Israeli Strikes on Iran Cap Dramatic Shift in Mideast Strategic Balance
JERUSALEM – While the world was bracing for President Donald Trump's decision on whether to bomb Iran and the tectonic waves that would follow, here in the Middle East, the earthquake had already struck.
Israel's go-for-broke attacks on Iran launched just over a week ago – after decades of intense but largely covert conflict between the two powers – have dramatically shifted the strategic balance, according to analysts in Israel, across the region and beyond. And those fundamental changes look to prevail even after American bombers entered the fray this weekend.
Israel's assault caps a string of upheavals that would have been inconceivable before the attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, including the routing of three Iranian allies: Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
Now, Israeli fighter jets are operating with impunity over the Iranian capital, Tehran, and Iran – perceived for years by not only Israel but many countries in the Arab Gulf region as the primary menace – has been exposed as a far hollower military force than many in the world believed. The decades-old status quo has been shattered, with Israel now ascendant as the Middle East's unchallenged military power, Iran and its 'axis of resistance' in disarray, and these two foes – for the first time – locked in direct combat.
'The region is fundamentally different now,' said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group in Washington. 'The name of the game for decades was that Israel and Iran would engage through proxies and covert operations. That it has turned into an open conflict is something I really didn't foresee.'
He and other analysts were quick to say that the outcome of this conflict is far from clear, and the reshuffling of the regional order is far from over.
Iran is weakened but not defeated. Its nuclear enrichment program is damaged, but it remains unclear whether it has been destroyed.
Possible endgames, Vaez said, include the collapse of the Iranian regime, which by no means would assure the end of enmity; a military quagmire sucking in Israel and Iran, which could further destabilize the region; and, perhaps most feared, a determination by Iran that its survival requires the speedy development of a nuclear weapon.
While this unfolding drama has yet to be resolved, the region has already been transformed in several essential ways, according to Middle East analysts.
Israel no longer faces the intense threats from just across its borders once posed by Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been reeling since their longtime leaders were killed and much of their fighting forces decimated by Israel. A much-diminished Hamas is still trying to put up a fight amid the devastation of the Gaza war, while Hezbollah is unwilling, and perhaps unable, to retaliate against Israel for its attacks on Iran.
Syrian rebels have shaken off the tyranny of the Assad regime and with it, the influence of Iran and Russia, which had long dominated relations between Syria and the world. Both Syria and Lebanon, where Hezbollah's political sway has receded, have at least a chance for renewal.
'The Levant has flipped,' said Paul Salem, former president of the Middle East Institute in Beirut. 'Both Syria and Lebanon are on a new and hopefully promising trajectory.'
And Israel has rebounded from the devastating Oct. 7 attacks of 20 months ago. While Israeli hostages are still held by Hamas, and Israeli troops continue to wage a calamitous military campaign in Gaza, Israel is now in its strongest strategic position in decades, operating militarily beyond its borders in Lebanon, southern Syria and now over Iran.
'We've never used the word unprecedented so often,' said Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, a think tank in London.
Mansour likened the recent changes in the regional order, culminating in Israel's attack on Iran, to some of the most consequential upheavals seen by the Middle East in the past half-century. These include the oil shocks of the 1970s, the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the long Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
'This will be one of those hugely impactful moments in the history books,' he said. 'What emerges after this will not look like it was on Oct. 6. Israel's attack on Iran cements that.'
Especially striking are the rapid deterioration of Iran's strategic position and the collapse of its decades-long enterprise to project power across the region via a network of allied militant armies, including in Iraq and Yemen.
'Iran was an imperial power that once boasted of controlling four Arab capitals: Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sanaa,' said Salem. 'I mean, my God have they come down in the world?'
Iran spent decades organizing and funding militant groups, and developing missile and drone technologies to arm them. Israeli officials estimated, for example, that Hezbollah had more than 100,000 rockets stockpiled before Israel targeted them.
Governments in the region long feared the chaos Iran could unleash, and Tehran exploited these anxieties to further expand its sway. When missiles and drones launched from Iran sent fireballs over Saudi Arabian oil fields in 2019, Trump, in his first term, declined to retaliate despite pleas from several regional powers to act.
'Nobody thought they could do anything,' said Ksenia Svetlova, director of the Israel-based Regional Organization for Peace, Economics and Security. 'We were accustomed for decades Iran trying to export Islamic revolution, overthrow governments and sponsor terror groups.' She said she had heard many people in Arab Gulf countries say they were looking for someone to take on the Iranians. 'And that someone they meant was Israel,' Svetlova said.
Israel has dealt a series of blows to Iran's nuclear and military efforts in recent years, engaging in sabotage and assassinations. Then last year, for the first time, Iran and Israel began openly trading strikes, initially triggered by a fatal Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, and Israeli forces succeeded in knocking out key Iranian air defenses. Since the tensions erupted into full conflict this month, Israeli forces have killed senior military officials and nuclear scientists; targeted nuclear, military, industrial and other sites; and demonstrated an ability to carry out attacks from the air and through covert operations with little if any resistance.
'The most important change is Israel's escalation dominance,' said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East envoy under both Republican and Democratic administrations. 'It has something it's never had before, the ability to control the pace and intensity of conflicts in ways that no one can match.'
Israelis are feeling bullish about their new status as the region's unchallenged hegemon.
'I don't believe Israel has been in a such a strong strategic position since I've been here,' said Natan Sharansky, a former Israeli politician who came to Israel after being imprisoned as a dissident in the Soviet Union. 'Suddenly all these challenges, especially the Iran challenge, can be faced on a different plane.'
How Israel wields this unrivaled power will determine much about the future of the region. A confident Israel, for instance, could strike agreements to wind down the hostilities in Gaza, address Palestinian demands and relieve tensions elsewhere along its borders.
But Miller said that the political pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces from the extremist right-wing members of his governing coalition makes it difficult for him to convert military might into ceasefires and peace treaties that could produce regional stability.
Trump's decision to order U.S. forces into action will probably also roil the Middle East further, even if the American military operation proves successful. The ultimate reverberations are hard to predict.
'If we have a massive U.S. bombardment, we may have something like Libya, with Iran descending into internal chaos,' Vaez said in an interview before the U.S. airstrikes were carried out, warning of repercussions throughout the region and beyond. 'Think of the waves of refugees to Europe from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and imagine adding a country of 90 million people to the mix.'
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