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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is director of regional security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies
In the Middle East, wars do not stay within state boundaries. The underlying emotions and grievances, foreign interference, absence of a regional security process and persistent weakness of local diplomacy combine to make spillover more likely than not.
Twenty years ago, the western invasion of Iraq upended the regional balance to Iran’s benefit, catalysing a new era of transnational jihadism. A decade ago, Syria descended into a devastating civil war that drew in major powers and extremist fighters. In the past months, beyond the massive Palestinian human toll, the regional repercussions of the ongoing Gaza war are likely to be of the same order and potency.
Forcing Palestine on to the regional agenda was evidently one of Hamas’s many goals when it began its slaughter in Israel on October 7. Only days later, a large-scale Israeli attack against Hizbollah in Lebanon was averted thanks to US pressure. Since then, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen have become both targets and launch pads. The most surprising geopolitical development is the Houthi success in disrupting maritime traffic in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait.
The past 10 days show how close to the edge of the abyss the region is. There have been suspected killings by Israel of the top Iranian commander in Syria and the deputy Hamas political leader in Lebanon and by the US of a senior Iranian-backed Iraqi commander. The apparent slide towards a US-led intervention against the Houthis in Yemen could also be a sign of an acceleration.
One can find relief in the fact that the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbollah, and previous US and Israeli assassinations of even more important Hamas, Hizbollah and Iranian leaders did not trigger broader conflict. But the difference now is context, scope, tempo and perception. More senior leaders are being killed and more attacks of significance are being conducted across more theatres in a compressed period. Meanwhile, Israel’s assault on Gaza continues, antagonising the region’s population.
Unsurprisingly, Iran and Israel will decide whether the conflict becomes all-out war or remains a competition for regional influence. While Tehran worries that its credibility and deterrence are being eroded, Iran still views its ultimate objectives as better achieved through a thousand small cuts than costly head-on confrontation. Hizbollah, its most formidable partner, is a battle-hardened force with advanced missile capabilities and strategic depth. It is constrained by only two factors: fear and exhaustion within Lebanese society and Iran’s preference to keep it in reserve to deter Israel and the US in case of an existential fight in the future.
Instead, Iran’s regional partners are leveraging the conflict to reinforce their domestic positions and assert their resistance against western-enabled imperialism. The countdown to the end of the US presence in Syria and Iraq has started. An impotent Lebanese government is unable to shape, let alone restrain, Hizbollah’s behaviour. And while the world increasingly overlooks his own atrocities, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad can only watch as his country becomes an arena for others’ warfare.
Above all, a traumatised Israel has shown a much higher risk tolerance and ruthlessness than western officials expected. Military defeat of Hamas was an achievable objective through patient and calibrated force. Instead, Israel has articulated more expansive goals and adopted questionable military practices, creating a humanitarian tragedy and raising the prospect of a strategic failure. While it seeks cathartic revenge, Hamas is playing for time to win the narrative battle. Both have scant regard for Palestinian suffering.
Perhaps the most immediate danger, however, is not a sudden explosion of violence across the region, but the world’s slow normalisation of, and desensitisation to, what should be an unacceptably high level of violence and human misery.
Three months after October 7, the diplomatic picture is one of disarray. The group of Muslim foreign ministers that visited major capitals has failed to create much, if any, diplomatic traction. Efforts to free Israeli hostages seem to be losing steam. Well-intentioned ideas for the so-called day after are meaningless if Israel views Gaza as an active area of military operations whoever governs it and refuses to join a process leading to Palestinian statehood.
Local governments are failing to step up. Take the threat to global maritime trade. Saudi Arabia worries that harsh action could derail its own talks with the Houthis. Egypt, which depends on Suez Canal revenues to shore up its struggling economy, is doing little to protect maritime navigation. Once again it falls to a much-maligned US to rally a coalition — which will inevitably exacerbate anti-US sentiment in the region.
The US deserves some credit for preventing all-out regional war until now. But it seems bereft of ideas, unable to deploy leverage and struggling with moral vicissitudes. Only the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, seems to be setting clear goals for a peace settlement. But he has no real mandate and little sway over the key players.
The war in Gaza is a reminder that conflicts cannot be frozen and ignored. As has become painfully obvious in the past few decades, they cannot be won purely on the battlefield. They must be solved fairly, however complex and frustrating it is to do so.