decision to attack ships in the Red Sea, which has caused a major disruption of global commercial maritime traffic.

Sources familiar with the thinking of the Iranian elite tell me that there are two views on a potential U.S. war. There is the more risk-averse camp composed largely of civilian pragmatists and the top brass of the regular armed forces who believe there is too much to lose in provoking the United States beyond a certain threshold, which could destabilize what is already a fragile regime. But then there are the more hawkish elements primarily in the clergy and the IRGC who feel that a direct military clash with the United States may actually benefit the regime.

The latter view assumes the U.S. does not have the appetite for a major war with Iran and that Washington would limit itself to airstrikes the regime could absorb. Its advocates back up their claims by pointing to the various conflicts the U.S. is already struggling with – in the Middle East, in Ukraine, in its strategic competition with China, and in the domestic political arena.

They believe a direct clash with the United States would energize what is otherwise a decaying regime, allowing leaders to better handle the growing public alienation of the regime ahead of a significant leadership transition that is fast approaching.

The tug of war between these two views appears to be producing a hybrid consensus of sorts. Certainly, Iran’s behavior – belligerence paired with preparing for the fallout of a direct confrontation with the U.S. – suggests as much.

Tehran’s decision to conduct airstrikes in three different countries in the region is also the regime’s attempt to demonstrate that it is capable of conventional combat even though it largely operates by proxy and asymmetric warfare.

The airstrikes in Pakistan stand out from the ones in Iraq and Syria in that the latter are vassal states of Iran.

The attack on Pakistan is significant not just because it was unexpected but also because it cuts both ways. It elicited a response – itself important in that Iran has faced no major pushback from any country in the Arab world despite its long history of invasiveness in the region and state capture by its insurgent allies. Pakistan’s response sets a precedent for others, particularly the U.S., which has thus far avoided direct military confrontation with Iran. At the very least it creates room for options that so far have been considered too costly.

It is unclear whether a direct conflict with Iran will deter it from its aggressive efforts to exploit various fault lines in the region.

But what is clear is that the current strategy is not working. Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack would not have been possible without Iranian assistance. Likewise, the Houthis would not have gone from attacking Saudi Arabia to disrupting global supply chains without backing from Iran.

The strategic problem for the United States in the region is that the Arab world is too weak to resist Iran’s aggression.

Certainly, there are no Arab states capable of countering Iran. What is worse is that the most potent non-state Arab actors are aligned with Tehran.

This situation has allowed Iran to subvert the Palestinian cause as a means of advancing its own strategic objectives. In this way, it has put not only Arab states on the defensive but also Turkey, Iran’s historic rival that could, under different circumstances, serve as a counter to Tehran.

With Washington and Israel coming under unprecedented criticism for civilian casualties in Gaza, the Iranians are all the more emboldened to act with greater impunity. Iran has limitations in how far it can expand its influence in the Middle East, but absent a major conflict and/or a domestic upheaval there’s no reason to believe Tehran’s gains can be reversed.

This is where Pakistan becomes important if it forces Iran’s hand.